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Project names /workflow question


Anders Madsen

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I could never find a good habit of giving descriptive names to project where:
-I just wanted to record a chord progression/idea to develop.
-I tested a new synth, and like the result, and save it for later.
-Other various reasons.
I therefore have quite a few projects called "test" and other non-informative titles, because I trusted my memory to be more precise and vivid than it is.

Any of yous have a good practice in such cases?
 

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I think we all suffer from that and until that initial idea/progression evolves into something more meaningful, it stays with the initial name. I generally use the name of a patch or preset when starting off.

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I name such projects with the date they were started, sometimes appending the key, e.g. 8-14-2019 Am. If the test project is to explore a new soft synth, I'll name it accordingly, such as "Amadeus" or "Synthmaster".

That's usually enough of a memory jog to find them later.

It's also helpful to separate "real" projects from test projects in the file system. I create a lot of temporary projects for the articles I write, projects that may not even be songs, just tracks that demonstrate the features of a plugin or instrument, or to take screenshots from. Those live in a separate folder called \projects\tests, so that they don't clutter up my actual music projects. Another subfolder is called "Ideas", where I keep song ideas and chord progressions. 

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3 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I name such projects with the date they were started, sometimes appending the key, e.g. 8-14-2019 Am. If the test project is to explore a new soft synth, I'll name it accordingly, such as "Amadeus" or "Synthmaster".

 

That's how I've always done it.....I always reference the date and adhere to the same naming convention.

IE:...."Rock guitar chord progression_081419"......."Organ riff for new song_081419"

A good day to all....

Edited by chulaivet1966
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/17/2019 at 1:08 AM, CosmicDolphin said:

Easy

Start Track...Name Track....Work To  Deadline ( i.e. 1 week )...Finish it...Move On To The Next

No folder full of ideas...just finished tracks 

I used to have my folders  full of 'test' and 'newtest' type of  stuff.          Until I just stopped doing that and decided to finish what I start. Now I work with one at a time and get finished products. Works for me.

But titling is a mess. I name a song only when it's near finished. So a working title is always something else. Looking back and trying to remember what was what is an adventure. I never get to deleting the working title and only keeping the actual one. One must have something to stay away from perfection ?

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On 8/14/2019 at 6:21 PM, chulaivet1966 said:

That's how I've always done it.....I always reference the date and adhere to the same naming convention.

IE:...."Rock guitar chord progression_081419"......."Organ riff for new song_081419"

A good day to all....

But use 20190814 instead and the names can then be sorted so the most recent is on top

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