Guide · Songwriting

How to organise your voice memos as a songwriter

Most songwriters have the same problem: hundreds of voice memos called "New Recording", and somewhere in there is the best idea they ever had. Here is a simple system that works whether you have 50 memos or 2,000.

1. Get them off your phone

Ideas trapped in one app on one phone never get finished. On iPhone, open Voice Memos, tap Edit, select the recordings, then Share, then Save to Files. On a Mac, Voice Memos syncs through iCloud, so you can select everything and drag it into a folder.

2. Name them, badly

"New Recording 412" is the whole problem. Give each one a short name you will actually remember, and do not worry about it being good. "Car park chorus" or "Unicorn Pants" beats a number every time.

3. Triage at 2x speed

Do not listen to everything properly. Play through at double speed and keep anything that still gives you a feeling. Slow down to 0.75x only for the ones worth catching what you actually mumbled.

4. Stack every take on one song

The second voice note for the same idea, a new riff, the bridge you sang in the shower: they belong to the same song. Keep them together and in order, so you can hear the song turn into something and always know which take is the good one.

5. Give songs somewhere to go

Use a few stages, for example Inbox, Ideas, Half written, Finished demos and Released. Move a song one stage forward only when it gets better. Nothing expires and nothing nags you; you just always know what is closest to done.

6. Merge the half songs

A chorus from March and a verse from June are often the same song. When you find two halves that fit, put them together and keep both sets of takes.

7. Send one rough demo

A rough demo sent beats a perfect one sitting in a folder. Send it to one person, a producer, a bandmate or a friend, and ask for one note.