# Organising SFX Libraries - Any Decent Software Around?



## TimJohnson (Jan 24, 2014)

Hi all,

Recently I have been doing A LOT of sound design work. I have a huge sound bank of over 160gb (more when I combine that with the COUNTLESS samples at my day job).

Currently When I look for a sound effect I just whack it into the finder search bar and hope for the best, but it's a clunky way of working, and doesn't always show up everything that might be useful (it also searches through 6 HD's every time, which takes too long).

Has anybody found/used some decent software for organising SFX libraries. Something with a nice interface, a logical folder structure and a good search engine?

Any thoughts?


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## emu (Jan 24, 2014)

There is a nice little feature built in Cubase/Nuendo for that purpose: Media Bay (works really great with perfect integration in the Cubendo workflow). 

Another alternative would be soundminer.

Jan


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## Guy Rowland (Jan 24, 2014)

Soundminer is probably the most used I think - http://store.soundminer.com/

I keep things super simple, and have named all my SFX with full descriptions in the filename. Then I have a self contained little database that runs as an exe from my SFX drive, so I can search wherever I go (on Windows, that is). It's called Index Your Files, lovely little bit of freeware - http://www.indexyourfiles.com/ . Soundminer would probably suit you better though as my system doesn't make any use of metadata.


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## TimJohnson (Jan 24, 2014)

emu @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> There is a nice little feature built in Cubase/Nuendo for that purpose: Media Bay (works really great with perfect integration in the Cubendo workflow).
> 
> Another alternative would be soundminer.
> 
> Jan



Thanks Jan, as we all work in different DAW's in the office using the Media bay isn't really an option. Looking into Soundminer though!



Guy Rowland @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> Soundminer is probably the most used I think - http://store.soundminer.com/
> 
> I keep things super simple, and have named all my SFX with full descriptions in the filename. Then I have a self contained little database that runs as an exe from my SFX drive, so I can search wherever I go (on Windows, that is). It's called Index Your Files, lovely little bit of freeware - http://www.indexyourfiles.com/ . Soundminer would probably suit you better though as my system doesn't make any use of metadata.



Hi Guy, this looks great, particularly the server function. Very useful.

Many thanks both of you.


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## wst3 (Jan 24, 2014)

a subject near and dear to my heart!

I believe that Soundminer is the current king of the hill, and for good reason. But it is a bit more in terms of features, and price, than I could justify.

After looking at several I settled on MetaDigger, which I think was at one time an independent product, but currently is provided by Sound Ideas.

Here are links to the ones that I found interesting enough to trial:

SoundMiner

http://www.sound-ideas.com/metadigger-free-metadata-management-software.html (MetaDigger)

BWF Widget

http://audiostrom.com/index.php?page_id=12 (IFoundASound)

FindSounds Palette

http://www.soundfisher.com/html/tour1.html (SoundFisher)

http://www.leonardosoft.com/software.asp (Leonardo)

Library Monkey

FXLibrary

I will be really interested to hear your results!!


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## Richard Wilkinson (Jan 24, 2014)

Audiofinder has been good for me.


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## wst3 (Jan 24, 2014)

wilx @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> Audiofinder has been good for me.



oops - I should have asked... Mac or Windows? Audiofinder is Mac only, there are a couple other Mac only tools that are very good. The resources for Windows are somewhat slimmer, my list was Windows only.

Sorry about that...


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## Shuriken (Jan 24, 2014)

Soundminer HD for Windows
... modular feature options at starting prices of $199US.

Yeah, right... :? 

*scrolls down*


Soundminer HD PLUS for Windows
$ 3 9 9 . 0 0 :shock: 

:x 

*happily flushes company website mentally*

8)


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## jtenney (Jan 24, 2014)

+1 for AudioFinder... I use it a lot!


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## brunodegazio (Jan 24, 2014)

If you;re not using the audio file metadata in your search (i.e. only searching based on filenames/types) you can set the Finder Search to search just the current HD or Folder, not all six HDs. 

You might also want to look into Find Any File, a nice little search tool available on the App Store. Not free, but cheap as I recall. (Just looked it up - $7.99 on the App Store.) You can also buy it from the author -- http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

And a review of it on MacWorld http://www.macworld.com/article/1157260 ... _file.html


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## SirKen (Jan 24, 2014)

If you are on Windows, there is no other file search tool like Everything Search Engine.

http://www.voidtools.com/


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## germancomponist (Jan 24, 2014)

emu @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> There is a nice little feature built in Cubase/Nuendo for that purpose: Media Bay (works really great with perfect integration in the Cubendo workflow).
> 
> Another alternative would be soundminer.
> 
> Jan



Yes.

On the website of Soundminer there is the "Steinberg" logo. Perhaps the Media Bay is from SoundMiner?


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## Cowtothesky (Jan 24, 2014)

jtenney @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> +1 for AudioFinder... I use it a lot!



Same here. I understand that the op needed something for windows, but for mac users, audio finder is pretty good. I'm always looking for something better though.


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## kitekrazy (Jan 24, 2014)

Cowtothesky @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> jtenney @ Fri Jan 24 said:
> 
> 
> > +1 for AudioFinder... I use it a lot!
> ...



If they would only make a Windows version.....


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## dgburns (Jan 24, 2014)

TimJohnson @ Fri Jan 24 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Recently I have been doing A LOT of sound design work. I have a huge sound bank of over 160gb (more when I combine that with the COUNTLESS samples at my day job).
> 
> ...



soundminor by a country mile.You can setup bins,and tag sounds to bins,so for example per reel or episode,or if recurring themes come up,even by sfx class such as ambiences,hard sfx foley and classes within that.so guns can have their own bin and you can review the items you tagged there per show,reel,project. or whatever..If you use PT,you can spot directly to the timeline if sending over individual sounds,or you can simply transfer over the entire contents of a bin to a finder folder.Then in Pt you can conjure up the workspace window and view the contents of any finder folder with waveform image next to it.Simply drag and drop items from the workspace to the timeline and you are on your way.I've used this to great effect for musc editing as well.It is also useful to create a "cut track" for both mono and stereo track types in Pt so you don't actually drop the new files into the sfx tracks.this way you don't risk covering up existing sfx regions already cut on the sfx tracks.usefull especially when cutting ambience tracks that can be long.
Soundminor has extensive metadata capability,and you can enter in all sorts of usefull data that you can search,track or ingest and classify fairly quickly.Usefull for entering found sound from the roving sfx recordists.Also usefull to enter and catalogue musc tracks and search by different criteria.
The name of the game in sound design,especially with library stuff, is to learn how to search using the right names to find what you will be needing.
And Steve P is a nice guy from toronto to boot! what more is there to like? 8)


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## dannthr (Jan 24, 2014)

Basehead--no one said Basehead yet.


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## Jonvaljean (Jun 28, 2015)

Hi everybody
I am a bit of a newbie so forgive the question if too simple. I have looked through this list given above and although Soundminer and the other Pro tools look very cool, they are also expensive.

I just upgraded my Cubase to 8 Elements (yes I am a musician not producer or pro) and to my horror discovered that the Attribute Inspector is not activated in 8 Elements OR 8 Artist, you have to go Cubase 8 Pro to get it. There is no such info on the Steinberg site, in the product comparison chart it just says MediaBay is available on all three versions of Cubase 8. After a long time trying to figure out why I couldn't see it I finally downloaded the manual for Artist/Pro and deep in the MediaBay chapter it says that Attribute Inspector is only available in Pro. What a disappointment.

Because, I , like many others, collect sounds, loops, instruments wherever I can find them and I desperately need a database system for organising them. Much of the stuff has no metadata at all so there is no easy way to search for things. Sometimes I get directories of stuff including all kinds of instruments so it is not straightforward to create my own filesystem structure. I really think a database would be the trick.

MediaBay seems like a great idea, if only there were an easy way to add and modify Attributes, which the Attribute Inspector is there for.

But not according to the marketing strategy of Steinberg, too bad. So

Anybody have any more recent ideas of a tool that I could use to go through my stuff, add attributes in a way that later MediaBay can recognise them in the searches, and make life easier?

If I am constrained to buy Soundminer or the other pro tools, well it just seems like alot of money I would rather spend on instruments or hardware.

Whatever advice you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks !!!


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## Anders Wall (Jun 28, 2015)

dannthr said:


> Basehead--no one said Basehead yet.


+1 on Basehead.
v4 have some great new features, I think it's already on PC and it's public beta on Mac (I'm on mac).
http://www.baseheadinc.com/
Best,
Anders


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## synthpunk (Jun 28, 2015)

Basehead Mac as well here. It does the job and currently being beta does not cost yet.



WallofSound said:


> +1 on Basehead.
> v4 have some great new features, I think it's already on PC and it's public beta on Mac (I'm on mac).
> http://www.baseheadinc.com/
> Best,
> Anders


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## Jonvaljean (Jul 3, 2015)

aesthete said:


> Basehead Mac as well here. It does the job and currently being beta does not cost yet.


The cheapest version of basehead for PC is on *sale* for 149 .... i really hope to find a less expensive solution, meanwhile i am using mediabay for wav and midi files and the kontakt quickload feature for the instruments and presets inside kontakt. 
it would be nice to have an integrated solution and a cheap one at that !
thanks for your info
jon


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## benmrx (Jul 3, 2015)

Another vote here for Soundminer.


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## synthpunk (Jul 24, 2015)

I'm a new convert to Audiofinder now. http://www.icedaudio.com/site/#about
It's wicked and only $69 u.s.



wilx said:


> Audiofinder has been good for me.


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 24, 2015)

Sound miner and Basehead are both expensive. Basehead (Mac) is now $149 for the lite version (on sale?) $299 for standard, $499 for Ultra... Wow, these guys want top dollar for a sample search engine.


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## owenave (Dec 30, 2015)

Years ago back in about 1997 I created a Filemaker Pro Database of Sound Efx for Hollywood Edge and Another Efx Library I can't think of the name of (packed up in boxes because of my recent move)
It was easy to search for different Sound EFX easy when I was using it then.
I got to search on an older computer for the Filemaker Pro file.


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## dreamtuned (Mar 24, 2018)

It is an old thread but since the last post there came in existence very nice sound browsers. I've just bought Samplism (for Mac only) the other day for just 49$. I was AudioFinder user previously but with the new technology of AutoTag that *Samplism* has and the very nice look, it surpass AudioFinder.

For Windows there is a software called _*Resonic Player*_ (Free) and *Resonic Pro *(payed). It is in early stage of development but the developers promise that in the next big update they will incorporate the AutoTag system that Samplism already has.

I am a long time Cubase user and the Media Bay doesn't work well for me on Mac (I was previously Windows user) as it was working - smoothly - on Windows. Steinberg support is - at least for me this was the case - almost non existent.


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## dreamtuned (Mar 24, 2018)

owenave said:


> Years ago back in about 1997 I created a Filemaker Pro Database of Sound Efx for Hollywood Edge and Another Efx Library I can't think of the name of (packed up in boxes because of my recent move)
> It was easy to search for different Sound EFX easy when I was using it then.
> I got to search on an older computer for the Filemaker Pro file.



Did you find your File Maker Pro file?


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## sostenuto (Apr 13, 2018)

dreamtuned said:


> It is an old thread but since the last post there came in existence very nice sound browsers. I've just bought Samplism (for Mac only) the other day for just 49$. I was AudioFinder user previously but with the new technology of AutoTag that *Samplism* has and the very nice look, it surpass AudioFinder.
> 
> For Windows there is a software called _*Resonic Player*_ (Free) and *Resonic Pro *(payed). It is in early stage of development but the developers promise that in the next big update they will incorporate the AutoTag system that Samplism already has.
> 
> I am a long time Cubase user and the Media Bay doesn't work well for me on Mac (I was previously Windows user) as it was working - smoothly - on Windows. Steinberg support is - at least for me this was the case - almost non existent.



Thanks for this! Will check these out, as I am Win10 Pro user and others mentioned are Mac only ….


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## Anders Wall (Jul 10, 2018)

From the Basehead beta group.

”Heads Up!

there will be a 48 hour flash sale this weekend for individual users that are on the Mailing List with a one item per customer discount. 

If you want to pick up an upgrade to 5.x or new license, this will be the time to do it.

Get on the NewsLetter here to get the sale information coming this weekend.

http://eepurl.com/dv4UnL


Thx for support the BaseHead Project!


Steve”

Fyi,
/Anders


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## bjorn-nesby (Aug 22, 2018)

Old thread, yes, but reading through it with great interest. 
Also, it seems that this niche (sample organizers and browsers) is being shaken up pretty good in 2018. 

Latest example - *Sononym*. This software runs on Windows+Linux+OS X, and takes on a completely different approach to audio discovery that allows you to submit a sound and find variations thereof (known as similarity search). 
This can be incredibly handy - you're not always able to express the quality/character of a sound through words, so why not simply use the audio itself? 

It also categorizes sounds automatically through machine learning - arguably a feature which caters more to musicians than sound-designers, but still very interesting. A software well worth checking out.


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## danwool (Jun 22, 2019)

Digging up this thread to ask for any first impressions of the new SFX library search app called SEARCH made by Pro Sound Effects specifically as it compares to SoundMiner. 

I've had it with AudioFinder and have been trying SoundMiner HD, which smokes AudioFinder, but is $200 (the full version is $900!) SEARCH is $100....there's a trial version, but it only works on MacOS 12.5 and later. For the moment I'm stuck on 11.5 so I'm looking for impressions


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## danwool (Jun 23, 2019)

So I booted into Mojave and tried Search. It too smokes AudioFinder. I'm not familiar enough with SoundMiner really to do an extensive comparison, but...

Among the things I like in Search better than AudioFinder is the ability to select and drag sections of the waveform directly to my DAW (DP, which Search recognizes!). Even if the selection is pitch shifted, the shifted audio is dragged in (SoundMiner allows this too btw). With AudioFinder you have to create a new audio file from the selection, pitch shift that if needed, and drag that into the DAW. Also, with Search you can select just one channel of the audio to drag in as a mono audio file. You'd have to get the $649 version if SoundMiner for that feature! With Search you can have Favorites folders like you can in AudioFinder, while with the $200 dollar SoundMiner HD you can not - you have to get the $400 Soundminer HD+ for that.

I was afraid Search would push in-app purchases from Pro Sound Effects sound library, but I didn't see any of that (yet?). It seems to be totally library-agnostic.

Again, I don't have much experience with SoundMiner, but based on Search's $100 price, compared to SoundMiner's $200 to $900 (with $650 being the closest to Search's feature set). Search should do well I'd think.


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## Dandezebra (Jun 23, 2019)

Atlas is great for drum one shots!


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