About File Management-Part 1

So much of what we do as audio engineers these days revolves around computers.  Learning how to manage files, creating solid systems for maintaining multiple versions and the all-too-important back-up strategy can increase productivity and help mitigate disaster scenarios.

Managing files tends to be a difficult thing to do.  Doing it successfully depends on discipline and perseverance.  First, try and conceive a naming scheme that is both descriptive and extensible.  Within the scope of a single show or project, I will often start with a sequence number or cue number, followed by a short descriptive name and then a date in 8 digit form YYYYMMDD.  If I need to have more resolution for versions than one day I will add 4 digit 24-hour time to the name HHMM.  That looks something like this:

13.4_BigThunder_20110506_1534

There are a couple of advantages to this naming structure.  Sorting by name in the finder or explorer view will sort in show order and version order.  Sometimes multiple versions  of a file are created throught the creative process, and used for trying different ideas and sometimes they are used for disaster recovery, or a way to "go back in time" to a previous state.

When versions are used for recalling the previous state, the most recent is almost always the "right" one.  If I have to revert to a previous state and continue creating from there, I will often give myself a "marker" in the file name to denote the revert state like this:

13.4_BigThunder_20110507_1610_R_20110506_1534

While I am appending the "_R_DATE_TIME" to the file name, the name represents the current data and time and the "_R_" statement is only expressed in the first file of the revert.  Following that the format moves to the shorter format.  With the previous version date and time following the current date and time the file still sort in a fashion the shows creation order, but with enough information to demonstrate from where the version came.

If I am using the versions in the creative process often the reason for multiple versions is trying different things.  Once I have selected the file that will remain the in the show, I will add an underscore to the beginning of the name:

_13.4_BigThunder_20110507_1610

This changes the sort order to move the files that I am using to the top of the list and keeps them in the show order.  The remaining unused files also remain in show order, but fall under the active files in the list.

If I am working on the same set of files from a file share with multiple people , I will ask that each person append file names with their initials. This way you have an idea of who did what, and when.

13.4_BigThunder_20110507_1610_JP

As you can see it takes a great deal of discipline to implement this type of convention well and consistently, but the benefits are immediate, and great.