Share your Track Sheet Ideas here...

S

Speedy VonTrapp

New member
I asked this question over in the recpit, and just thought I'd ask it over here to, in order to get a good variety of answers.

I'm curious as to how everyone handles the organization of their tracking procedures for a song.

Do you keep a track sheet at all? Just scribbles on some paper? Printouts from a spreadsheet? Digital photos of your settings?

I'm trying to find the best way to organize things, and be as efficient as possible. Hopefully this thread will serve to give others some good ideas, as well.

Those of you who have been doing this for a while, must know that having a system in place will help you to be more efficient, and I would love to hear some of the tips that you have in this particular area.

If you have examples to share, attach them so people can see how it's done!

As for myself, right now, I usually just note on a piece of paper in pencil what I'm doing. It's not the best way to do things, so I'm looking for something better.

I look forward to hearing some of the ideas here!

-Speedy
 
www.massivemastering.com/special/AudiographicsTrackSheet.pdf

I keep it there in case I wind up somewhere with no/cheesy sheets. It get's pretty complex near the bottom, but once you get used to it, it rocks. The bottom area is for sweep sessions where everything is going to wind up on the same track all the time. The area off to the right gives you room to write in specific instruments (long boxes) that show up and in what tunes (check boxes) that they're in. So, if you've got a trumpet that shows up in tunes 4 & 6 and some cowbell in 1 & 5, you can just check them in and either checkmark or write the track number that it appears on in that tune in the box.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com
 
Last edited:
I don't use track sheets. I use instead track flow sheets. They have a long horizontal space for each track, and a time line going along the top and bottom. I mark off the start of each section of the song as vertical lines going through the whole sheet (intro, verse, chorus, solo, etc.), and I mark the particular instruments start and stop times on each track. This way, I know, for example, exactly when that Hurdy Gurdy part is going to start for the third verse, and I can see that it would overlap the guitar solo, so I need a new track for it. I can also see that the guitar solo will not over lap the second chorus, so I can put that chorus tambourine part on the guitar solo track. You can look at a track flow and you will see the instrument relationships instantly. It allows you to use up track space much more efficiently. It makes mixing much easier, and allows you to be much more creative. This was one of the most useful things they taught us at Berklee.

I would post an example, but mine are in a 13x17 format (yes, I have a big printer), so I can't scan them, and the raw files would not do you much good anyway.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
You could also use Microsoft Project. That being said, there is probably better (ie. Cheaper) software that generates flow charts and is more recording oriented.
 
I've moved away from hard copy track sheets since I switched to DAW software. Many of the things that I once kept track of by hand are handled on screen by the computer. But it's interesting to see how many different approaches there are out there. I did a quick Google search using the terms "track sheet" and download and I came up with some interesting results.

The 3d Audio website has a program/template for tracking ADAT recordings

http://www.3daudioinc.com/3daudio_adatpro_info.html

These guys offer a tracking program for palm organizers:

http://www.pdagreen.com/software_detail.asp?id=8006

And this site has software that will do track sheets and a wide variety of other studio tasks:

http://www.rootsolutions.de/studioease/index.htm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top