Keeping Track of your Tracks: Labeling your Tracks

With the digital world making it easier to take your work anywhere you go, it makes it harder to keep track of what you were working on.  Files with the same name, different sizes, different dates…where is the one you are looking for?  Pro Sound Web’s Mark Marshall has some great suggestions and the importance of labeling your tracks.

The key to labeling and naming sessions is to stay consistent with whatever system you choose.  Over obsess every time you save and update a file.  If you move it to another device be sure to mark it in the file name. Marshall uses a numbering system, however typically I would date the tracks.

For Example if I had a track titled “Deepest Despair” and the date I am working on it was March 31st, I would call it Deepest_Despair_331.  If I saved it I add a V1.  So the modified version would be Deepest_Despair_331_V1.  The following day it would become Deepest_Despair_41_V1 and so on and so forth.  This is just my way, Check out what Mark has to say.

To each their own, but it’s undeniable that labeling and naming your tracks is crucial to not only your organization but also your productivity.  How do you mark your tracks?