managing music

I have a music library that I use on all my projects, but I haven't organized it very well, particularly in fcpx. I use multiple computers and would love to find a way to have them access the same music. I thought of copying my music and creating folders in drop box and then just importing them into my projects when I need them, but that's probably a dumb way to do it. I'd love to hear how some of you handle this. thx

There are many ways you can organize your music libraries for using them in FCP X. But if you want to use a central music library on different computers you will either need a shared storage network, or a cloud-based folder that all your systems can access. So your DropBox idea is not dumb at all.

A little more advanced would be to store your music in a dedicated folder in DropBox and create an FCP X Library in that same folder. Then you can import the music into the Library leaving files in place and you can fully organize your music clips using keywords, favorites and whatnot. If you have DropBox installed on all your machines you will be able to open this Library on any machine and use the music in any FCP X Project. I just tried this and it works great. With any decent connection you can play and skim AIFF files in FCP X straight from your DropBox folder.

I think you also could do this using iTunes and iTunes Match, but I have never tried this. Import the music in iTunes and use iCloud to synchronize the iTunes library with all your Macs. Whenever you import new audio files in your library or you reorganize your collection, the changes will reflect on all your computers. The great thing is that your synchronized iTunes library should show up with all its playlists right inside the FCP X audio browser on your Macs. The downside is that you cannot skim/preview any audio in the FCP X audio browser, you just can click and play it.

- Ronny

Thanks Ronny. That sounds like a great solution. I'll stay clear of the I-Tunes sharing as my computers are tied in somehow with my kids and the last thing I want to do is open up that Pandora's Box. thx

Just a side note after some testing:

When you import the music in the FCP X Music Library it might be better to import the files into the Library and not use "Leave files in place". This way, whenever you use a music track from the Music Library in a Project the track will be copied over to the Library to which the Project belongs. This makes the Project independent from DropBox in case your internet would stop working and you cannot connect to your DropBox folder.

- Ronny

Yeah, I thought of that already. That would have disaster written all over it.

Hey guys, doesn't dropbox actually synchronize a local copy of your files? Meaning, if you don't have internet access, you still have access to your files. You should still be able to "leave files in place" if you want. You can then have the option of consolidating those files into your library (or wherever your library is pointed).

We do a similar thing at our place, although we don't use dropbox for this: we have our music and sound libraries on shared storage. Music and sounds will usually go into their own events, so if we need to have someone take a project home, we will just consolidate those events that contain the audio. Our other media is externally linked to their own folder structure, and it's just a matter of copying that folder to a drive. Dropbox for synchronization is a great idea, though.

Hey haysoos,

Yes you can have DropBox synchronize to a physical folder on your drive. To do this you can use a utility like MacDropAny that will create a symbolic link in the DropBox folder that points to the original folder. So you could create the FCP X Music Library inside the Music library folder on the primary editing system and have DropBox linked to it, making the Library available to any other system that has access to your DropBox folder. That's a great idea.

- Ronny

Hmm. I now have my music files sorted into genres, etc. in folders on DropBox. So I can access all those files on any of my computers. I believe the way MacDropAny works is to have all the files on one computer which you then sync to other computers with symlinks via DropBox (or whatever). Then when you add songs to one folder, it syncs automatically to the others - would those songs have to be added to the source computer for it to work? And what if the computer with the original files is off-line? Those symlinks would no longer work - or would they? Is it possible to have the original files on DropBox and have MacDropAny use that for the source files? I may be over thinking this - or under thinking it!

I believe MacDropAny simply makes symbolic links from any folder to a location that's actually in your Dropbox folder, so it lets you sync any folder on your machine to Dropbox. With Dropbox alone, it only syncs files within the Dropbox folder, so you would have to keep your music directory in there (which in general isn't a problem, it's just that you may prefer to keep it elsewhere). With Dropbox, there isn't really a "source computer." You have a certain amount of storage with Dropbox which is in the cloud, and all your other machines with Dropbox sync to that source. With Dropbox loaded on any machine, you would be synced if you had internet access. But if you don't, you'll still have the last version of the files before you synced. You'll always have local copies of the files, unless you delete them, of course.