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S1E04 – A Specific Music Production Folder

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Before you start taking music production seriously, it’s INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT to set up your own custom music production folder.

FL Studio offers its ‘User Data Folder’, but has been known to cause a lot of headaches for many users.

That’s when I took the initiative to figure out the absolute best way to set myself up for the long-term as a music producer, know exactly where my files are, and never have missing files EVER AGAIN!

This episode is actually based off of my course:
A Specific Music Production Folder.

I break down my actual personal music production folder in this episode (but the video course shows you step-by-step the why’s, how’s, and reasoning between my organization and file labeling.)

In short, you want to create a music production folder which nests everything to do with your music production!

You’d then create sub-folder for further organization.

Here’s an example:

  • Music Production Folder
    • Albums
    • Beat Tapes
    • Sounds

But, within these sub-folders is where it’s important to pay attention to my layout. (I’ve spent years perfecting this folder layout until finally nailing it.)

Within the Sounds folder, for example:

  • Sounds
    • Drum Kits
    • VSTs

For each subfolder (Drum Kits and VSTs), I create a folder for each vendor (company) I purchase a product from.

It’s then super easy to access these sounds from within FL Studio’s browser.

When it comes to organizing your beat tapes/album releases, it’s even more important to follow my folder structure to prevent missing files, and know exactly where files are at a later date. (For remixes, or various other commercial endeavors.)

Again, check out the course for a step-by-step video walk through.

Custom Music Folder Workflow

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Questions about this episode

Transcript

S1E04 – A Specific Music Production Folder

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you can be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production, they'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at itsgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Okay, so welcome to episode number four.
  10. This episode, we're gonna be talking about setting up a specific music production
  11. folder. This is really really important to stay organized, okay?
  12. So before we get into it, I just want to talk about a few things.
  13. So, first of all, if you guys have been enjoying the podcast, if you guys can leave
  14. a review on however you listen to these podcasts.
  15. In addition, I just want to say as well, these podcasts are gonna help you learn and
  16. just kind of give you a different mind perspective.
  17. But to really truly learn FL Studio, you guys can come check out my membership.
  18. I have 16 FL Studio courses, and you know, I'm gonna show you step by step how to
  19. improve your productions. That's gonna be a way to really speed you up and learn the
  20. right way to make music, to make beats and all that kind of stuff.
  21. Okay. So if you guys want to check out the membership, just go to it's
  22. gratuitous.com forward slash learning.
  23. You guys will see the FL Studio courses tab there.
  24. Just click that and proceed with sign up, and you guys will, you know, improve your
  25. productions tremendously, okay.
  26. Okay, so let's get into the episode.
  27. So this is all about setting yourself up for the long term as a music producer.
  28. So over my years when I was making my beats, I was really unorganized.
  29. I would just create a project, I would save it pretty much like wherever, and then
  30. like I wouldn't save like the sounds to back up.
  31. And then let's say later on I really liked that song.
  32. If I updated FL Studio or if I ever like transferred to like a new computer, if I
  33. went to go open up that old project, you know, I had missing files, and it's just
  34. the worst experience that you can have as a music producer because you know, really,
  35. we only have so much time in the day, and you want to spend all that time making
  36. your music, right? So, over the years, I actually started to set up this specific
  37. music production folder, and I'm gonna walk you through it.
  38. But just to let you know, I do have a course on this, okay.
  39. The course is actually called a specific music production folder.
  40. I'll walk you through step by step, you know, how I create the folder, why I create
  41. the subfolders, and then why I label my files certain ways and stuff like that,
  42. just to prevent missing files, okay.
  43. But no worries, you know, I'm gonna walk you through generally how it works.
  44. But again, when you can see visually, it's gonna help you learn, okay?
  45. So I have three main points I want to cover with you in this episode, okay.
  46. So, again, creating that main music production folder, which holds everything to do
  47. with your music production. I'm talking projects, sounds, as well as you've if you
  48. offer services like mixing and mastering and stuff like that.
  49. I'm gonna explain, you know, keeping this folder structure really, really simple and
  50. easy to find your files, and then also setting up a proper backup solution that's
  51. all automated. That's the key.
  52. You don't want to have to maintain this backup solution.
  53. You know, you might want to check it every once in a while to make sure that it is
  54. actually backing up, but you want to automate it, okay.
  55. So, first of all, what are the benefits of setting up a specific music production
  56. folder? So, again, it prevents missing files.
  57. Again, that's like the worst thing as a music producer.
  58. Open up a project, you have missing files, you have to figure out how to fix it.
  59. sometimes if you have a missing file and you can never find it again, your song will
  60. never be the same. Next is super easy file management.
  61. You know exactly where things are.
  62. It's also easy to transfer computers at a later date nowadays with computers
  63. advancing so fast all the time, it's not surprising to get a new computer every four
  64. to like six years. And then it's also easy to keep things in sync across multiple
  65. computers if you use something like Dropbox for this folder.
  66. Okay, so let's talk about the main actual music production folder.
  67. Okay, so what you want you to want do to. do is to create a music production folder
  68. that pretty much just holds everything with music production
  69. So you know, I would actually label this music production folder music production,
  70. and then I create subfolders inside of here.
  71. So for myself, I'm a recording artist, so I create a folder called albums.
  72. I also create a folder called Beat Tapes, but then I also create a folder called
  73. sounds. And then inside of sounds, I actually have two folders, one for my one shot
  74. samples, you know, to build like my drum loops and stuff like that.
  75. And then I have one for my VSTs.
  76. Now it gets a little tricky because with VSTs, if you're dealing with VST3s, well,
  77. VST3s have to be installed into that Commons file folder.
  78. That makes it a little bit tricky because then you can't just store everything in
  79. this music production folder. And then what I do, so I actually create a folder for
  80. each vendor. Okay. So again, if I'm in the sounds folder, then I have two folders,
  81. one for my one shot sounds, and then one for my VSTs.
  82. So if I go into the sounds folder, let's say I'm working with a company like
  83. exclusive audio, they're a company I really really like for sounds, super super high
  84. quality. I create a folder called exclusive audio, and then any sound kits that I
  85. would purchase from them, I literally just drag that folder into exclusive audio,
  86. and then I can easily just access their sounds.
  87. It allows me to stay really organized and I know exactly where the files are.
  88. and then the same with the VSTs, I create a folder for each vendor I purchase a VST
  89. from. And then what I typically do is I will actually drag the executable file, you
  90. know, to actually install the VST, and I'll leave that in there.
  91. And many times I'll even leave like the license code there too.
  92. It's just for convenience, as well as you know, if I ever transfer computers, you
  93. know, and I'm starting up like a brand new computer installing FL Studio.
  94. I know all the actual VSTs I had before.
  95. I have all like the licensing right there.
  96. I don't have to go to each website, you know.
  97. Now, maybe to update the VST, yeah, I might go to the website and and you know
  98. download it to update it, but at least I know what VSTs I had.
  99. Okay. That's kind of my workflow and something I've liked over the years.
  100. Okay. In addition, I also create a folder for clients.
  101. and then I'll just create a folder for their name.
  102. And then if I did like mixing and mastering services with them, many times leaving a
  103. text file inside of each project that you work with them can really help you too.
  104. Like you know, if you offered revisions or as well as you know what like your rate
  105. was with them, or you know, stuff like that, just because you know it's easy to
  106. forget stuff. I also create a folder for sound design, and this is just everything
  107. separate. If I'm going to create free presets or a preset pack to sell or whatever,
  108. I just do all my sound design in that folder.
  109. Okay, and now that your music production folder is created, and then you've created
  110. your subfolders within that music production folder.
  111. So let's talk about beat tapes, for example, because again, I've taken more of like
  112. the beat tape approach. I feel that the benefits is like it just allows you to spend
  113. your time into a project where you can release and people can enjoy like a whole
  114. compilation of your sounds. It creates a series for people to follow.
  115. It just allows me as a producer, I personally feel to balance my time better rather
  116. than just creating single beats, just one off beats for people to listen to.
  117. In the beat tapes folder, I create a folder for each beat tape that I'm working on.
  118. So, for example, I have beat tapes by gratuitous volume one, volume two, volume
  119. three. And at the moment, I'm looking at the folder right now.
  120. I'm working on volume nine. Okay.
  121. So inside of let's say volume eight, which is already released, okay.
  122. So I'm going to go into it. So what I do is I create a folder called like artwork,
  123. demo compilation. That's what I use to kind of advertise what the beat tape sounds
  124. like, and I just kind of fade in and fade out from track to track with some effects
  125. just to give a taste test. I have a folder called mastered.
  126. That's my official files, which I would be uploading to something like DistroKid to
  127. get on Spotify, iTunes, and stuff like that.
  128. I have a folder called Mixed. This is the most important one.
  129. I'm gonna come back to it. Then I also create a folder with the the MP3.
  130. The MP3 would be like what I would send off to on like my website if you want like a
  131. free download, and I make sure to ID3 tag that and what ID3 tagging does is it
  132. allows you to put metadata into the actual file, such as like the title, the name,
  133. even like your website, as well as the artwork.
  134. Okay, so if someone double clicks the song and it opens up in like iTunes or you
  135. know, however you listen to your music, you're gonna see the artwork there.
  136. And again, it's just a branding thing.
  137. And then with the MP3 folder on Windows, anyways, you can right-click it, you go to
  138. send to, and then you go compressed zipped folder, okay?
  139. And then that makes it a zipped file.
  140. That is what I would share for my website to download.
  141. So again, a quick recap. So I create a music production folder, I created the beat
  142. tapes folder. Inside of the beat tapes folder, I create a folder for each project
  143. I'm working on. Currently I'm in volume eight, so beat tapes by gratuitous volume
  144. eight. Now we're gonna go into the mixed folder, okay?
  145. So the mixed folder is where each of the songs or the beats for this beat
  146. tape are stored. And I will create a folder for each project, okay?
  147. So for each song name. So for example, I'm working with a song right now and it's
  148. just called Ambition. So if I double-click into Ambition, so what I have done in
  149. this folder is I have stored the FLP, and that is the FL Studio Project.
  150. That's the saved file for FL Studio.
  151. Then in addition, I also create another folder in here.
  152. I will typically label it the acronym of the name.
  153. So for example, if the song name was Climber Away, I would put COW-sounds, and
  154. then within FL Studio, if you go File Export and then Project Data Files, that is
  155. what I do to back up all the individual sounds of that song, and then that goes into
  156. just that sounds folder, and that's really important.
  157. So, what happens is this project now becomes like its own entity.
  158. It doesn't matter if I delete any sounds out of the sounds folder, because this
  159. project, this song has all of its sounds backed up.
  160. Now, one little gotcha here you got to be careful of.
  161. At the moment, FL Studio does not back up Edison or SliSix, so you have to make sure
  162. to drag SliSix or Edison into this sounds folder just to really back yourself up to
  163. be, you know, just to be safe.
  164. And one thing I've started to do over the years, especially when I'm recording
  165. audio, okay, like vocals or whatever, is I use the acronym of the song before verse
  166. one. So for example, if it was like climb our way again, okay, so C O W, I would put
  167. C O W verse one. And the reason why I do this is because now that file name is
  168. typically gonna be original, like you know, I'm probably not gonna have another song
  169. name, C O W. and the reason why I do this is because now if we go into how FL Studio
  170. loads in sounds, okay. So this is really important that if you are ever gonna, you
  171. know, transfer a new computer, which does happen, right?
  172. Or if you start moving around files and folders, because if you're not organized and
  173. if you start listening to this and you take my advice to create one music production
  174. folder, FL Studio isn't gonna know where the sounds are and stuff, and this is where
  175. you can get like the missing files.
  176. And I'm telling you, it's a horrible experience.
  177. So in my beginnings, this you know, I did get the missing files, but over the years,
  178. you know, from creating new projects within this music production folder, it's now
  179. set me up, and I'm super organized.
  180. I never have missing files and I'm good to go, okay.
  181. So how FL Studio loads in files is it uses like the user data folder, or you have
  182. like the browser extra search folders, or you can actually have an actual project
  183. folder. If you hit F10, go to the project tab, you can actually assign a folder for
  184. each project. And what that does is when FL Studio opens up, it reads through all of
  185. these folders which you've told it to, okay.
  186. And it's going to look for all the sounds, and if it can't find the sounds, it's
  187. gonna say missing files. Okay.
  188. So with that said, how FL Studio works is that now let's say you had two different
  189. songs, okay, but they both had vocals, and let's say verse one was labeled verse one
  190. in the first song, then you go to the second song and you label it verse one the
  191. exact same way. Now, again, if you go to a new computer and you go to open up a
  192. project, again, what FL Studio does is it loads through these folders that you have
  193. told it to, and it's gonna find the first verse one.
  194. And what's gonna happen is now you're gonna listen and you're gonna be like, whoa,
  195. whoa, whoa, that is not the same verse one for this song.
  196. Then you have to go and find the right verse one, drag it in, and it's just like I'm
  197. telling you, it's like when you're producing music, you want your time to be spent
  198. producing music. And if it keeps pulling you away about these missing files and
  199. stuff, it's just really really annoying.
  200. So, this is why I put the acronym COW-verse one or whatever, and then this will make
  201. it unique. So, if FL Studio cannot find the file, at least it's gonna pop up and
  202. say, you know, missing files. Now, the worst thing you can do in FL Studio if you
  203. have a missing file is to hit save, okay?
  204. Because when you save, you're essentially telling FL Studio, yes, I want the project
  205. with missing files, and it's like, well, no, you do not want the file with missing
  206. files. First of all, find where the actual verse is, drag the FLP, the FL Studio
  207. project, into the the sounds folder.
  208. Because again, if you use the export project data files, this bundacks up the
  209. individual sos.. Now, when you open up your project, everything should be good to go
  210. But at the end of the day, by putting the acronym in front of verse one, it's really
  211. gonna help you out. It's just something that I have done in my later years of
  212. producing, and it's just set me up so that I never have this.
  213. if I have verse one twice, that I'm not pulling in a random verse one into my song.
  214. So I just want to quickly talk about this user data folder.
  215. Over the years, the user data folder, it is like a really really good idea, but it
  216. has caused a lot of people a lot of headaches.
  217. And just from my readings and stuff online, this is where I've now just decided that
  218. I'm gonna actually just create my own music folder.
  219. I'm not gonna have my files a part of FL Studio because like when they update, you
  220. know, they change things around.
  221. They've also changed around like the folder structure for this user data folder.
  222. and it's just like I'm saying, like over the years, it's caused people like missing
  223. files and just headaches. But anyways, like the user data folder, the whole purpose
  224. of it is to store like sounds and everything.
  225. And if you're dealing with like Slicex or Edison, it stores these files for you, and
  226. also like within file. So again, if you hit F10, you go like the file tab.
  227. This is where you can actually see like the user data folder, but you can also set
  228. like your backup setting here.
  229. I recommend setting it to frequently every five minutes because FL Studio will back
  230. up even when FL Studio is playing, whereas the other options do not back up when FL
  231. Studio is playing. Again, you guys can always hit F1 on these windows.
  232. I help menu will pop up and you can read more info into it.
  233. But what I'm trying to say is so in the user data folder, you know, like it stores
  234. all these different things about your project, such as like this auto backup, as
  235. well as if you've dragged sounds in.
  236. I am actually manually backing up this song, and I'm just kind of taking things into
  237. my own hand. This way, I am organized, I don't have to worry about. FL Studio
  238. touching any of my stuff, and I'm just making sure that I'm backed up and I'm
  239. organized Again, when it comes to Sli6 and Edison, I'm also dragging those into that
  240. sounds folder. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is how to actually back up
  241. your music. Now, I'm not just talking about with like the FL Studio and stuff like
  242. that. I'm talking about hardware and stuff.
  243. Okay, I'm gonna quickly cover it.
  244. But if you guys want an in-depth article, I've written one, okay.
  245. It's like the best way to back up an FL Studio, just check out the resource section
  246. on this page. Again, this is episode number four.
  247. And just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash podcast, find episode four, go to
  248. the resource section, and you guys will easily find the blog post about backing up.
  249. Okay, it's an in-depth article, and typically what I'm talking to you about is you
  250. know how to back up FL Studio to save all your sounds, what hard drives and software
  251. that you need, as well as how to back up.
  252. Okay, so I'm just gonna kind of quickly cover this.
  253. Okay, so how I approach it is this music production folder.
  254. I actually store it in a cloud service, for example, like Dropbox.
  255. Okay. The reason why I do this is for one, it's backing it up for me.
  256. Okay, so that's one source of backing up.
  257. When you're backing up, because see in your very very beginnings, if this if this is
  258. just like a hobby for you, it's not too big of a deal.
  259. But once you actually start releasing your music publicly, such as like on Spotify
  260. and stuff like that, it's like your releases are now like products.
  261. You have to treat it as if it's like you never want to lose this because it's it's
  262. official, it's with what people are listening to.
  263. So you want to have multiple forms of backups.
  264. So again, Dropbox, it's a cloud service, as well as it backs up your files.
  265. Okay, so that's one form of backing up.
  266. In addition, you're also gonna want to have real hard drives, okay?
  267. So you know, the prices come down drastically.
  268. So, you know, typically I have actually two hard drives in addition to Dropbox, and
  269. then I use a software called Acronis True Image.
  270. there's other softwares out there.
  271. Acronis has been pretty good to me.
  272. Sometimes it's kind of hit and miss, but at the end of the day, it is backing up my
  273. software and it's working, okay.
  274. So what it does, you just assign your hard drives within the software, you tell them
  275. what hard drives do you want to back up.
  276. So for hard drives that are actually always being in use in my computer, like that
  277. I'm using, I actually have two hard drives.
  278. One's a solid state hard drive.
  279. You know, that's where you install Windows as well as like your software such as FL
  280. Studio, and that just allows it to open up faster and take advantage of the SSD.
  281. And then I have another hard drive, which is just for like my sounds and kind of
  282. saving the files, okay? So it's not taking the storage of the solid state.
  283. And then what I do is I buy like two external hard drives, and then I plug those
  284. into USB, and then I assign those in Acronis True Image to back up the two hard
  285. drives inside of my computer. So there's different ways that you can back up.
  286. I actually use the incremental backup system.
  287. And the reason why that's nice is because it doesn't slow down the computer like
  288. forever. Because you know, if you've ever experienced, you know, doing backups over
  289. the years, like whenever you do a full backup, it just takes forever.
  290. It kind of slows down your computer a little bit, and it's just kind of really
  291. always annoying, right? So, what the incremental backups do is let's say it's over a
  292. seven-day period, okay? So on the first day, it's gonna do a full backup.
  293. So, yes, you know, it goes through the full backup, but you can also set the timing.
  294. For example, you can always leave your computer on, but if you go to work during the
  295. day, just make sure that it you know it backs up during the day so that it doesn't
  296. affect you. But then what happens is the other six days, it just backs up what
  297. you've changed. So, you know, if I've worked on like a new project or bought a new
  298. sound. kit and you know added it onto the hard drives or whatever, it just backs
  299. that stuff up So it speeds up the whole backing up process tremendously.
  300. And that's pretty much it for backing up.
  301. It's really that simple. It's just a matter of getting some hard drives, some backup
  302. software, and then in addition, since you have Dropbox, that's also another form of
  303. backing up. another cool thing with Dropbox is because it's a cloud service, you
  304. know, you can install it on multiple computers and it's really easy to access your
  305. sounds and it keeps it all in sync with all your other computers.
  306. So just taking this approach is just super super minimal, super, super easy, as well
  307. as it's just another form of backing up and keeping you safe.
  308. One last thing I'll talk to you about is a firebox.
  309. So you don't have to get one, but if you are really, really serious about your
  310. music, it is something to look into.
  311. And what a firebox is is if a fire happens in your home, that box is supposed to
  312. be safe. Okay. So I also buy other hard drives, and what I'll do is whenever I'm
  313. done releasing a new beat tape or whatever, I will drag it onto that hard drive.
  314. And then when I'm done, I will drop that hard drive into the firebox.
  315. typically like they come with like a key or whatever.
  316. You know, I'm not too concerned about like the key stuff, but I'm just concerned
  317. that it's inside of that, you know, that firebox.
  318. Okay. So that's one other thing that you can think about.
  319. They're not super super expensive, but it's just that one little extra security
  320. measure because again, once you're releasing your music publicly, it's just one of
  321. those things that you want to save and back up.
  322. Okay. So that's just a little overview of my own music production folder.
  323. I'm serious, it has saved me so much time.
  324. It's made things way easier from when I first started.
  325. Again, if you want a step-by-step walkthrough, come check out the course.
  326. It's called a specific music production folder. on my website, it's gratuitous.com
  327. I' All the links thatve talked about in
  328. this episode are going to be in the resource section.
  329. Again, if you guys want to support this podcast, it's only $5 a month.
  330. You just go to it'sgratuitous.com forward slash podcast.
  331. You guys will see a support button, and you guys can subscribe and help out the
  332. podcast. I would also really appreciate if you guys would leave a review.
  333. You know, help this podcast grow.
  334. And if you guys have questions, just come to the podcast page, go to the actual
  335. episode. You're gonna see an image for Ask Gratuitous.
  336. Ask me a question, and I can answer it in the next episode.
  337. Okay, so thanks for checking it out.
  338. And I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
  339. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  340. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com slash podcast, select an episode
  341. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  342. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  343. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons.
  344. Visit the link it's gratuitous.com slash learning.
  345. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  346. I hope the best with your productions.
  347. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  348. episode.
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