Folder structure USB Maschine Plus

Just about to buy a Maschine plus, but want to clarify information on the User samples folders structure, I read that in some posts that there is only a 2 folder level hierarchy, but in this post it doesn't make it clear if you can navigate to multiple sub folders?

What is the deal here, surely they can't leave it at 2 levels? Say I have a bunch of sample cd's by different companies, which I then split by genre type, then by instrument type etc..

I'm hardly going to want to structure say a drum loop subfolder with a mix of techno, d&b, glitch & urban samples together or even worse a folder of drum one shots which contain a mix of these, it just doesn't make sense? and makes the scrolling through samples on the Maschine Plus sound like a right PITA?

Am I going to be able to drag my sample libraries onto a usb/sdcard, do the steps above and it will see my samples folder as I copied across?

Can anyone clear this up? Cheers

They really need to do a proper video about this.

tl;dr: You can go as deep as you want; but you have to put effort in to organize it for yourself.

Imagine you have a usb stick with the following:

Maschine breaks down your files as product, bank and subbank. On M+; the USB stick would be the product. You'd have banks of "Libraries", "My Loops", "Sample Packs" and "Vocal Stems".

Maschine+ treats this a bit different than the software. Add it to the library in the software and each root folder would be a product. That might just be the cheesy way I'm testing this. I can't get files placed on directly on the drive to show up in my library in the software. I'd bet this is because they're using mount points in Linux; but just guessing.

Anyway. I moved them all under a "USB Stick" folder so it will be more like M+. You'd get something like the following in M+:

I'm showing the software, but this is how it would show up in M+. The USB Stick is the product. Those root folders would be the banks. Pick "Sample Packs" and you now have:

You can't drill down further. That was the problem. With the steps Jeremy listed, you're now able to add a specific folder. So instead of adding the drive, I can add the "Troxx Sample Company" directory. It's now the product.

This can still be a problem because I can't drill down to kicks, snares, etc. If you tag your files on the computer, the tags will show up over in Maschine+. You can't do this from the hardware, but you literally just add the USB stick to your library on your computer, tag stuff and then put in in Maschine+. You'll end up with the following in M+:

If I added "Troxx Kit 1" instead of "Troxx Sample Company", I'd be able to drill down to those other folders; but if I had subfolders under "kicks", then I'm stuck again. It's the limitation in the fundamental design of maschine's library system. It's not specific to Maschine+; this is how the library is designed. If you have a large library; do you take a bunch of time tagging stuff or do you take a bunch of time adding individual folders?

(Also interesting; manufacturer doesn't seem to carry over to M+)

The elephant in the room is that "Files" tab. That's what many people want. I know where these are located in the directory structure; so I can browse there manually in the software. This is a mouse/keyboard function. You can't do it from M+, a mk3, the studio, etc:

This would give access to anything in the directory structure because it's ignoring the maschine library, but it's also giving up the features of the library. Now I'm digging through folders instead of looking for something I've tagged as "kick, distorted, long, analog".

That's the current state. Now I'll throw opinion into this novel of a post.

IMO, tagging stuff is the "maschine way"; maybe even the "komplete way". If I wanted a piano; I filter for piano. I don't load a VST and then look for a piano. I probably have one I want to use in my favorites; but the entire system is setup to obfuscate the source of a sound from the sound. I want a fake string section. I browse for analog strings. "This sound is perfect. Wow, it's loading some cheesy patch from the kontakt factory library. It's the sound I had in my head, but I would have never thought to look there."

That kicks folder is nice and all; but I'm using maschine because of speed. I'll make groups/kits with specific drums sounds when I have nothing else to do. I'm going to tag everything and find kicks by filtering for kicks. I'm making a house track and want "deep analog kick", then I'll filter for a deep analog kick. I'm don't care if it's NI or "dope house kicks v409" sample pack. It does mean I'd have to put work in up front, but it would allow me to use one of the better features in the maschine ecosystem.

Thanks @darkwaves for your detailed explanation, just seen your post after I posted.

I totally get it, they want you to use their tagging system, which makes sense for fast searching of the samples/sounds you want to use.

I just think we are all so use to the traditional file browsing we use everyday on computers and other hardware, it's trying to break from this and use another system to search for your samples.

I think this bit of software is going to come in handy for anyone who is going to embrace the NI way of user samples.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/3734/maschine-auto-tagger-release#latest

The problem is not to tag the samples. If you already have a well organized structure with folders for categories and useful file names, it’s actually not that much of work. And there are even third party tools around to help with that.

However, the real problem is that filtering for user samples according to vendor and banks are severely broken, to a level that samples show up under wrong places.

You can tag user one-shots (or groups, or anything else) by pushing the Edit button at the bottom of the browser

So how are folks working around this issue? If filtering by vendor doesn't work, how are folks finding 3rd party samples? Including vendor names in tags?

Any long-time MPC or other sampler users care to share their filing system? How did you manage to efficiently organize samples in only 2 layers of folders?