…Initializing…

In making good on the last post I made I have made myself a track template in google sheets.

This is some of the best homework I’ve ever started. So let’s talk about what a template like this can help accomplish.

1. This will keep you in the flow. It’s clean. If you are like me, clutter seems to follow you everywhere. And certainly, it’s not your fault. It’s a similar to the relationship Taylor has with drama. I swear I don’t love the clutter; it loves me. In a glance I can see where I am in the track arrangement. It gives me the correct information to support my continued production without forcing me out of the flow to listen to other track which is absolutely a mood killer.

2. Only critically useful information is shown. I particularly think that tying in the loudness and dynamic range will prove to be a strong metric to pay attention to in reference because this is another space where I often find myself losing the flow when I start actively listening to reference tracks.

3. This separates producer tasks. I strongly believe that good producers don’t actively wear multiple hats at once. As an absolutely average and nearly normal human being, I can attest to the challenge of trying to ADHD your way through music sessions. Recycled some chords to make a track? Sure. Throw some vocals onto a loop to generate melodic ideas? Great. Mix an old project that was nearly finished? Good. Master a track a few days after mixing? Nice. Coming up with a track idea while also mixing while learning sound design and incorporating a follow along youtube tutorial? Highly unlikely. A template like this can remain open while I actively listen to a track a few times over to get all the details. Later, after I’ve switched hats from listening to production, I can keep my production hat on and look at my template again to generate ideas and troubleshoot my own arrangement.

I will have more on this later where I will discuss what tools I use for referencing and what else I’ve reflected on along the way.

Happy tuning