Recording Tip – Getting Organized
These new digital audio recorders are great. They make it easy to have hundreds of audio clips in short order. The problem is the naming (by default) on the zoom H2 and H4 is STE-000.wav etc…. which can be a little annoying. Organizing my efforts really streamlined what I’m able to do recording wise. Here’s what I’ve done to make my work with these digital recorders easier.
Using a spreadsheet program I’ve made a basic template with 000, 001, etc…. down the left hand column. I’ve put a grid around several other columns. One column is headed with just the word Delete. If I record something and then later think it was junk I just put a check or other mark in that column and I can go through and delete a bunch at once without having to do so through the digital recorders interface. (Also deleting later keeps your file numbering scheme intact.) I also make notes on each track recorded trying to describe the content (song name/key for instance.) For some I have just left the recorder going and going through several takes. If that’s the case I’ll note that the last take is the best (the rest can be deleted.)
The bottom line is using these track sheets to help make your post-recording work move that much quicker. Before I started doing this I had to go back and listen through every single track I recorded and then make a decision (which was tedious). Now I can through out the junk and make notes of the gems as I go on the track sheet. I’d print out a couple pages worth of this to carry with you (and the recorder.) Also, the first step post-recording is transferring the files and giving them appropriate names (describing the content) so you don’t have to continually listen to them to identify them.
For your convenience here is a PDF of my zoom H4 track list template and an XLS versoin of my zoom H4 track list template.
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