Howdy. I've been using Cubase for over a decade finally felt 100% comfortable at version 5 and stopped upgrading there. Every time I install a new VST or mastering plugin and I think I've got all the folders organised and I know exactly where everything is going, I realise I'm wrong and things just end up all over the place.

Can someone who has actually got their head around this help me!?

I run the OS on a small SSD and prefer to keep as much off it as possible. I have a second internal HD for everything else.

Any time I'm given the option to change an installation path, I use the 2nd HD, even stuff that naturally wants to install to C:\x86 Program Files\ ...

The way I usually try to organise things is like this:

Audio\Programs\ (DAWs and Kontakt etc)
Audio\VST\ (Alicia's Keys, Scarbee, etc)
Audio\Plugins\ (things like FX and mastering tools)
Audio\Samples\ (self explanatory)

But I seem to get confused with what is actually what. And also, nowdays when you install something, there are like 5 installation paths, like 32bit, 64bit, blah blah blah.

Please help me finally understand this and use a neat and tidy organisation method before I set up my next Laptop system!

Cheers

Beh, it's a matter of personal taste in workflow

Mine goes (one - signifies one up parent folder)

Root
-VstPlugins
--VstPlugins
---Vsts
----Audio Damage
----iZotope
----Native Instruments (etc you get the idea)
---Free
---x86
-Most used plugins

The reason the folders are grouped in another vstplugins is to save more space for my most used list so i can always see them all at once. I hate seeing a bunch of annoying folders I rarely open, and I hate opening folders just to get a synth or effect i use 25 times in every project.

There probably isn't a true one-size-fits-all system for this, mainly because numerous vendors ignore Microsoft's Windows design guidelines and do weirdo stuff with their installers, sometimes without even giving users a choice of where to install things... but in general this will work:

• Definitely keep separate install folders for 32-bit and 64-bit applications, even if you're not using the default Program Files(x86)/Program Files folders. So if you've got a separate drive set up, I'd go with something like "Apps (32-bit)" and "Apps (64-bit)". These days I only ever actually use 64-bit stuff, but some installers require both install paths.
• Same goes for plugin paths. Even though I avoid SSDs, because I prefer a larger drive to shorter boot times, the next time I have to set up a DAW system, I'm going to put my VstPlugins folders somewhere OUTSIDE of the Program Files folders. (I'm probably just going to do C:\VstPlugins32 and C:\VstPlugins64.) This is because anything that goes into Program Files is protected by Windows file protection, and many misbehaving plugins try to write data to files there when they don't have write access. (You can usually get around this by launching your DAW with Admin privs, but I prefer to run apps with the minimal privileges necessary to get the core job done.) By installing to a separate drive, you'll automatically get the benefit of not encountering these issues... just keep them separated by 64-bit/32-bit like with the apps.
• I have a whole 2GB drive dedicated for samples. Basically any time an app has a separate install path for "library" or "samples", it goes into a folder on that drive. Sample libraries and Kontakt/MachFive instruments that don't have their own installers (ones where you just unpack a ZIP or a RAR) go into subfolders named after the Publisher.

You seem to make a distinction between "VSTs" in terms of software instruments/libraries and "Plugins" in terms of FX/processing. I used to do something like that, although it was more like this:

VstPlugins\Instruments
VstPlugins\Effects
VstPlugins\Utilities

But this was more trouble than it's worth. For one thing some vendors always append folders to the path you select without asking you, so you end up with something like VstPlugins\Instruments\Publishername\Plugin.dll. Sometimes you even get silly crap like this: VstPlugins\Instruments\VstPlugins because they silently assume you MEANT to specify a VstPlugins path, so they create the folder for you because you didn't give them one. (LOL, and I really love the ones that just blindly stuff plugins into the Steinberg\VstPlugins folder- or worse yet, Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2- without giving you any indication of where they installed the things.)

There was another thing where sometimes you have a product that includes different kinds of plugins. For example Reaktor and Maschine both include FX versions, but you only get to choose a single plugin install path. Plugins are supposed to be moveable (you're supposed to be able to just drag any plugin to a different folder without having to reinstall), but some plugins don't like to be moved, or moving might have unintended consequences as any longtime Native Instruments customer probably knows. Also, some packages that include both FX and instrument plugins have inter-dependencies that aren't clear until you try splitting the plugins up. So, anyway- I personally gave up on the idea of organizing plugins by folder. I only separate them by architecture, and rely on my DAW to organize them by type and (hopefully vendor).

Hello again, jDroid! Why do you have a VstPlugins child AND parent? What is the difference between a VstPlugin and Vsts? I think my confusion might stem from not actually understanding the definitions and differences from one thing to the next ...

When you install a mastering plugin and it has like 5 installation paths: dll path, vst path, vst32 path, vst64path, adat path. Assume I'm DAW illiterate ... what do each of these represent and can I just bunch them together or if not, how should I separate them?

I get personal preference enters the equation, so I guess my issue is understanding what I'm actually installing lol

Cheers

Thanks so much for the elaborate reply!

I'm leaning towards your final conclusion - Cubase seems to do a pretty good job of organising stuff after you update the dir within the plugins path.

Alicias Keys and Scarbee Vintage Keys... what would you classify these as? I need to use the Kontact file browser to locate each instrument, so I find it important to have these kinds of things that I add into Kontact organised logically.

I just tend to get confused with what is actually a plugin (I guess Kontakt is both a standalone AND a plugin?!) and what is just samples (I guess Scarbee rhodes is just samples with a kontact instrument template?!).

Cheers, mate.

I edited my first post with the answer to your first question.

Main install folder with plugin host dll
M:/Native Instruments/Massive/

Vstplugin path
Is whatever your windows registry decided it would be or software is trying to force you to use if you don't have a choice during install. Otherwise if you can select a target folder, you should note if the plugin is 32 or 64 and proceed to install it in the right directory. Your main vstplugins folder should be considered using the same bit size as your daw. You should then set a second location outside or within this folder for the other one your not using.

Using the logic explained above

If your daw is 64 bit you should consider your main vstplugins folder for win64 path and a second location of your choice for win32.

Like i mentionned in my first post. "M:/VstPlugins/VstPlugins/x86" is then considered my win32 path.
and
"M:/VstPlugins/" is my win64 path

I tried a whole bunch of different folder architectures over the time and this is the one I'm the most comfortable with. I found my self going crazy seperating them by type or "usage". The "show the most used, hide the rest". Has proven a worthy ally for my quest of the fastest workflow. I went as far as using desktop folder programs like fences on dual monitor set ups... I tried a lot different possibilities

Thanks, mate! Every little thing like this just helps clear my mind so I can get on with making music. Writers' block is bad enough in isolation without worrying about these finer details once the DAW is open. Sometime I find myself just staring at the DAW waiting for my brain to know what to do next just because I'm thinking about where the hell I installed x to etc...

Next thing on my list is trying to organise how the plugins are organised in Cubase. They are seriously all over the shop. I need to remove the ones I don't use that came with various softwares etc.

Steinberg has a set of "suggested" directories...it's the same directory structure that is created when you install a Steinberg product...I don't have a link to it handy, but you should be able to find it in Steinberg's knowledge base.

On Windows machines, it is not a good idea to install your programs or plugins on any drive other than the O/S drive. It's cool to put your VI's content (samples) on a different drive, but you are basically asking for trouble if you put your programs or plugins somewhere other than on the O/S drive.

Also, the "suggested" locations for VST's in many non-Steinberg products follows the "standard" Steinberg folder layout...

Thanks for the post. I used your information to locate this Knowledge Base article: Where are the VST2 plug-ins stored on Windows?

I'm not sure if that's the one you're referring to, but it does share many commonalities. Sigh, so Steinberg insist on storing all plugins on the OS system ... I can't remember when I installed Scarbee Vintage Keys whether or not it installed a plugin dll first then the samples or if it just bundled it all together. I would definitely be wanting to put the samples on the other drive.

Care to elaborate on this? I have never installed my audio software/plugins on my OS partition.

OS on one drive
Daw+plugins+most used samples on one drive
Samples and VI libraries on one drive

Each partitioned to be using only the first 1/5 of each drives except the samples drive goes as far as 2/3.

The drive's mechanical arm is then free to do as it wish in windows, reading my daw does not temper with windows and reading my sample libraries does not temper with the daw or windows, each at optimum reading speeds never causing a bottleneck in the drives mechanical arm. I can use windows without causing a harddisk drop out in the daw and vice versa.

Am I asking for trouble?

I'm interested as well - I don't think I ever had any issues back in the 32bit only days with using OS + Drive 2 for everything else.

In your quoted setup, where do you save DAW projects to?

I consider things like Alicia's Keys and Vintage Keys to be sample libraries (they have interfaces, but you have to load them in Kontakt and the bulk of their content is just sample data), so they go in my catch-all samples drive.

Specifically with Kontakt, finding instruments is super fast if you keep your database up to date and name your folders appropriately, even for non-NI or non-licensed third-party instruments.

Here's an example: I've got some Kontakt instruments from Hollow Sun in this folder. There's a top-level folder for the vendor name, and individual product folders underneath that.



Hollow Sun's instruments aren't Kontakt Player licensed, so they don't show up in the Library tab. Instead, I add them to the database manually by going into DB Options and telling Kontakt to update the database. This will recursively search my entire samples master directory for new instruments.



Now in the Database tab, I can search for those instruments by entering the product name or vendor name:



I almost never do folder browsing in Kontakt as a result. (I use the Library tab for all the Player-licensed instruments; I usually only use the Database tab for the unlicensed stuff.)

no, you are not. to answer your last question at first ... because everything else you wrote is second by me. :-)

I do it the same way. OS on C:\, Cubase and vstplugin-folder on D:\ (where are all my applications, none of them goes to C:\), samples, libraries of plugins on another not only partition but different harddrive.

there was never any trouble. I go a step further and differentiate between plugs that are used within Cubase and Wavelab, they have a folder, and a folder where plugins go that are not that useful in Wavelab, e.g. all the synths and fx I would never use in Wavelab. the reason is, that Wavelab such way doesnt need to scan all the things that are per se unuseful.

and I dont let as less as possible go to windir\Programm Files and put every vst and according files in its own folder. all. I hate it, if some people from Redmont force me how to organize my folder and my contents.

in the end I have the VST-folder inside Cubase, the Cubase & Wavelab-folder and the Wavelab-only-folder.

never had problems with this.

btw: in any Win OS you can specify the default vstplugins-folder, in case one is too lazy to navigate everytime. you can specify every default-path to your likings, you only need to edit the environment-variables, this is simple, no rocket science.

The daw hard disk is 1tb partitioned in this order:

P:/ - Project drive, current projects only - 40g
M:/ - Music drive, daw+plugins+30g samples - 100g
W:/ - Work drive, projects main partition - 250g
Last ~600g is unpartitionned/unused

the os drive
C:/ - 160g - Win+all other software
D:/ - 550g - stuff plus software backup
X:/ - 250G - Projects backup and sample libraries not used at the moment

So in P:/ drive, X:/ drive and E:/ (external) drive have copies of projects but the P:/ drive is for current work

I've just got a new DAW build and that is what I have done. My VST instruments and plugins will all be on my SSD. My sample bank and session files on my 2nd hard drive. I also have a 2TB external hard drive for further samples and for back ups (obviously) where I just mirror my Ableton project file folder after every major session.

That's another big mistake...partitioning.

Going from one partition to another involves a lot of "head movement overhead", then you still have to move the head to the desired location.

In your particular instance it appears that you would not have a situation requiring a large number of partition jumps, but you are a rare exception.

Partitioning really came about in order to solve a fairly short-lived problem...originally, MS-DOS could only use a hard drive of a fairly small (by today's standards) capacity. But by that time drive makers offered disks that were larger than MS-DOS could work with. So, partitioning was developed to break the disk down into chunks small enough to be read by the O/S, while still allowing the entire disk to be used.

Today, it is no longer necessary to partition drives, with the one exception being if you are using separate partitions with different O/S's on them.

I do IT for a living...when I'm dealing with my studio I don't want to mess with my PC, I want to work on my music.

So, today's best practices are:

If you're poor...two drives. You put the O/S, programs, plugins, and samples on one drive, with the second drive reserved for your "sessions" (audio and session files).

If you're not quite so poor...three drives. You put the O/S, programs, and plugins on one drive, the second drive is reserved for your "sessions" (audio and session files), and the third drive is for your samples.

If you're rich, it's about the same thing as if you're not quite so poor except you have more and faster drives. But they are still allocated as for not quite so poor.

So, to summarize...

Other than if you are using multiple operating systems, there is absolutely no reason to partition drives any more.

There is no reason to put programs anywhere other than on the O/S drive, and a whole lot of reasons not to. Trust me...you will get bit eventually if you do.

There is rarely any reason to not put your plugins in the default locations.

You absolutely do not want to put plugins, samples, or anything else on your session drive.

If you want to spend time d*cking around with your computer, feel free to do whatever you want to.

But if you're more interested in making music, do it as I outlined above and you'll be good to go...

Hey mate, can you please elaborate on this? I have the space for two hard drives in my laptop. I'm happy to run an external for projects because I doubt I'll be doing live recording - just using the DAW to output virtual instruments with basic mastering and effects. If there is a reason I can understand for doing it this way when recording and mastering a project, I'll happily part with another $100 for a 1TB + USB2.0 enclosure.

Because partitioning makes blocks of data in the drive sectors be recognized as a drive, thus cause extreme tear on a hard disk drive's mechanical arm, for example when i was a noob at the time, I had only one hard disk in my pc divided in 4 partitions I would be downloading on partition one and browsing the web, while running a virus scan and defraging the last partition, while transfering files between the mid partitions. This is exagerated but gives you a good picture how to cause a drive homicide. The mechanical arm will be going completely nuts. You'll be lucky if your drive makes it past 1-2 years with such abuse.

As btendon mentionned it's very bad. In my case later partitions are never engaged during an activity on the first one. Except for the daw drive of course which works in this aspect by design but the daw is loaded in the ram and it's the main reason the projects partition is only 40g and barely 40g are used in the daw partition so the arm is never leaving the first 1/5 or first 80g of the music drive also there is no indexing, caching, system restore or hibernating happening, all turned off/uninstalled and I defrag my drives manually not set to auto defrag on idle daily or monthly and AV real time protection is turned off.

And the real project drive is coming by mail shortly had a drive die on me a couple months ago, waiting for warranty to ship a new one.

____

Does your laptop support usb 3.0? I experienced overloads on 2.0 but not on 3.0

You should get a second internal drive, definetly.

The laptop has 4xUSB2.0 (no 3.0 ports). It has one internal drive bay and the optical drive can be interchanged for another 2.5" drive caddy. So my intentions are to put a 120gb SSD (all I could afford) in the main body and have a 500-1TB 7200rpm drive in the caddy.

I will be using what I learn here to determine how I do everything from there on.

So, I'm thinking (with my 2 drive limitation), it might make sense to:

SSD
Windows 7
Cubase
VSTPlugins64\
VSTPlugins32\

Mechanical Internal
Sample Library\Instruments
Sample Library\Collections
Projects\


EDIT: The power issue you've identified with USB2.0, would this still be a problem with an external drive that requires its own power source, not USB powered? As nice as it would be to use a 2.5" external that is USB powered, if I can solve this reliability issue with another power plug, so be it.

EDIT2: Also, the laptop has an Express Card/54 slot, so I could put a USB3.0 card or an eSata card in there ... what do you think my best option is?

This is how I have always set my DAWs up and had no issues.

When UAC was implemented on Windows, I did what zigziglar did, but I also eventually added more folders because I use both 32 and 64-bit hosts, and use JBridge for some 32-bit-only VSTs for use in 64-bit hosts. So today, my setup looks like this (all in the root of C) :

VSTPlugins32
VSTPlugins32_only
VSTPlugins32_bridge_64
VSTPlugins32_special
VSTPlugins64
VSTPlugins64_only

This allows me to select appropriate folders in each 32 or 64-bit hosts. Only plugins that come in both 32 and 64-bit versions are in the base folders; uniquely 32 or 64-bit plugins are in the "only" folders. The "special" category is for SynthEdit, experimental and older plugins that can put DAW stability at risk; these are loaded sometimes in a project using a subhost that sees this folder (with track rendered and plugin removed ASAP).

I let VST3 plugins install where they do by default. Only Cubendo loads these currently anyway.

I'm slowly moving away from 64-bit hosts, but I still need this structure to accommodate older projects I sometimes need to work with. Works for me.

yeah for 2 drives this configuration would be best.

The usb 2/3 thing is loading or rather reading speed. When using sample vi's it would keep giving me drop out's because it could not keep up with the samples that are not loaded in ram during playback. Also loading times were greatly increased with 3.0.

Get a good second internal drive, like if your getting WD get the Black, no blue or green edition, I used seagates as they have the same specs as the black and cost me about the same with a 3 year warranty (~89$ with tax)

I appreciate the effort you went to to explain that so clearly. Cheers!

Cool, well I actually already bought a 1TB WD Black before you wrote this, so that's a good thing! The drive that comes in the laptop is 500gb and 7200rpm, but I haven't seen it yet so I didn't know how old it is or what it's specs are. The Black set me back $80 shipped.