Media Bay - Worth the try?

Nuendo
1

Hi all,

I have a fairly big sample collection and now I feel that it’s time to use some more “advanced” way to reach the sounds instead of names and folders.

I used Media Bay some time ago (maybe in version 3 or 4, I can’t remember) and the experience was awful: VERY slow, buggy and, in some point, I lost my library index.

I’d like to ask you guys if someone have any experience with Media Bay, and I’d like to know if it writes data into files, or just create an index with the metadata.

I also use another programs, such as Pro Tools and Ableton Live, so I’d like to know if anybody knows a reliable “cross program” option.

Thanks in advance for your help

Regards

2

Many solutions are available, sound miner, basehead, library monkey…all of them work well and all of them are priced for the niche market.

MediaBay is a bitch. I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Once it’s set up it works really well, but the route that leads there is not an easy one, so be warned. Especially it you use 5.1. It’s improved a lot in 5.5, but then AAF does not work in 5.5. so I’m on 5.1.

Ollie

3

How did it improve in 5.5.?

And what problems do you still have with it?

4

I’ve tried Monkey Library. Being a big fan of Sound Grinder, I am a bit disappointed. In the other hand AudioFinder seems hard to use. BaseHead is confusing, but it seems quick enough. And SoundMiner is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.

Am I missing anything?

Thanks

5

Well, I have to admit that MediaBay is the best librarian software I’ve tried. It should be available as a independent software.

Everything is fast and it features a complete tagging system.

6

Thank you Antonio for this thread. Like you, after all the fuss I’d heard about it in the past, I was to wary to give it a go. I’ll be taking another serius look at it now. :smiley:

7

I’m taking alive this thread again, 3 years later to say that Media Bay gets very SLOW when you add certain ammount of samples. Is there any trick or setting that I am missing?

Thanks!

8

How many samples are we talking about?

9

I have 461 Gb of samples, over 20.000 folders and 484.938 files. Yes, it’s a big ammount :confused: .

10

I might suggest limiting the “Maximum Items in Results List” that’s the only thing I can think of, outside of possible storage related issues.

11

Now it’s set as 1000. Good enough? Thanks!

12

That is a bit of noise.

What types of and how many drives are you using?

13

Server type, 7200 rpm IDE drives.

14

I am not sure if your slowness would be due to disk access or database tasks, but you may want to consider SSD.

I use SSD for everything anymore, because of the advantages. I am sure disadvantages can be brought to the table, but I need to say that I have yet to encounter some. My system (as a whole) is unbelievably faster (including MediaBay) than with using hard drives.

Because of the relatively expensive nature of SSD, I tend to use many smaller (typically 128-256 GB depending on various factors) drives instead of few larger. It does spread the data between drives, which also makes it easier to handle and to backup data at different intervals. I was contemplating getting some bigger drives, but I really do feel good about distributing data across physical, rather than logical or fewer units. IMHO, it is less worry overall.

I never researched the subject, so I do not know if there are any disadvantages using more drives than few drives.

Here are some random comparisons: 8088.net, dell.com, 2011, computerworld.com, 2009, diffen.com.

15

Thanks! I’ll take it a look :slight_smile: