Music project planning tools?

Hi all.

Does anyone use software to organise and log their projects.

E.g.

Interlinked pages and notes so you can see which song uses a specific:

Synth patch
Octa set and project
Md snap and samplebank
Studio cabling setup
Musical description:
Performance details.

With reverse linking so you can check upwards from patch to song. Octa set to songs. Etc etc.

I really need a way to work with multiple songs so I can repatch and keep track.

I hope This makes sense.

Thanks

Just to give a bit more background since I got the octa I’m re patching a lot for each song/sound design project and need a way to keep track of everything so wondered if I could do it all in one app .

Im not really sure what to search for.

I use org-mode uber outliner of Emacs editor/environment. For organizing everything, not just musical projects. It’s kinda geeky tool but it has, amongst thousands of other features, very nice table editing capabilities. It allows me to quickly note I/O routing of the gear into simple matrix tables. I gues any spreadsheet editor would do it too.

For visual routing plannig I use yEd, free scheme drawing tool with a lot of cool features.

i use cycling 74 max. i can’t really get into keeping track unless i can actually use the thing to keep track. :slight_smile: you might be able to get away with the demo and then subscribing for a couple months to get it figured out and then using the free non-editable version.

i like some stuff on os9 too, but that’s not really worth the hassle of tracking down just for that.

Cube, I’v been using Emacs for many many years at work, and never would have considered it as a musical tool (even if it is for i/o routing)…will have to check this out.
And yEd is a very nice drawing tool indeed.

I’m looking into emacs, it may be too code based for me but I will check it out.

Poonti. How exactly do you use max? Can you save notes and images and link them?

Thanks for the tips. Very helpful.

For now I’m just gonna do it on paper. I may be over complicating it although this type of thing is definitely what software is/should be good at.

Emacs makes sense only if you are coder or linux enthusiast. It can really take some time to grasp it.

This is an example of MIDI patchbay routings in plain text tables from org-mode.


Now it occurs to me that you might like something like Wikidpad or any similar wiki-like tool. There you can usually interlink notes, embed images, etc.

And how about Evernote?

yEd is awesome. I’m kind of making it up as i go along. Is there any way to link a group of boxes as one object? This is what I’ve got so far


Now I can save my patches which may be all I need alongside a page of notes for each song. I will check wikidpad and evernote thanks cube.

My stepbrother pointed me to an app called Trello. This is a great way to make notes when I have ideas so they wont get lost or buried.

VUE (Visual Understanding Environment), a free application from Tufts University, might be a useful tool for some people:

The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is an Open Source project based at Tufts University. The VUE project is focused on creating flexible tools for managing and integrating digital resources in support of teaching, learning and research. VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information.

Much more information at:
vue.tufts.edu