Instead of my usual rantings, I thought I would use this months column to discuss something we never seem to get enough of: samples. Although Plughugger isn't a dedicated place for reviews of new sample packs, samples is what gets reviewed a lot and the reason for this is simple: no matter how many gigabytes I got, I still want more. The confessions of an addict.

But managing any large amount of libraries causes brain-melt for most. Remembering where your favorite sounds are isn't always that easy - and if you like me got an insane amount of samples - getting lost is simple.

Before samples became the new plugs, life were simple. Whenever a producer released a new library it was big news. Today - except for some of the big names - who cares? The old times, weren't better, but they were at least manageable.
In the past, we had too little material and we used it to its fullest extent. Today we have so much that we spend more and more time just looking for things.

This won't be a sermon on How To Learn To Say No To Another Library - that would be futile. No, I would rather share a seriously insane idea I've been working on for the last two months: How To Bring Order Among Your Sounds.

Every day, I go through one library and clean out everything except the samples I find Very Interesting. Two more weeks and I'm done - including all those Future Music/Computer Music DVDs. 300+ gigabytes has shrunk down to less than ten gigabytes and some 25,000 samples. These samples are the cream - the best loops and the hits that inspire me.

Needless to say, it's more useful to have a folder with 100 kicks you know you like, than twenty folders with thousands of kicks you don't know a damn thing about.

It's been a hard work - but I'm getting close and working with a condensed library will be a much more manageable task. And will most certainly speed up production.