Recording Tip 11: When done recording, clean up your regions. Delete things not to be heard and clean up all punches and edits

There are few things which can bust a groove more when mixing than to have to stop and cleanup all the garbage left over from the recording session. Remember your mixer is getting paid for their time. And cleaning up regions is about as musical as doing taxes. It’s not a part of the mixing process and requires your mixer to stop thinking musically, but go into "cleanup mode" and you lose precious mix time.

Put fade ins and outs on all regions. And where there are punches, crossfade with the "Equal Power" fade and make sure they all sound good and natural. Also, I prefer any region not to be used to be deleted, not muted. If I see a muted region I then wonder if it’s something you may want, but not sure of. If that’s the case, and you're not certain, put it on a separate track marked “alternate” or something like that. I also ask that all extra takes and tracks, including midi tracks, to be deleted so the only things in the session are things to be used. Your mixer isn’t a mind reader. Let them know that what you want is what you give them.