How do you name your recorded files?

[Daniel Grenier]

I'm curious as to what naming convention you use when saving your recorded files? Do you store by guitar (i.e 000, OM, Dread etc)? Tuning (Std, DADGAD, Drop D etc)? By tune's title? By date? A combination of these? I have been using a number of ways and can't quite pinpoint a sensible and practical way of saving the stuff and looking into other "schemes".

How do you do it? Thanks - Daniel

[catdaddy]

I'm a songwriter so most of my recorded files get the title of the song that I've recorded. If I record multiple arrangements or versions of the same song then I usually indicate that with a letter or number following the name of the song. If I'm just recording some ideas, then I'll give it a name that identifies the key or special tuning. i.e. "song idea in A" or "song idea in open D".

[jim1960]

Usually a title and a number. I'll often save as new several times during the process of getting to the end file, so the numbers tell me which is the latest version. If I make a big change, I'll usually write that out in addition to the number so I know what I did to that file at a glance. If I decide to re-start a mix from scratch (a do-over, if you will), I'll add a letter and start the numbering sequence over again.

The bounce at the end of the process will be the song name alone. I only save the bounce that's going to be used. I don't discard all the mix saves, but I do discard all the previous bounces so they can't be accidentally passed along.

[RodB]

I use date (YYMMDD to help sort)_guitar_title plus version and/or edit number if I have more than one - e.g. 200607_A30_title_V2_edit1

I keep an index of recordings in Excel with details of file name, equipment used, mic positions, settings, etc.

I find this works as long as I remember to do it...

[Rudy4]

I do file names similar to Jim's method, with the end number being the date. I'll tack an extra number after the title if I'm going to do more than one version on any given day, but that's usually not necessary.

Example: Sterrett Town 1 060720

Other types of files such as photos I re-name with a two or three digit number if I want to be able to view them in a specific sequence later, such as instrument building projects.

Example: 001 Open Back Banjo 1 060720

The more difficult process for me is remembering WHERE they are stored. Depending on the software or operating system it's sometimes easy to save them without realizing they aren't where you intended for them to be.

[KevWind]

Like Jim 1960 I use song title and then chronological revision number.
The multiple "Save" and user defined (default) location options, and file folder hierarchy in Pro Tools and most DAWs makes this very easy

Title: becomes the song parent folder like say --"The Question"
then any subsequent revisions become -- "The Question 1" or 2 or 3 etc. ,, all get stored in the parent folder "The Question" and are always (by user chosen default ) stored automatically on the separate SSD drive dedicated to the sessions of the DAWS I use.
Each Parent folder for each song DAW session is then stored automatically in their own "root folder" for the different DAWS ,,,, i.e "Pro Tools sessions" and "Studio One sessions" and "Reason sessions" . So locating the files is never a problem.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Daniel Grenier

I'm curious as to what naming convention you use when saving your recorded files? Do you store by guitar (i.e 000, OM, Dread etc)? Tuning (Std, DADGAD, Drop D etc)? By tune's title? By date? A combination of these? I have been using a number of ways and can't quite pinpoint a sensible and practical way of saving the stuff and looking into other "schemes".

How do you do it? Thanks - Daniel

HI Daniel
I'm also a photographer

I label the master folder by date/client name/topic
20200606_Larry_Joyce flower garden
20200606_John_Barre Chord Demo

Inside folders I use the name of the song and number of the take or edit
Larry_Bojangles_003.mp3

They appear on my hard-drive in the overall folder in order by year/month/day

Makes searching easy.

[Al Acuff]

Larry beat me to it. I used to be a commercial photographer also LOL. In the photo world we call this "DAM" which is an acronym for Digital Asset Management.

All my Logic X files are named beginning with the date year/month/day followed by the song title or project name. Put the date in front and in this format 2020/06/07 and the computer automatically organizes the files in chronological order within the folder.

[TBman]

I use something like this:

Folder name = CGDGAD
Subfolder name = SkyeBoatSong

I still have to hunt for older stuff I did because I forget what tuning I write stuff in after a while

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Al Acuff

Larry beat me to it. I used to be a commercial photographer also LOL. In the photo world we call this "DAM" which is an acronym for Digital Asset Management.

All my Logic X files are named beginning with the date year/month/day followed by the song title or project name. Put the date in front and in this format 2020/06/07 and the computer automatically organizes the files in chronological order within the folder.

I worked (and still do) doing radio production for ad agencies, and several revisions in a single day are common. So my scheme is an ALL-CAPS truncated identifier followed by the revision number, date and 24-hour time. So this post, if y'all made me change it 4 times, would be something like AGF_FILENAMING_REV4_06152020_0703. I do the same thing with my personal projects and client record mixes.

[Bob Womack]

I work with a lot of different clients, many of whom come into the studio with their own naming conventions but I also have my own work and for those projects I do things my own way. I hate coded filenames because you always for get the code. I hate verbose filenames because when you are scanning down a list of seventy or eighty filenames, you can miss one little digit and therefore grab the wrong file. As a result, I go with song name and take numbers as I export mixes. I give each new mix take a new take number sequentially. Easy peasy. When I settle on a mix as the final version I append the terms "final unmastered" to the filename it to indicate that it is the choice and is waiting to be mastered. When the song is mastered it gets the cryptic sobrequet, "MASTERED." Yes, upper case. When I archive the project, all this poop goes into the archive. Hit "date created" in the directory listing and the latest take pops to top of the list via the take number, along with the final unmastered and MASTER files.

That's how I do it. You know, the clients will have project numbers and matrix numbers, etc. and they seem far more complex and easy to screw up to me.

So, there you go.

Bob

[TBman]

Back in the mighty days of DOS I wrote software for my job that named clients financial statements by type of statement, client code and date of statement (all in 11 characters btw). It then shelled out to the word processor. Our secretary was very happy the responsibility for naming files was taken from her "to do" list and my bosses liked being able to find a copy of the f/s in a split second.

I miss those pre-windows days.

[Tico]

Since most are for students the file name is the student's first name, then a sequential number.