Keeping track of tracking tracks

[BeagleFaceHenry]

I'm embarrassed to ask....
I've been recording my band for several years now, but always "Live" on a Tascam DP24. I mix at home with Sonar. This week, for the 1st time, we'll be individually multi-tracking straight to Sonar.
My question is how do you keep track of all the different versions of each track? When we've recorded in the past, we've done it as a group and either trashed or kept the entire take. If we wanted to keep a take but try again, we'd just start a new session. This week I'll be recording everyone individually. If, for example, I want to keep 4 versions of the drum kit (4 mics), would I keep 16 tracks? How do you keep track of which tracks are keepers? Do you just take copious notes?
Thanks!!
-j

 

[miroslav]

Well...notes certainly do help...but you can also just do a bunch of takes, name them accordingly...xxxxxx01, xxxxxx02...etc...and then when you are done tracking, sit down and listen to them all one at a time, and at that point decide what to keep.

Unless you need to churn out a rough finished mix by the end of the tracking sessions, there's really no reason to decide which ones to keep for later. I mean, you don't want to do 100 takes and then go through them, but you can certainly do 3-5 keeper takes and decide afterwards which to keep.
I think everyone can tell pretty quickly if a take was a total stinker, and you just want to delete it and do another one.

I try not to bury myself in lots of keeper takes that I have to then sift through. For important stuff, like vocals, etc...I'll do at most five keeper takes, and then sort it it from there...other key tracks I might do a couple of keeper takes...and the rest, I'll just do a bunch of passes, and only have one keeper take.
I mean...you can do 100 passes/takes....but you don't need to keep them all to pick from later on.

The real key is to practice and get it all sorted out before you ever hit REC...that way you won't need a lot takes.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

I usually record drums/bass/guitar together for basic tracks and I haven't been using a click lately. I can't have them in parallel since they won't line up so I tend to let the session run until we're sure we have one or two keepers, recording each take in series. Once we settle on the keeper I'll crop the session down and save it with a new name. This doesn't delete any audio but there's an option in Sony Vegas to crop those down into new, smaller files when saving with a new name.

 

[mixsit]

I'm embarrassed to ask....
I've been recording my band for several years now, but always "Live" on a Tascam DP24. I mix at home with Sonar. This week, for the 1st time, we'll be individually multi-tracking straight to Sonar.
My question is how do you keep track of all the different versions of each track? When we've recorded in the past, we've done it as a group and either trashed or kept the entire take. If we wanted to keep a take but try again, we'd just start a new session. This week I'll be recording everyone individually. If, for example, I want to keep 4 versions of the drum kit (4 mics), would I keep 16 tracks? How do you keep track of which tracks are keepers? Do you just take copious notes?
Thanks!!
-j

Lately I've been opening a new Note pad along with a new session -Sonar does have the 'Info text thing or what ever it's called- but it's real limited, and I want to use most of the notes w/o having to open sonar.

These tracks' and takes though-- Might this be 'take two of the drums on song take one (overdubbed -drums maybe not.
Or just starting a new take of the song- then just do them in series -after the end of the previous ver.
When you sort out the keepers, Save As (if you want to hang on to the big global proj for a while) under a new name/date or rev. Delete all the unwanted stuff. Save again. [don't forget your backups!]
Now do 'Consolidate Project Audio, makes a new B/U folder but only the audio of your keeper tracks.

 

[Stubby03]

I use Mixcraft 6 Pro Studio. I also record our band, individual tracks at a time. In each channel, kick drum, snare, etc. I can record several takes at a time in each channel, but I do keep a notebook just to write down which take was the best. I play bass, so I am always keying in on the drums. Sometimes I will take the 1st take kick, along with the 3rd take snare. There might have been a flub or 2 on one take I don't like. I do guitars the same way. Sometimes our guitar player thinks a certain take was good, when it was actually another take. I also keep a notebook on settings on amps, and mic postions. Just in case there would be a need for punch ins, I can match it up.

 

[mjbphotos]

Just record the multiple takes to new tracks, name them so you know what they are. 'Guitar lead 1' Guitar lead 2' 'Drums OH Left take 1', etc.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Just record the multiple takes to new tracks, name them so you know what they are. 'Guitar lead 1' Guitar lead 2' 'Drums OH Left take 1', etc.

This is what I do out of habit.

A lot of DAWs are able to record multiple takes to one track in a way like standalone recorders do, but for convenience rather than necessity. You can collapse the view so you only see the last take, or expand it to see all the takes. Typically this also includes a comping (compositing parts of different takes into one) tool.

 

[mjbphotos]

This is that I do out of habit.

A lot of DAWs are able to record multiple takes to one track in a way like standalone recorders do, but for convenience rather than necessity. You can collapse the view so you only see the last take, or expand it to see all the takes. Typically this also includes a comping (compositing parts of different takes into one) tool.

Yeah, Reaper allows that too, and I'll use that if I stop a take mid-point (because I messed up, or the phone rang), then re-start it. When I record a new 'take' from start to finish of the song, I'll put it on a new track, just my preference to keep them straight and be able to compare one against the other easier, or to see if two takes will work well together.