How to organize sample ideas you’ll actually come back to.

Keep three things: the source, the time, and the thought.

A useful note can be short. It needs a link to the recording, a timestamp, and a few words about why you cared. For example: “1:24 — the bass drops out, leaving the drums and that thin organ.” That is much easier to act on than “good sample.”

Use the timestamp from the actual upload you heard. If you switch to a different source, check the timing again. Sift keeps marks attached to their original source and flags marks from a different source when you’re viewing them.

You can leave a broader note on a saved recording too. Use that for the overall mood or the project connection, and keep individual moments in their own marks.

Let tags describe the sound. Let collections describe the job.

Try tags like “loose drums,” “vocal texture,” or “warm keys.” They describe what your ears noticed, so they remain useful across projects. Start with a small vocabulary and reuse it before inventing another near-duplicate.

Collections can hold the purpose: a beat you’re sketching, a set you’re planning, or a listening session you want to revisit. The same recording can belong in more than one collection without needing another copy.

Sift lets you search your saved library, filter by collection, and make bulk changes. That gives you room to start loosely and tidy a group of finds once you understand the direction.

Make the second listen part of the process.

Discovery and review ask for different kinds of attention. During discovery, keep the note quick enough that you stay with the music. During review, ask whether the idea still interests you and whether you can understand the note without remembering the session.

Queue a few finds from Saved and listen in order. Rewrite vague notes. Remove a tag that no longer helps. A library becomes useful through these small returns, not through the number of recordings you save.

You can keep references that are interesting without being immediately useful. Give them a place that doesn’t crowd the shortlist for your current project.

Keep a copy outside your browser.

Sift saves your library locally in this browser on this device. It is not currently an automatic cloud backup. Export before clearing browser data, changing devices, or doing anything that might remove that local storage.

Open Import & export and choose Export JSON for a Sift backup. It includes recordings, source references, marks, notes, tags, collections, history, queue, and discovery preferences. Choose Readable CSV when you want a human-readable reference for a spreadsheet or another workflow.

To move a library into Sift on another device, import the JSON and review the merge before applying it. A CSV is a readable export, not a Sift import file. Neither format contains audio.

Need something new to organize? Follow the YouTube digging workflow, or open Sift and start a session.