Documentation

You might not consider the documentation of your recordings to be in any way useful or necessary. I disagree. Others might disagree, and they might want to put your work before the public—if you have any commercial aspirations think of the next person to handle your recording. Or you yourself might rethink things as you get older.

I have always found my notes useful because I have a tendency to revisit compositions, either to remix them or to create an all new version.

And let’s not forget the value of documentation when working on a memoir, such as this blog. Do you really think I’d remember (or remember accurately) something I did twenty years ago?

Within the first few recording sessions, back in 1996, I started documenting what I was doing in an effort to understand what I was doing. Even more, I was afraid to touch anything or move anything, fearing I’d never be able to get back to where I was, so I would jot down the positions of faders and knobs, write down my synth patch settings and anything else. At first it was just simple diagrams and notes on a plain piece of paper. Within a week, I think, I had drawn my own tracking sheets for both recording and mixing. As the quantity and complexity of my equipment grew so did my collection of forms. Then when I went to digital recorder I drew up all new sheets to handle all the extra tracks. Finally, when I switched to recording on a computer, it all fell apart (although I do take screen shots and title the tracks so I’ll know which synths I used). I suppose some day I will no longer be able to open those old files and have no clue as to how a composition was laid out (it’s all proprietary, which since day one has been the downfall of digital). The real problem, so far, has been with the effects: every year or two the software needs to be updated and ACID tries to open version 2 rather than version 3 (or whatever it might happen to be—the program tries to open the version used rather than the current, updated version). I have failed to document the effects modules and settings. Once I start going I work quickly and pay little attention to anything except the flow of a piece. Besides, it’s hard enough to make time to work on a composition much less document every track setting. It’s possible I’ve done little that day except work on a composition, then I go to bed. (I’ve provided links at the end of this article, including a PDF of track sheets, but I doubt any of them specifically address this issue. You might want to do what I was doing in the early years and create your own to fit your exact needs. Create a Word document, or something similar, so you have a place to dump screen shots of all your settings. This is to help you remember what software instruments and effects used as well as the settings. On a computer it can become very complex with layers of windows and menus.)

While working on my last post (Number 23: Sex Is Something (You’ll Never Forget), I decided it was time to say something on this subject. That particular composition has enough documentation to show you what I mean but not so much we’ll never get through it (some of my things have been worked on so many times that I have thirty pages or more of track sheets, to say nothing of other production notes). My documents from the early years are useful and informative in that they say quite a bit about my working method as well as the usual record of what went on which track.

Until I switched to computer in 2002, most of my compositions began with a collection of samples (totaling 28 seconds), usually gathered from household objects, things found in our yard, or stuff from work (I was a screen printer at the time). The samples were trimmed. Some would be looped but most were one shots used in a percussive role. Here is a chart with the samples used in “Sex Is Something” along with the sequence number (1-16), the pad number (on a Roland MS-1 sampler—it had eight triggering pads times two banks of samples, A and B), the note on a piano keyboard, and the MIDI number of the note.

My reference document for the samples captured for “Sex Is Something”. It shows the assigned pad, MIDI note, and I forget what else in the little boxes down the left side. In the larger column is a description of each sound.

From here I’d structure some of the samples into a rhythm track (because of the limitations of the machinery and my own limited imagination these tended to be very rigid and repetitive and led me to refer to my compositional style as “rhythm ruts”), aligning them to a grid on the sequencer. This first document is the patterns themselves, showing which pads were triggered on which beats. The number in each row designates the velocity setting, simulating how hard the pad would be hit (usually the bottom third of the scale, whether 1-10 or 0-127, would be inaudible and anything too close the upper limit would sound the same, especially on the 128 scale—would you really hear the difference between 125 and 127?). The second document is the progression of one pattern to the next, creating the rhythm track. (The idea is the same whether it’s done in a computer or in a drummer’s mind but somehow sequencers produced the most rigid example.) On this recording all sixteen samples were used (I can never stand to waste anything) but those not in the rhythm patterns were triggered manually, as a performance, from a piano-style keyboard (a Roland XP-10).

Rhythm patterns created for “Sex Is Something” showing on what beat the samples would be triggered.

 

The sequence of rhythm patterns to create the rhythm track for “Sex Is Something”.

 

After this I would work on the other MIDI tracks, both recording performances of the other samples as well as more conventional sounding instruments. Pretty much all of this would have been performed and played back on a Roland XP-10, except for the samples, while the data regarding the notes would be stored on a sequencer. I would document the sound module (sampler, Casio or Roland keyboard), the specific patch, the MIDI channel, and what track it was on the sequencer. I also drew some staff paper to jot down conventional musical notation. (It’s good to see it’s in the key of “all the black keys”. In the late 1960s I had four years of accordion lessons, in which I learned the basics of note reading but almost no music theory. I guess polkas must be outside the scope.)

MIDI assignment documentation for “Sex Is Something”.

 

Staff sheet for the bass.

 

Finally, we have the track sheet for where I put the sounds on the four tracks of the cassette, at what volume, how they were panned, and what effects sends were used.

Track sheet for the first draft of “Sex Is Something”.

 

As mentioned, some of my compositions were attempted repeatedly, usually because on 4-track any little correction would entail a re-recording of all the tracks (just the analog, the MIDI would not change). My track sheets for the VS-880, instead, had to account for all the virtual tracks (I could have eight virtual tracks for each of the eight playback tracks…what this meant is that I could only have eight tracks of recording when I mixed the recording but that I had a total of sixty-four tracks to play with as I was recording and creating submixes). This one is from “Blue Bodies“.

The VS-880 track sheet for “Blue Bodies” showing the virtual tracks.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning, working in a DAW on a computer (up ’til now this has been ACID Pro, in the future it’ll be Cakewalk’s Sonar) has made me careless. I take screen shots of how the wave files are laid out, of how many tracks there are, but I miss all the details of the effects and other settings. I recommend starting a Word document or something similar concurrently as a place to dump screen shots of all your details (this is an idea I just had as I was writing this post—not sure if I’m up to practicing what I preach). Below is the screen shot from draft 3 (or 2) of “Sex Is Something”. You can see how much information is missing (or left to the imagination).

I don’t know if you can make it out. The first six, grayed out tracks are the MIDI files muted. You can see that they don’t contain wave information but are nothing more than a series of dashes of varying length. That’s what MIDI files are, not much more than a raw document of what notes and for how long (like txt files compared to rtf files). There is no sound inherent to MIDI notation. Most of these were rendered to WAV (tracks 11-15), which is why I muted them and ditched the software synths. Tracks 7-10 are active MIDI files that trigger a software synth, in this case Native Instruments’ Battery, which is a software drum machine (it basically replicates my Roland MS-1 sampler as a sound module, though if I’d wanted it could do so much more). The last three tracks are vocal, split up for different processing.

Screen shot in ACID Pro of “Sex Is Something”.

 

Here are some links on the subject of documentation: Mix article; Audio Undone article; ProSound Web article; Wikiaudio track sheet; Sound Current PDF tracking sheets. I did a search for “studio recording documentation sheets”. If you’re better at searches than I am I’m sure you can come up with a lot more.

Tape Op suggested a link to someone’s article on the subject but I’m drawing a blank on how to follow through. In general I recommend reading the magazine. To date there has been nothing specific to the recording of poetry. I read every issue because I’m interested in recording and the history of music, and each issue has some fascinating tales. Also, over the years, in the interviews, they’ve come to focus more on creativity and less on gear. Whereas the gear reviews have come to focus more and more on expensive, pro gear—not always, of course (but if you read other recording magazines you’ll find yourself lusting after and buying things that don’t work that well and that you often don’t need).