# Keeping track of ideas (everything and anything ...)



## hozierschurch (Apr 19, 2018)

Wondering how you guys keep track of your musical ideas (I'm thinking more chord progressions / melodies / themes e.t.c. which come to you as you are improvising).

At the moment I keep coming up with ideas which I save in whichever project I have open at the time in Logic but that ironically is pretty illogical and is pointless when trying to recall them.

Other than going back to sketching them by hand, which I'm trying to get away from, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts


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## Rodney Money (Apr 19, 2018)

Convert them to sound files saving them in a folder on your computer or a website like box.com.


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## SchnookyPants (Apr 19, 2018)

I have some catch-all projects (in REAPER) called "Snippets Jazzish"; "Snippets Classical", etc. I work usually via "piano" so I have my Piano VSTi in them. Then, when the occasion arises, I just dump the MIDI snippet in one of my catch-all projects. Or, as Rodney suggests, render to WAV and do the same.


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## Vik (Apr 19, 2018)

I consider getting Sibelius just for that purpose. 
http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/5/hub.html


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## DoctorGuitar007 (Apr 19, 2018)

I like Notion for iPad from Presonus. Being on the iPad I can work on these sketches even when I'm not at my DAW. In fact, I now fully sketch and orchestrate all new pieces in Notion before I sequence them.


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## Michel Simons (Apr 19, 2018)

I create a new project for those ideas. So that's a separate project for every single idea. Probably not the most quick and efficient way and it can get quite messy if you have a lot of ideas (which I don't have).


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## Dewdman42 (Apr 19, 2018)

If you're using Logic you can save a lot of ideas as Apple Loops and save in the loop browser. In Logic you can actually save a midi region along with the channel strip settings as a midi loop in there...and then as you browse through you will hear the midi loop with the sounds you originally used, etc..and drag it into your project as needed.


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## hozierschurch (May 12, 2018)

Rodney Money said:


> Convert them to sound files saving them in a folder on your computer or a website like box.com.



Seems so obvious now. Starting doing this this week and it’s inproved my workflow no end!


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## Rodney Money (May 12, 2018)

hozierschurch said:


> Seems so obvious now. Starting doing this this week and it’s inproved my workflow no end!


Awesome to hear!


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## kclements (May 12, 2018)

I use Apple Music Memos for this. So great (and quick) to “dictate” an idea. It does a pretty good job of detecting tempo (especially when you get used to how it works), and imports into Logic. 

I can pick up my phone, sing or play in the idea and get back to the project on hand in seconds.


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## mac (May 12, 2018)

A lot of times my ideas will be intrinsically linked to a particular sound I'm using, so I save them out as separate logic projects, usually with a prefix in the name.


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## mac (May 12, 2018)

Dewdman42 said:


> In Logic you can actually save a midi region along with the channel strip settings as a midi loop in there...and then as you browse through you will hear the midi loop with the sounds you originally used, etc..and drag it into your project as needed.



In all my years using logic, I had no idea you could do this! So when you drag it into a project, it'll load up everything in that channel, including the synth parameters you're using? And can you preview it when scrolling through the midi loops?


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## Dewdman42 (May 12, 2018)

You might have to create a track stack and save is as a patch first. I can’t remeber now but basically, yes


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## hozierschurch (May 12, 2018)

DoctorGuitar007 said:


> I like Notion for iPad from Presonus. Being on the iPad I can work on these sketches even when I'm not at my DAW. In fact, I now fully sketch and orchestrate all new pieces in Notion before I sequence them.


l

How user friendly is Notion? Is it worth the £15?

And can the same software be used on iPad and iPhone or does that require a separate app?

Thanks!


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 12, 2018)

I have almost 3 days (almost 72 hours) of ideas on my hard drive (a lot of boring stuff but also some melodies I'm really looking forward to realize), as simple as that.  
Basically there are only wav and mp3 files so I can just quickly scan through them and check them out when I need an idea...

I just record them when they come to me, mostly in my sequencer when I'm messing around or a bit of singing on the street lol...

You could also categorize them into genres, styles, moods etc... so when you are working on a particular project you would know where to look for...


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## Akarin (May 12, 2018)

I usually record ideas with a single piano patch. Then, I export this as MIDI to attempt to future-proof my ideas as I don't know yet which DAW I'm going to use in a few years... For now, it's Cubase but 6 months ago, it was Logic.

Everything gets saved into Dropbox. I have different folders such as _Motifs_, _Themes_, _Melody+Harmony_, etc. 

As for naming (that's the most difficult part), I use a combination of the key, tempo and an attempt at the feeling with the date and weather (that's how my memory works): _Dmin-130-sad-20180512-light_rain.mid
_
It may seem like overkill but a quick look at my directories structure reveals 433 MIDI files... I never know when I'll need one of them and being able to find one quickly is nice.


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## JohnG (May 12, 2018)

I write them down on music paper.

I'm not being weird or old-school-is-best either. I've tried other ways -- recording ideas on my DAW or making lots of short files that I keep in iTunes or something, but I find it just becomes a heap of files that never get touched.


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## fretti (May 12, 2018)

First I used to write it all down in a new Cubase Project wich means I have now about 100 Projects where I have no clue what is where...
Now I use the old fashioned way of writing them down on a piece of paper or in my notebook (depends on what I have nearby at that moment); makes it easier to try them out later as I can just play them on a piano patch in whatever project I currently have opened and can try what fits best.
Might seem out of place in the 21. century as you are also searching for a newer method, but that seems to be for me the style where I can keep track on what ideas I had at some point...

People like Harry Gregson-Williams or Carlie Paradis (I believe) have a mic set up to their Grand Pianos recording all the time and when they had a good idea they can just look at the audio recording what it was (but ultimately they still write it down; don't know though if on paper or in logic/cubase).
HZ uses diaries in cubase meaning he just writes the idea down he has in that moment and develops it (or just lets it sit there in case it doesn't work) and continues in the same project (but he has like unlimited power PC-wise, so for me that would probably kill my CPU at some point when I have a project length of a few hundred minutes or so only because of the ideas I had somewhere...)


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## R. Soul (May 12, 2018)

I don't.
If a tune is not working it's usually abandoned within an hour. 
If I come up with a melody that doesn't fit the current project but is otherwise good, I generally just delete it. I've tried going back to old abandoned projects and they just don't inspire me to start on them again. 

Do you guys find that you often go back and polish those rough diamonds into whole tunes?


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## Vik (May 12, 2018)

I really wish the Logic workaround would work for multitrack ideas, and that there was a separate section for personal ideas only, and an easy way to search only among these ideas. 

What I do now is usually to store ideas as projects with the name "idea" in the project title. At some point I made audio files, but that wasn't useful for me, I'd like to open the idea in a format which contains tempo info, MIDI notes etc. Btw, I know one guy who has started saving ideas by making a short movie clip (using his phone) of himself playing - then he can go back and see what he did if needed.


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## hozierschurch (May 12, 2018)

JohnG said:


> I write them down on music paper.
> 
> I'm not being weird or old-school-is-best either. I've tried other ways -- recording ideas on my DAW or making lots of short files that I keep in iTunes or something, but I find it just becomes a heap of files that never get touched.



Nothing wrong with old-school! Only I don’t have a piano so by the time I’ve loaded up Logic and got the Midi Keys going, I figure I might as well just play and export. I tend to orchestrate on paper though


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## hozierschurch (May 12, 2018)

kclements said:


> I use Apple Music Memos for this. So great (and quick) to “dictate” an idea. It does a pretty good job of detecting tempo (especially when you get used to how it works), and imports into Logic.
> 
> I can pick up my phone, sing or play in the idea and get back to the project on hand in seconds.



Another good shout. Didn’t even know this was on my iPhone!


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