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Save often and have a backup plan

Recording Tip of the Day: Save often and have a backup plan

 Cartooncomputercrashguy

Learn the key command, “Control S” (“Command S” on a Mac).  Whatever recording software you're using, it will have two different save functions.  “Save” and “Save As”.  The one draw back of computer recording, as opposed to analog recording, is computers and software crash.  If you are not in the habit of saving your work as you go, you will lose many recordings, time and probably hair, as you will pull it out.

 

Save -  While working on projects, I like to “Save” after every significant change and also after every few mixing moves.  Most recording programs have an automatic “Save” option, which is worth taking advantage of. Despite an automatic Save function, I still recommend hitting Save right after that awesome vocal take, before you touch anything else.

 

Save As – This is a great way to save many versions of your project, some examples being “Song_WithVox” “Song_NoVoxSong_DrumsAdded” etc.  In any one of my project folders you will find many different named version of the same song.  I often 'save as', and put the date in the version name as I work on the mix.  This allows me to quickly see which is my most recent mix and version.

 

Backup – No one likes to learn a lesson the hard way so, trust me when I say, back up all of your projects and folders to at least 1 extra hard drive.   It's recommended to have multiple backups on different drives and stored at separate locations.  Personally, I back up on two external drives, but with today's Cloud technology, one could easily back up to the cloud and pay a yearly fee for storage.  Whatever you decide to do, just make sure your files are backed up.

Mike Lizotte

   

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