Overview
Every sample in your library gets labels for free: a category, some tags, a genre guess. Those come from the filename and the folder it sits in, which is fine when a pack is named well and useless when it isn’t.
Deep Tagging replaces those guesses with real ones. It reads your library in context — the folder a sample sits in, its siblings, the pack it came from — and works out the genre, the creator, and the sample pack for each file. That does two things: it makes the genre, creator, and pack filters trustworthy, and it sharpens Deep Search, because the words being matched against are now describing the sound rather than repeating a filename.
Deep Tagging is the only part of processing that needs an internet connection. Everything else, including search by description, works offline and is free on every plan.
What it changes
The point worth holding onto: Deep Tagging changes label quality, never whether a sample is searchable. A library that has never been deep-tagged is still fully searchable by name, by sound, and by description.
Running it
Deep-tag a folder from its right-click menu in the File Browser or in Sample Directories, from the Deep Search row in the Library status readout, or by ticking folders in the Add Directory dialog when you first point Sample Vault at them.
A run works through your library in a few passes and can take a while on a large one. Watch it in the Library status readout, which names the pass it’s on.
It’s available across your whole library on any paid plan, with no cap on library size. On Demo Room you can deep-tag one folder to see what it does to your results. See Plans & Usage for what each plan includes.
Choosing which labels are allowed
Control which labels can be assigned from the taxonomy controls in Settings:
- Genres — detected genre classifications
- Tags — descriptive labels like “dark”, “punchy”, “ambient”
- Creators — detected sample pack creators or artists
- Sample Packs — detected sample pack names
Turn individual labels off and they won’t appear on any sample, even where Deep Tagging detected them.
If labels are landing that don’t match your library, turn them off here rather than editing samples one by one. Your library reconciles on the next pass.
Organizing Your Library
As your library grows, Sample Vault keeps it organized for you. A single pass tends three things together: it corrects and discovers categories by how samples sound, tidies your genre and tag lists, and assembles live collections. It runs on its own in the background, and you can start it on demand from Settings (see Organization settings). Anything you’ve made or named by hand is left untouched, and the whole pass is available on paid plans — see Plans & Usage for what each plan includes.
Categories by sound
Sample Vault groups samples that sound alike and uses those groups to put each one in the right category: a sample whose category doesn’t match how it sounds moves to the one its neighbours share, and a distinct kind of sound with no existing home — like hardstyle kicks or reverse cymbals — becomes its own category. Categories you’ve created yourself are never changed.
As you deep-tag more folders the genre and tag lists grow, and left alone they sprawl into near-duplicates, one-off labels, and tags that only repeat something you can already filter by. Sample Vault merges duplicates, groups specific values under broader families, and drops tags that only echo another filter like a category, key, or tempo. The result is the family grouping you browse in the filter sidebar. Tags you’ve created or renamed yourself are never deleted — organizing can only nest or relabel them, so your own vocabulary stays intact.
Reviewing what changed
Because these passes run on their own, Sample Vault keeps a record of the recent ones so you’re never left guessing what moved. Each entry shows when the pass ran, whether it was automatic or one you started by hand, and exactly what it changed — the categories it named, the genres and tags it merged or grouped, and the collections it built. You’ll find this history alongside the organization controls in Settings.