organising samples

my hardrive is gettign outta control with samples all over the shop...just wodnered what method you guys use for organising your sample archives...and are there any progs that can assist in organising samples??

also have a little problem with it, sometimes looking 15 minutes for a hi-hat that i heard a day before :- )
defo i must do something with this ;- )

develope codes to indentify the various types of samples.

My soundbank is divided in three parts: drums, samples, loops. These or then again divided into other folders. In drums I have kicks,hats,... in samples it's guitars,synth, fx,... and in loops there's house,hip-hop. I simply put one window with the old files onscreen and one with the new ones, simply drag and drop. It took me a few weeks to get them together but it was definitly worth it.

findthesolution - do you mean similar to hungarian notation? For example: vRap.wav would indicate a rap vocal or lAmen.wav would be a breakbeat? Sounds like a good idea actually.

yea, something like that.

for example, I'll sort out all of my hard/heavy sounding kick drums, put em in a folder, and use automator (mac only) to batch rename them to BD_hrdhvy_0001 (and so on)

If you put a short description in the file name, it makes it really easy. of course sorting out thousands of samples can be a ****in pain, but it pays off to be organised.

that took me quite a while to do with my loops and samples, all 42gb worth.

i try and fit everything in the filename.... but keep to numeric and alphabet order.

bd01_tuff_verb
bd02_clck
bd02_clckB
glitch01_short
hat15_rev

how do you all usually get the samples??

i find making 10 -15 distinguishable sounds before going near any rhythm makes tying a tune together very quick.
although, alot of the time im never bothered doing it, but when i do, it makes it all much easier.