10 TIPS ON HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR DATA AS A MUSICIAN
Howdy SEA Fans, welcome to another Tiptuesday blog post.
For the past couple of weeks we are sharing tips related to music and today also we are talking about music.
The topic which is about to be discussed today is relevant to all those music enthusiasts as well as for those who planning to develop a career in the field of Music.
Many students who are passing out of our academy after completing the Diploma in Sound Engineering and Sound Recording course and those who are currently continuing with the course has the ambition to become a musician and the topic will be relevant to them as well.
When you are creating your own music you know that lots of people are going to love it and keeping track of the music you have created and securing the same is quite important.
Organizing your files and keeping the same safe, has to be given more prominence than your time and effort for creating the music other wise there are chances that all your hard work and effort will go in vain.
If you want to produce music efficiently, you need a good overview of your files.
Thankfully, there are a few incredible ways which can help you.
Secure your data on at least one additional disk, for example an external hard drive. Do this before you move or change it, so you can restore your old structure in an emergency.
Digitize analogue material so you can save it from damage or loss.
When you create a new document, whether a text document or a project in your DAW, first save the blank document. Then you can quickly and quickly save by keyboard shortcut and risk losing no data loss.
Save your project as soon as a step is completed. So you can access earlier versions.
And where to save?
Create a structure of folders and subfolders that best suits your projects.
Sort your data better based on the content and don’t rely on the file format. Try to avoid using these type of naming for your folders like “text”, “audio”, “pictures”, instead keep all the files that belong to a song in a folder and it has be further subdivided in a meaningful way like “DAW Files”, “Audio Mixes”, “Demoversions”, “Lyrics” etc.
One of the main benefit of keep this files in a particular folder with the suggesting naming looks obvious when another person access the same data.
If you want to share data with other musicians or work on another computer, you can easily drag and drop the entire song folder onto a USB stick and the receiving person will easily understand.
Are you giving meaningful names for your files and folders?
During the time when you are working on the file, it is easy for you to remember all the files names and you will have a better understanding of which is which.But half a year later when you look at the same files and folder you do not have an idea that you have saved the snug love song under “Filed001_neu2”.
Write in the filename as your song is called. If it does not yet have a name, provide a working title or at least important features.
It is a good idea to write about the version of your song, so what the last step was.
The word “new” should only appear in your file name if the song is named “new”.
To see what the latest version is, you can write the date to the beginning of the file name in the form: YYMMDD.
Secure data that you need when playing live on different data or sound carriers, for example USB stick, hard disk and CD.
Create a text file with notes for new ideas. Even with advanced projects, you can store important information such as key, tempo or the address of the guest musicians.
If you’re working on a song for a long time, or if you’re planning to “mix” a song later, you’ll also need to unzip hardware, software, and plug-ins that you need to open and edit properly. Otherwise, you may not be able to open the files, or you’ll have at least crucial elements, such as an effect or special sound.
Hardware can get broken and consumes a lot of space in the apartment. Software does not run any longer on your new operating system or the license runs out. Especially for music projects, it is therefore very important to store the data in such a way that they are as independent as possible of specific hardware or software:
Save in simple file formats, which will probably still exist in 20 years, for example .txt or .wav.
Export the individual tracks of your DAW project as single audio tracks, then you can simply import them into any other DAW.
Export the tracks each time you edit and once raw so you have the greatest scope for editing it later.
Your feedback. It is inevitable. So how do you deal with the above discussed topic? Share your experience and thoughts as comment below.
