Here goes...
I believe a well organized and fluent sample library for drums and the like is gold. Its a little luxury in that can make music quicker and more productive.
The reason I have started this thread was to discuss how you are using your sample libaries.
Myself? I use an external firewire drive (a second internal would be cool too) to store all my logic projects, and in another part of that drive is my huge sample library (we all know the bigger the library...
eigh eigh).The reason i keep my samples on a seperate drive? It stops a 'bottlenecking' of data, If your streaming all your audio AND your operating system / music apps (daw etc...) from the same HD, it has to work very hard to keep up. This can even result in a corrupt or permanently damaged hard drive, and nobody wants that.
This technique is commonly called using a 'scratch disk', having a separate HD for the data, one for the operating system and applications, and isnt limited by audio applications. Most pro video and other media resources use this technique to keep the systems healthy and spankingly fast.
Right, just a tip. I recently purchased this application for OSX called Audiofinder (http://www.icedaudio.com/)
Its excellent!!! really cant praise it enough, the demo works for over ten times with no time limit, it allows you to move samples and folders in bulk with fast audio previews and folder organization.
Definately worth a look! For example, i now have all my purchased sample cd's on my 'scratch disk'. i then selected all my fav kicks, setup a destination folder and hit copy. i now have my own kick list from personal favs etc...
(btw im not getting paid to do this lol)
A screen -
I know there are probably free alternatives for PC users, but im on OSX.
So yeah shoot away questions, hints and tips!!!
