And yet, it gets worse: this processor is detented, with individual steps occurring quite frequently. While ambience matching technology exists, why not spare yourself the hassle by taking some notes upfront? Trust me, there's little that’s more annoying than trying to recreate a sound with nothing to prime your memory.Īctually, I can think of one thing: failing to do so, and trying to massage the resulting overdub into congruity. If you need to, you can match the sound as closely as possible later down the line with a carefully crafted input list.Ī sound's character changes vastly depending on mic choice, mic position, room position-heck, even the channel of your specific preamp (if you're using boutique pres). Input lists are important because your sessions might stretch over multiple days indeed, you might find yourself revisiting a song months later with an artist, and as such, it’s vitally important to keep a record of how every source was recorded. However, this is an essential art, and one that should not be lost in the shuffle of modernization. This might be a no-brainer for those who've worked in a recording studio-or even a rehearsal room-but if you've only operated out of your own project studio, it might not cross your mind to keep a real-time, handwritten list of the goings-on when recording. So here are ten situations during which I'd recommend you keep vigorous notes, preferably with pen and paper. Does this make note-taking self defeating? I would say no. At least, that’s the case for me I find that if I’m keeping handwritten notes while rewiring a patchbay or wandering through an unfamiliar studio, there's a far better chance I’ll recall where everything goes without having to refer back to my notes. Yet there’s a second benefit to keeping handwritten notes, and this one’s all mental: something about committing notes to paper stores your setting deeper in your brain.

Pen and paper, on the other hand, circumvent the corrupted file, the downed computer, and the intermittent storm clouds. I won’t name names, but certain services have caused some engineers a lot of trouble. Where would you be if you lost your bearings in the middle of a malfunction? I bet you’re thinking, “I could just save my notes to the cloud!” True, but sometimes the cloud can rain on your parade. Two reasons come to mind the first one obvious, the second subliminal but equally important.įirst, files corrupt systems crash. Yes, in this rapidly modernizing world, the subject of this article may seem a bit counterintuitive-and definitely more than a little dry: we do everything on phones, tablets, and computers, so why would we ever trust anything to pen and paper?

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