"How do you rename your files?" (Draggonrabbit63 question)

[Josep]

There has been a very short discussion in the chat of the last @Omri_Cohen video, about how do you (in general) name your files:

Dragonrabbit63: ​Omri, I’m curious, how do you name your files? Because I personally have more then twenty odd WIP files, and was wondering if I could get some naming inspiration!

rsmus7​​: I use the Date, maybe the main module I use and a a kind of description like drum or melodic or… and version numbers

Dragonrabbit63​: Thanks! Mine are mostly WIP 1, WIP 1 with sequencer, WIP2, … etc, stuff like that, or random words, I could swear I have a song called bob!

So here is how i name my patches (and all those i download, too), for if it imay be of help for someone here:

• Generative Patch #<num>[.<version_number>] (short_title) [<author> - <date>].vcv

a living example (original patch):

• Generative Patch #27 (New Echoes!) [Josep - 11.04.19] (after checking the new Alright Devices’ Chronoblob2)

and subsequent versions of it:

• Generative Patch #27.01 (New Echoes!) [Josep - 11.04.19] Generative Patch #27.02 (New Echoes!) [Josep - 12.04.19] Generative Patch #27.nn (New Echoes!) [Josep - 03.05.19]

Sometimes i add the name of the main module also to the short title, and i also keep all the patches in their own author’s folder (i.e.: ‘mine’, ‘omri cohen’, ‘basics’, ‘andrew mercer’, etc.).

Of course, any other suggestions will be welcomed.

[ablaut]

for private use:
vcv rack patches/yymm/dd <name or description>[ v<version_number>]

[down_of_hares]

Personally I just make a folder and give it some sort of relevant name to the patch and then its just wip_01 , wip_02 etc.
I really wish vcv had an incremental save function linked to a shortcut. It would save breaking the creative flow to do some housekeeping.

[Josep]

Excuse my ignorance, but i’m just curious…

All of you seem to use the WIP acronym in your file names, which stands for…?

[dhemery (Dale Emery)]

Work in progress. Often (for me at least) “in progress” is somewhat of an exaggeration

[rsmus7 (Stephan)]

WIP = work in progress

as I wrote yesterday on youtube my patch names look like:

2019_04_13_vult_drumming-sequence_1
or 2019_04_13_interzone_melodic_sequence_3

using the date first makes it easier for me to see the historic developement

[dhemery (Dale Emery)]

When I can, I name my files after some key feature of the tune. “Bouncy” or “diminished” or “big swirling church organ.” Sometimes the key feature is a sound. Other times its a mood. Other times it’s an intention, like “deadmau5 melodic structure practice.”

All I need the name to do is remind me, so that if I have an idea for some WIP, I know which file to open. I don’t need names to do anything else, or to mean anything at all to anyone but me.

When all else fails, I use the date.

[Jon (Jon Heal)]

I have the worst naming scheme possible:

20190413.1
20190413.2
20190413.3
…

I really should do something about that …

This would be useful only if all of my tunes sounded alike. Oh wait; they do.

[Omri_Cohen]

Well, what I tried to say in the stream is that I usually give “track” names for my patches because usually I use them for my music. In most cases the names come also before I start a patch as a sort of inspiration to where the patch should go musically. If I’m “just” fiddling around or I’m learning a new module, I usually don’t save the patch, it’s also part of the fun, letting go and starting from scratch…

[mixer]

I’m still in the process of learning the basics, discovering what modules do and how they work. So I often name my patches after its most meaningful modules, or kinds of modules. That makes it easier to find the right patch when I need to remember how something works.

[Patman (Patman / NYSTHI Manual)]

In the past, I’ve used names that are novel, but that I can easily tie into memory.

for one, when Geodesics came out, I was on a Final Fantasy (videogame) kick, so when I’d assembled an “instrument” for lack of a better word (a specific selection of modules) that seemed to work cohesively together, I named the patches using that instrument “Geomancer#” (with # being the Nth iteration of that instrument.

[TroubledMind]

I’ve only just started with VCV but I think I need to take some tips from this thread, I can’t really remember what a lot of these are.

[studioDominic]

Mine all have stupid names with the BPM and sometimes with the scale if i’m using the ScalaQuantizer but I mostly don’t bother saving

A good way to finish WIPs is to whip yourself while your folder is still full, every unfinished project is another lash!

A better way is to make some sort of schedule and stick to it, so you might focus on finishing things for 2 weeks per month or do it by the phases of the moon or whatever.

[Patman (Patman / NYSTHI Manual)]

I guess another good question to pair with this one: Who uses notes in their patches, or at least the Submarine TD202 Vertical text?

[Patman (Patman / NYSTHI Manual)]

I just sort by date created if I want to do that

[zero]

I’ve been thinking recently that I could really use some sort of version control system - with branches and rollback and so on…
Wonder if I could turn my patches folder into a working git repo?

[computerscare (Adam)]

I start with some base name: horse.vcv

And each time I want to save a new version, I “save as” with a new name that includes the old name as a prefix. For example: horse-spooky.vcv.

Then I keep going, adding a -<whatever> each time I save-as. If I want to go back and re-branch, I can load horse.vcv and save some new branch as horse-mellow.vcv.

This certainly pollutes my patches directory, but I try to only save the patch when I get something cool, and it lets me easily see how the patch evolved.

[Jon (Jon Heal)]

I’ve updated my naming system:

• crap1.vcv
• crap2.vcv
• garbage1.vcv
• garbage2.vcv
• unbearable1.vcv
• unbearable2.vcv
• justgiveup.vcv

[LarsBjerregaard]

@computerscare

This certainly pollutes my patches directory

I make a directory “Name of current patch something” under patches for each patch I’m working on, and in that the patches are called #1, #2, etc… when the patch is done I name it, save it in the patches directory and delete the sub-directory with all the intermediate stages.