Okay, here's the rant I've been building up on for years and during the Tape Op Conference it came up a few times. What the fuck is wrong with some of you engineers out there that can't be bothered to include documentation with materials that leave your studio? And what's the deal with not educating artists and archiving their sessions?
Documentation
Multitrack Reels and Tapes: ON THE BOX
Info needed on the spine/box includes the tape number, date, artist and where it was recorded. If the name of the album or project has already been determined please put it here! On the actual analog reels write all the above info plus the number of tracks (24/16/8), tape speed, noise reduction (if used), EQ used (AES or CCIR), tail out (I hope) and the operating level (i.e. +6/185 nWb/m). If there are reference tones, make note of where they are located ("tones on tail," "tones on reel #1," etc.) There should be a Bass Sweep from 200 Hz down to 20 Hz. If a sweep oscillator is not available, 50 Hz is a better reference tone than 100 Hz. Also note where any bias pads are for setting up the machine on a new deck. These should always be at the end of a reel to avoid recording into the top of a song.
Digital multitrack tapes should include all of the info that is on the box, plus the bit/sample rates. Somewhere with the reels or tapes there should be a track sheet telling where all the songs are in absolute time, either on the tape case or an included sheet. Please. If there are alternate takes that won't be used for the album note this.
Track Sheets: IN THE BOX or IN A FOLDER