Getting and Staying Organized in DAW land

I wouldn't say I have OCD, but I definitely get more than a tad obsessive over certain things. One of those things being maintaining some sense of order in my DAW computer. Files all over the place, projects in different folders/drives, a thousand odd project files whose names end in things like ' - final', ' - final FOR REAL', etc. When you add this phenomenon to things like becoming distracted from recording by making sure every piece of software/plugin is fully up to date, fretting over SSDs being fully optimized, it becomes a massive detriment to actual creative productivity.

So what can be done here? We can up our meds dosage but that feels like cheating and merely a coping mechanism. It's not about order for its own sake, but for practical reasons, especially when you can't find what you're looking for and you're dealing with some kind of deadline. When I built my current PC DAW machine last year I took a few steps to try and battle this as I was setting things up. Some of these steps will be a strictly Windows thing, but most are Mac-friendly as well.

Everything has its place. Literally. My computer has 5 SSDs: 1 OS drive, 1 Project drive, 2 Sample Library drives, and 1 large backup drive. I work in Cubase, Ableton Live, and Wavelab. On the root directory of the Project drive there are exactly 3 folders, no more.

Cubase Projects

Ableton Projects

Wavelab Projects

Obviously, don't cross the streams, and keep the relevant projects where they belong.

If you're like me, you have multiple versions of each project in the relevant subfolder that have been saved as temporary backups, or at parts where the project takes a different turn, or a different mix version. Years ago I started making the sequence of events obvious by putting the date right in the file name, for instance, "250621 - Song Name" indicates it was created June 21st of 2025. Subsequent versions take whatever the correct date of change is as the prefix. BAM! Instant chronological file sequencing. If you're steamrolling through a project in a single day, maybe use time instead of date.

When installing Plugins, the installer programs will typically prompt you for which format of plugin version you'd like installed. So for instance, at home I don't use Pro Tools so there's no reason to install AAX versions. All my DAWs use VST format, and additionally support VST3, so there's no reason to install VST v2.0 versions as they won't get used. Windows is particularly bad for plugin installation as while most prompt you for which folder you'd like to install it to, some just automatically use a default folder. At least in Cubase you add multiple plugin folders to be scanned at startup. Nonetheless I really with someone would standardize this.

What about software manuals? Almost no company creates physical documentation anymore but PDFs exist in abundance. What about data files like say, Impulse Response files for convolution reverbs, or plugin presets? I keep a master folder in my Documents folder that contains all of these things carefully categorized and subdivided as needed. The additional benefit of this is when you run your system backups you know where everything is and that it's being properly backed up.

Speaking of backups, you are doing those yes? About 2 years ago my Project drive died, and then the next day my Backup drive died as well. What were the odds? I lost a lot of material that represented many years of work. I thought I was pretty careful with timed daily incremental backups but I still got screwed up by not being careful enough. It's pretty common to talk about being careful with backups, but the general rule for reliability is 3 copies in different formats, in 3 different locations. So, for instance, have a local hard drive, but also save a copy to a Google drive or some other cloud-based solution. Finally, create another physical backup and store it in a physically different location like a workplace, storage locker, wherever. Apple's Time Machine and Windows built-in back up system is great, but you could also look at disk-cloning software for external physical backups. This is something of a gold standard and covers you for all sorts of foreseeable-but-not-taken-seriously scenarios like fires, floods, or various other "acts of God".

There're probably some similar types of organizational workflows that are beneficial that I can't think of just now. If you have any suggestions or comments, please leave below!