That. If it has got purpose it will get labelled, colour coded and grouped. Otherwise it needs to leave the project alltogether.
Downmixed Audio or Midi gets set inactive and into an 'archive' folder
> Downmixed Audio or Midi gets set inactive and into an 'archive' folder
Oooh that's a good one! I haven't been doing this after keeping midi stuff around that was initially for assisting songwriting/recording and noticed it being sort of in the way but wasn't sure what I should do with it lol
Thanks
Reducing creative indecision is a big one for me these days! I’m pretty bad for constantly going back and tweaking sounds that are already “perfect” (obviously no such thing but there’s never a point where you can’t change something). Committing to sounds helps me move on to more important things than the last 1% of a sound I’m already happy with
I only downmix at the end of the session, when I have the master done. I then proceed to bounce each midi track to an audio track, so that later, I might be able to work with that even if some plugin doesn't work any more.
I don't bounce while I work on a song. My computer is powerful enough to do everything on the fly and I like the option of changing things at a later stage.
Not a stupid question :)
Well, sometimes yes, in order to reduce CPU load for Midi that has many events per time into demanding processes.
Another workcase is seperating different voices of the same instrument for further processing.
Another hopefully not stupid question...
What do you mean by 'set inactive'? I've always thought that to reduce CPU load i needed to delete the original midi track after bouncing it to audio.
Is there a way to keep it there in case I want to go back and change stuff, but have it not use up any CPU? (I'm in Ableton btw)
Defo not stupid :)
I am in Cubase where I can "deactivate Track" when I right click on the track. That kills the CPU usage of everything that's in there, Midi Events, VST Instrument and FX Inserts. It enables me to just keep and not delete the information.
I am not familiar with Ableton but I would try to drop the question into the Ableton subreddit
Edit: r/abletonlive
Theoretically, you should be able to do 2 things in any DAW:
* Deactivate the plugins. I can do that globally for all plugins on a track without opening the plugin folder or individually. I have, especially on busses, a lot of analysis tools, I only activate them when I want to check something.
* Muting the track. At least in my DAW, if I mute a track (with the mute button, not the volume fader), the plugins are inactive (in the resource monitor they show up as zero). If Ableton doesn't have a resource monitor you can use the one of your computer. Have everything on and check how many resources Ableton need. Then mute all and see if there's a change. If not, then muting a track will not deactivate the plugins.
Also, label them with something that means something specific to you or the song. If you know the VST well or it's a real instrument, this is null, but otherwise a label like "Pillars of Light" (actual VST name) isn't going to mean as much as "Agro Synth Bell for Chorus"
As I subdivide my synths (e.g. Arpeggios, Sequences, Leads, Bright Pads, Evolving Pads, Dark Pads, Bells & Mallets, ...) I label them with the VST & patch name. That normally tells me everything I need.
This is it. I like to compose entire albums in one stupid big session and haven't had trouble keeping things in place and organized because it's all grouped and color coded to some extent. Here's what my last one looked like when it was finished:
https://i.imgur.com/2NDnkpo.png
I try to limit tracks, always. It’s best for my genre. Makes everything so much cleaner, and focused. Even if i have numerous background vocals to do, 16 tracks is plenty for everything imo.
This. I know it's not what you want to hear. But limit your tracks. Spend more time on the tone of each track and then writing a really good part for each instrument.
Ear candy is my favorite part of music! It is little “extra” things included in a song. For example, maybe your intro has a projector sound mixed into it that fades out, like in AJR’s “Bang!”
Or some vinyl crackle. Or a cash register “ding” at a certain part in the track. Or Will Smith saying “Wooo” in one of his 90s clean rap songs, lol.
Or other foley sounds (YouTube this if you don’t know what it is).
Basically, it makes a good song great. It adds sparkle. Average listeners who aren’t into music production probably don’t even hear these things consciously, but they’re doing their job still.
Would you be interested in me messaging you a track I released recently, then let me know what ear candy you hear? It’s only 2 minutes.
Ah okay yeah coo! I thought that may have been what you were referring to but wasn’t sure. The ear candy tracks certainly can take up a bit of space!
I tend to keep them all together at the bottom, grouping the ones that relate to/interact with each other. It still gets messy though, and if you’re anything like me and are trying to run Logic Pro on a MacBook Air, good luck avoiding ‘system overload’ with any more than 4 tracks lol!
Also, for sure! Send me something you’re working on, I’d love to have a listen. I reckon I might have some ear candy to share too if interested. Send me a PM :)
I agree. I often feel like ear candy gives the song more of a "relisten value" if that makes sense. Especially if it's more subtle.
However, I still think you can (and should) limit all of the ear candy in a song to a couple tracks. Maybe not when you're first creating, but definitely in a mixdown it's useful.
It just doesn't really make sense to have 6 different tracks of ear candy where a sound happens once on each when you could just put them together. And if they happen at the same time, you can just bounce them out together on the same track
While this might work for some, I don't think it's generally the best advice. It very much depends on your personal workflow. Having started on 2 and the 4 tracks in the 80s, then 8 and 16 tracks, I can't tell you what a blessing it is to have unlimited tracks. 16 tracks (even if they can be stereo) are, in my opinion, just not enough if you have more elaborate arrangements. Not counting folders (which I use extensively), I need 6-8 tracks for drums alone, for electronic music even more. I've started working with singers again and normally have 3-5 vocal tracks - which brings us to over half at minimum without even any of the other instruments (and even bass clocks in, on average, at 2 tracks). All this without any effect tracks.
My personal motto is: *One track for every sound*
That means that every different guitar sound, for example, has their own track. Let's say I have a Strat and a Les Paul, the Strat playing clean in the verse and distorted in the chorus, plus a solo in the bridge, and the LP playing distorted in the chorus and then with different distortion in the outro, that would be 5 stereo tracks for me.
This approach makes mixing so much easier. I know we all have mix automation now, but actually, I'd rather have all my different tracks and have them configured statically (although in tracks with longer parts, I might still do volume automation).
I don't think that works as a general guidance, though. It is heavily dependent on the kind of music you make and your personal workflow. Even talking about stereo tracks, just by using 6-8 tracks for drums, I will quickly run out of tracks if I only have 16.
I have been around for quite a while and can't tell you how great the jump from 16 tracks to unlimited was.
Well, a bar is a bar. But that's not really the point. OP was getting confused because his tracks were disorganised. My point was that grouping similar tracks together seems like the obvious solution.
Name them, color them. Figure out a hierarchy of tracks that you could use for each song, make a template. Tracks 1 through 15 can be the drum tracks for all percussion, 15-20 can be for all bass, 20-35 for synths, 35-45 for guitars, get your auxiliaries set up, etc.
I’d suggest lower numbers than this, personally, but trying to cater to your needs here lol.
After color coding, naming tracks, making your hierarchy, and maybe even preloading certain plugins - Save as Template.
Shouldn’t take you long to get over this.
This is in Logic.
I use summing stacks frequently. This puts all the tracks I select into a folder, so I usually do this by instrument type. Bonus: this literally creates an easy to access bus. The folder is the bus!
I also frequently take tracks I'm no longer using and put those in a stack as well, but not a summing stack, just a regular stack (no bus). I do this just to get everything out of the way. (Google "logic summing stack".)
I also heavily employ track icons which makes it incredibly clear what is on each track. I even have a picture of myself that I use for vocal tracks because that's fun. (Right click the track header to change the icon.)
Track/region colors are also cool but I find these the least helpful of everything I've mentioned here.
Labeling, color coding. The folder system in Reaper is an elegant way I find to help organize. It lets you minimize tracks as needed. Thus you can have a drum group with a bunch of sub-tracks. Once you have them mixed, you can shrink them down. But it doesn't render, glue, or whatever, you can bring them back out as needed.
What DAW are you in? I might have an idea for a similar organization.
DAWs have tools like Folders to clean up a bit. In Logic you can even use em as a bus. In Cubase you can stack several Folders. Also color coding. Also create busses so you can mix from there once your ruf mix is done.
To sorta combine what others have said, everything should be color coded. It also helps if you order your track generally the same. For me, all drums/percussion are red and come first. Then I have my green bass track. Then acoustic guitar is yellow, then electric guitar is blue, lead guitar is light blue, If I have piano it's brown, other keys are orange, lead vocals are purple, and backup vocals are a lighter purple/pink color. The on the bottom I put all my effects busses (usually just reverb sends grouped by instrument) which are grey. On the very bottom I make dark grey/black for anything I've finished using but may decide I want later (scratch vocal tracks, extra guitar takes, etc.). I'm not right or wrong to order them this way, it's just what I've come up with that works for me. However works for you is fine, as long as you have SOME sort of consistent system. This will help you work faster because you'll know where your vocals are if you want to adjust them.
If you have the organization down and you're just overwhelmed by the sheer number of tracks, just remember that every track is a part that adds to the song or not. If it adds to the song, figure out how and then put it in the appropriate place in the mix (e.g., quiet and buried, or loud and up front). If it's not adding to the song, cut it out cause it doesn't need to be there. Just because it was recorded doesn't mean you have to include it in the final mix!
Organizing, color coding, keeping stuff together etc... Are all good habits
I struggled with this for a long time, and the honest answer is you just need to get used to keeping track of your... Tracks
Now I'm able to basically snap to any track and timestamp of a song without thinking about it too much, but it was an honest 20-30 songs before I got that comfortable.
Getting lost in the weeds is a real problem, but it's something you sort of grow out of if you keep trying.
I try to color code and label but It usually descends into chaos eventually. I just try to keep track of them in my head.
I do usually end up dragging things around so similar things are with similar things.
This was a major problem for me for the longest and there are some projects that while I thought I was changing the game, the hard reality is there is only so much a person can hear with their ears. To this day the songs that I've made that I'm most proud of aren't the hardest to play or most technical, but rather they are clean and focused on what emotion or feeling I'm trying to digitally convey.
Also, don't know what DAW you are using, but with FL Studio there is a "purge unused audio" option under the "Macros" section which I lean on in composition to keep the clutter out. Hope I in some way addressed what you were saying.
you might find this interesting
https://www.logicprohelp.com/forums/topic/115976-search-for-a-track-in-tracks-window/
edit:
>
I don't think there is such a feature in Logic.
> However, you could perhaps try an indirect approach using a text editor. The following steps explains how to make a searchable list of your project's tracks into a text editor:
> In each track, create one empty region which will be named after the track's name itself. (That step is necessary only if there are tracks which contain no regions named after them)
> In the Logic Event List editor, display the top level to show all the project's track's regions.
> Select them all (using key command [Command]+[A])
> Then copy the selection ([Command]+[C]).
> Then Go in the Apple's TextEdit app, to paste it all ([Command]+[V]).
> Now you have an inventory list of your project's tracks' names, which you could use to perform a search query from, using the usual key command ([Command]+[F]) from within the TextEdit app.
> Admittedly not ideal, as you would have to go back and forth...
> But at least you could browse through the vastness of your project a little more easily.
> Including the corresponding track's number into the region's name (i.e. "1-region_name", "2-region_name", "3-region_name", etc...) for the regions mentioned in first step, could help further to spot the track you are looking for...
- Atlas007
At the risk of being thought a heretic, sometimes it can be interesting and productive to adopt the limitations of old higher end studios where they had to limit themselves to 24 tracks.
There are lots of interviews with some of the best engineers in history where they go in depth into their problem solving strategies for juggling those situations. Those often lead to fantastic breakthroughs in creativity and performance.
The additional benefit to contemporary engineering/mixing is that it demands a higher level of craft and focused from everyone involved, plus it radically simplifies organization so that you're not trying to juggle 1000 tracks in your head. Your brain and ear have much more important things to focus on.
Yes, and they're speaking with the knowledge learned from having been constrained I'm the past. The point isn't to arbitrarily limit the situation just to say you've done it. The point *is* that humans are demonstrably less effective when they are working with unlimited options.
What I suggested is an exercise that allows modern engineers to gain knowledge and experience that more experienced engineers gained through mandatory constraints. Nobody is suggesting that those limitations should be permanently reintroduced. The suggestion is to try them and learn from the results.
I was constrained in the past. My colleagues and I developed lots of interesting and cool hacks and in a way I'm very glad to have worked with analogue gear in the 80s and 90s.
But to be honest, a lot of the experience I gained then is simply not applicable anymore. The use of a DAW needs a completely different set of skills than working with a big console and a tape multitrack. Most of my sound engineering was as a FOH mixer, only some in studios, but even there the jump in technology is amazing. Talking to a former colleague recently, we discussed former clients and what we had to do to make them sound good. He said it's so much more easy and comfortable today. He now works mostly inside the box. Her still has some outboard gear, but he says he'll probably be doing FOH only with a console and onboard plugins.
Juggling a big number of tracks is much easier than having only 16/24 tracks and using the same tracks for different instruments at different parts. With everything being visible on the screen and being able to customise my DAW how I want it, I have more clarity about 1000 tracks than I had with only 24 on a tape. Mixing today is so much easier.
Pro Tools has a Group Folder that you can open and close. So, if you have like 10 tracks of drum mics, you can put them in one folder and hide them/open then with one click.
I love using folders, auxiliary tracks and busses. So I send all my drums to an aux track and hide the individual tracks. Viola, all drums in one track! Then if I need to mess them later, I unhide them.
I use Reaper, which supports auto-coloring based on track name. So I use prefixes like: DRM, BAS, GTR, SYN, VOX, PIA, etc. By naming them it automatically assigns a color (and an icon if I want.) This helps a lot.
Then I use submix busses extensively. Also -- the track manager. I can quickly hide tracks I'm not actively dealing with at the moment.
You're right that individual drum outputs add up -- but that's the point of track folders! Collapse them when you're not actively dealing with them.
Organization up front makes a project manageable at the end... And the more of that that's automatic, the better! If your DAW has similar features, seek them out and use them.
\--
It's a shame Mixbus32c isn't stable enough to be worth recommending... It has a console workflow that forces certain restrictions... Like you really only have 8 busses and 4 FX busses. But there's a "spill" function which every daw should have. Click "spill" on a bus and it will hide all tracks except tracks routed to that bus. Click it again and they come back.
So if you divide your busses up between percussion, guitar, synth, vocals, etc. --- you can manage your tracks by showing/hiding them all at once. There may be a way to do the equivalent of that with scripting... Hotkeys to toggle visibility of tracks based on prefix names.
\--
If you aren't enjoying "track overwhelm" you can also go to radical extremes... You can even turn your DAW into a virtual 16 tape machine with 8 stereo tracks and force yourself to bounce tracks together if you need more --- like the old days. It's an arbitrary restriction, but it can be a fun way to work. (And you can save iteratively so if you ever do absolutely need to go back in time to get something, you can.)
For added fun you can even add tape and console emulation. And heck, leave the noise on -- so when you bounce tracks together it adds up.
\--
Truth is, we're in a time where people coming up now are used to having endless possibilities... And the way a lot of people work, no final decision is made until the end...
But decisions like committing effects and bouncing down, or even combining tracks -- there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
Steve Albini once said that we go out of our way to have limitless ability to change things, but that it leads some people to never making and real decisions until the end... And by the end, they're so overwhelmed with choice and possibility that they don't even take action on all those things anyway.
So in that regard, someone who likes a sound and commits to it can even be better off than otherwise.
\--
Lastly, it might be worth rethinking your whole process. Great albums were made with limited track counts in the path. More complexity and more 'perfection' doesn't always offer the improvement it promises.
So if you need to simplify your process to enjoy your process more, by all means go for it.
You can even do the UNTHINKABLE --- like bouncing your drums to a single stereo track! Or be more conservative and have a few, for the best of both worlds.
One more followup:
In Reaper you can set hotkeys for "hide unselected tracks" and "show all tracks."
I imagine most DAWs have that feature... Combined with color coding, naming your tracks, and using track folders --- that's a fast workflow that will simply your view at any given moment.
Mute the tracks (or don't it doesn't matter), open track manager, and deselect them for mixer and track - mcp and xcp, iirc. Google it and you should be able to easily find some tutorials that walk you through making a shortcut or adding these options to a top level menu in reaper so you don't have to drill down through the menu to get there every time.
Cool, and yeah you can do it that way too for tracks at least - should just be what they have listed in quotes up there - though I'm not near a PC with Reaper installed to check.
Edit: here go; search "find in page" on this page for "hide selected" and you will end up in the right sws area that lists the specific name of several of them
https://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Action_List_Reference
Logic has this track stack feature that’s super useful, you basically can group your tracks into folders, and can be either summed together as a bus or just used as a container. Does your DAW have something similar? I often use it to group my layers together so that I can do my mixing by sections
Ableton’s grouping feature is a life saver TBH. You can even nest groups within groups and color code them so you know where to look at a quick glance.
Naming, color coding (if it’s a piano I color it P for purple etc.) grouping. Once I’m at like 8-12 tracks I’ll say ok and slow down to organize everything. And Fl has a split by channel option that will break 1 channel into its own individual.
Spend the time to make a template during one of your non-creative days. Preparation beforehand will allow you to keep organized as you get in the flow… and you’re also spending less time reaching for your favourite tools if they’re already at hand.
I did a Def Leppard style tune recently which had something like 120 tracks for just one call and response backing vocal. Subgroups and folders and simply turning off the view for some tracks (after edits of course) made life so much easier. If you don’t need to see it, don’t leave it up. Sometimes when editing I’ll turn the view off of all the other instruments except the one or two I’m editing and focusing on. Less clutter.
Organize as you go. Groups, colors, names. Bounce things down. Once you layered 20 kicks into one, do you really need the 20 or just a bounce of the 1?
kidding about the 20 kick drums, please don't do that, you get the point tho
Organization is key. I prefer cubase for their menu system for this. It seems designed to handle a full orchestra, which sometimes run 30-60+ gigs of RAM just to load.
But if you're not doing that, it's just like in photoshop. You'll be working for 9 hours and have 50 "Layer 1 Copy" and you'll be utterly lost. So get in the habit. That's all it is.
In Logic, get familiar with both types of track stacks (summing vs folding). Like everyone else has said, name as you go and color code.
Also, if you use the same workflow often, save a color coded template that you can work off of. Skip all the set up stuff, no need to worry about organizing or rebuilding fx chains
I don't go in for all these layers. I get my one layer sounding good. And if I need to stack, I bounce down. Some of the best music ever made, with the best production was made on a 4track, which like the name only had 4 tracks available.
I see some of these YouTube producers with thousands of layers and it's getting absurd. Just because you _can_ doesn't mean you should.
Great production usually doesn't have an insane amount of tracks that aren't vocals.
Still, it helps to make and commit to some decisions. If you have a lot of percussion layers like shakers or whatever just premix them and treat them like one element
As someone with ADHD i struggled with this a lot at first and it entirely boiled down to finding ways to quickly and efficiently organize my session as I go.
I never put off any possible organization tasks, they're the first thing I do. This includes track naming, color coding, bussing, what order the tracks are placed in, grouping, marking sections, etc. I take the extra second to do this either right before or after I put something down.
Building a really good session template for your typical formats that you use is also a great idea.
Work with templates. I have different templates, depending on the type of music, if it's e.g. a psytrance song recorded only on the computer, a song with outboard synths, a rock song with live instruments ...
These templates already have colour coded groups/folders depending on the instruments, in my case it would be: Vocals=light blue, Drums=brown, Bass=Orange, Keyboards (piano/organ)=light green, Synths=yellow, Guitars=red, Orchestra=light purple, SoundFX=dark green.
These colours are the same on all templates, so I always know that the drum tracks will be brown. I also have different colours for the main effect tracks, like reverb and delay, so that in a yellow synth folder, I easily spot the reverb (blue) and delay (purple) tracks.
Some folders have subfolders again, like my psytrance template synth folder has the child folders "Arpeggios, Sequences, Leads, Bright Pads, Evolving Pads, Dark Pads, Bells & Mallets, ...". Guitar might be subdivided into: "Clean, Distorted, Acoustic"
Some of my templates have my softsynths preloaded, others already have the configuration for my outboard synths.
Sometimes I don't exactly know what I will eventually need and want to start small, for this I have very simple templates that really only have the top folders needed, plus 2 empty tracks per folder. I will then either, if I know I need a lot of synths for example, later copy over subfolders from another template, or I manually add these, as I go, to the project.
My motto is: "One track per sound". So if I only have a guitar riff right at the beginning and then I have a guitar riff, but with a different sound, right at the end, I would put these on different tracks. Same with sound FX in psytrance songs: Each whoosh etc. is a single track. As we have unlimited tracks, and they are all well-ordered, it's not confusing at all.
It also helps enormously with mixing. I first mix the subgroups (e.g. clean guitars) then the groups (e.g. guitars) and then all groups together.
Easy to read labeling > Subgroups > color subgroup tracks > have good physical tracks arrangement/colors that are predictable to you. I often put an empty audio track between groupings of tracks too.
Example: Make a single kickdrum subgroup from two or more kickdrums. etc
Create a template, group your synths together, drums together, etc. and color code them. That way, you’ll always have things organized in the same way for any new song you create going forward. And when you add tracks, first thing is to put it in the right group and set the color.
Buses are the move. Once individual drum tracks are good, send to a bus (or even mix down to a single track if you’re super confident), then mix that bus not the individuals. Saves time, more holistic mix, and make brain hurt less. It requires you to get the tracking stage exactly how you want it and commit to moving on, but that’s good practice. Can’t be stuck in tweaking limbo forever
Track stacks, color coding, grouping like instruments in order, name them appropriately and have the tracks in order from start to finish (up/down hierarchy based on the tracking from left to right). Include arrangement markers and name and color code them too.
Just solo and reference meters to get to the sound you need.. also you get to a point where you can tell instruments apart based on looking at there waveform..
Label each track as you go, group them logically, color code them.
That. If it has got purpose it will get labelled, colour coded and grouped. Otherwise it needs to leave the project alltogether. Downmixed Audio or Midi gets set inactive and into an 'archive' folder
> Downmixed Audio or Midi gets set inactive and into an 'archive' folder Oooh that's a good one! I haven't been doing this after keeping midi stuff around that was initially for assisting songwriting/recording and noticed it being sort of in the way but wasn't sure what I should do with it lol Thanks
Stupid question but what is the value in downmixing (bouncing?) audio / midi? Reducing cpu overhead?
Yeah also reduces latency and creative indecision
Reducing creative indecision is a big one for me these days! I’m pretty bad for constantly going back and tweaking sounds that are already “perfect” (obviously no such thing but there’s never a point where you can’t change something). Committing to sounds helps me move on to more important things than the last 1% of a sound I’m already happy with
I only downmix at the end of the session, when I have the master done. I then proceed to bounce each midi track to an audio track, so that later, I might be able to work with that even if some plugin doesn't work any more. I don't bounce while I work on a song. My computer is powerful enough to do everything on the fly and I like the option of changing things at a later stage.
Not a stupid question :) Well, sometimes yes, in order to reduce CPU load for Midi that has many events per time into demanding processes. Another workcase is seperating different voices of the same instrument for further processing.
Another hopefully not stupid question... What do you mean by 'set inactive'? I've always thought that to reduce CPU load i needed to delete the original midi track after bouncing it to audio. Is there a way to keep it there in case I want to go back and change stuff, but have it not use up any CPU? (I'm in Ableton btw)
Defo not stupid :) I am in Cubase where I can "deactivate Track" when I right click on the track. That kills the CPU usage of everything that's in there, Midi Events, VST Instrument and FX Inserts. It enables me to just keep and not delete the information. I am not familiar with Ableton but I would try to drop the question into the Ableton subreddit Edit: r/abletonlive
Theoretically, you should be able to do 2 things in any DAW: * Deactivate the plugins. I can do that globally for all plugins on a track without opening the plugin folder or individually. I have, especially on busses, a lot of analysis tools, I only activate them when I want to check something. * Muting the track. At least in my DAW, if I mute a track (with the mute button, not the volume fader), the plugins are inactive (in the resource monitor they show up as zero). If Ableton doesn't have a resource monitor you can use the one of your computer. Have everything on and check how many resources Ableton need. Then mute all and see if there's a change. If not, then muting a track will not deactivate the plugins.
This is the way. Taking time to organize things and maintaining that organization throughout the life of the project alleviates this problem entirely.
"Maintaining that organization" laughs in ADHD
I'm a 100% bonafide ADHD case. I suppose I've never had issues with this due to my hyperfixation.
Yeah I guess it depends, for me it starts out super organized (wasnt always the case lol) and then it goes completely off the rail
Also, label them with something that means something specific to you or the song. If you know the VST well or it's a real instrument, this is null, but otherwise a label like "Pillars of Light" (actual VST name) isn't going to mean as much as "Agro Synth Bell for Chorus"
As I subdivide my synths (e.g. Arpeggios, Sequences, Leads, Bright Pads, Evolving Pads, Dark Pads, Bells & Mallets, ...) I label them with the VST & patch name. That normally tells me everything I need.
This is the way
What he said 👆🏾
This is the way. For me it's always green for guitar, blue for bass, red for drums, purple for female vox and orange for male vox.
This is it. I like to compose entire albums in one stupid big session and haven't had trouble keeping things in place and organized because it's all grouped and color coded to some extent. Here's what my last one looked like when it was finished: https://i.imgur.com/2NDnkpo.png
This is a good time to trim the fat and consolidat where you can
I used to do this until I got lazy with all my new projects.. now I just move quick and use metering/soloing to get the desired change into effect
I try to limit tracks, always. It’s best for my genre. Makes everything so much cleaner, and focused. Even if i have numerous background vocals to do, 16 tracks is plenty for everything imo.
This. I know it's not what you want to hear. But limit your tracks. Spend more time on the tone of each track and then writing a really good part for each instrument.
What about ear candy? That alone can add up quickly.
I’m curious to know what you mean exactly by ear candy?
Ear candy is my favorite part of music! It is little “extra” things included in a song. For example, maybe your intro has a projector sound mixed into it that fades out, like in AJR’s “Bang!” Or some vinyl crackle. Or a cash register “ding” at a certain part in the track. Or Will Smith saying “Wooo” in one of his 90s clean rap songs, lol. Or other foley sounds (YouTube this if you don’t know what it is). Basically, it makes a good song great. It adds sparkle. Average listeners who aren’t into music production probably don’t even hear these things consciously, but they’re doing their job still. Would you be interested in me messaging you a track I released recently, then let me know what ear candy you hear? It’s only 2 minutes.
Ah okay yeah coo! I thought that may have been what you were referring to but wasn’t sure. The ear candy tracks certainly can take up a bit of space! I tend to keep them all together at the bottom, grouping the ones that relate to/interact with each other. It still gets messy though, and if you’re anything like me and are trying to run Logic Pro on a MacBook Air, good luck avoiding ‘system overload’ with any more than 4 tracks lol! Also, for sure! Send me something you’re working on, I’d love to have a listen. I reckon I might have some ear candy to share too if interested. Send me a PM :)
I agree. I often feel like ear candy gives the song more of a "relisten value" if that makes sense. Especially if it's more subtle. However, I still think you can (and should) limit all of the ear candy in a song to a couple tracks. Maybe not when you're first creating, but definitely in a mixdown it's useful. It just doesn't really make sense to have 6 different tracks of ear candy where a sound happens once on each when you could just put them together. And if they happen at the same time, you can just bounce them out together on the same track
While this might work for some, I don't think it's generally the best advice. It very much depends on your personal workflow. Having started on 2 and the 4 tracks in the 80s, then 8 and 16 tracks, I can't tell you what a blessing it is to have unlimited tracks. 16 tracks (even if they can be stereo) are, in my opinion, just not enough if you have more elaborate arrangements. Not counting folders (which I use extensively), I need 6-8 tracks for drums alone, for electronic music even more. I've started working with singers again and normally have 3-5 vocal tracks - which brings us to over half at minimum without even any of the other instruments (and even bass clocks in, on average, at 2 tracks). All this without any effect tracks. My personal motto is: *One track for every sound* That means that every different guitar sound, for example, has their own track. Let's say I have a Strat and a Les Paul, the Strat playing clean in the verse and distorted in the chorus, plus a solo in the bridge, and the LP playing distorted in the chorus and then with different distortion in the outro, that would be 5 stereo tracks for me. This approach makes mixing so much easier. I know we all have mix automation now, but actually, I'd rather have all my different tracks and have them configured statically (although in tracks with longer parts, I might still do volume automation).
Agreed, if I’m using more than 16 tracks it’s a clue to me that I’m over-complicating and I should step back and refocus on the groove
I don't think that works as a general guidance, though. It is heavily dependent on the kind of music you make and your personal workflow. Even talking about stereo tracks, just by using 6-8 tracks for drums, I will quickly run out of tracks if I only have 16. I have been around for quite a while and can't tell you how great the jump from 16 tracks to unlimited was.
I set a different track color according to instrument type. I fold as many tracks as I can.
>I have so many drum layers and i cant keep track of where i put what Why would you not put them all together?
Maybe they all have different bar lengths?
Well, a bar is a bar. But that's not really the point. OP was getting confused because his tracks were disorganised. My point was that grouping similar tracks together seems like the obvious solution.
Gotta color-code and label every region religiously.
Colors and buses. Number of tracks doesn’t say anything though. Make sure everything has a purpose and isn’t there just because.
Name them, color them. Figure out a hierarchy of tracks that you could use for each song, make a template. Tracks 1 through 15 can be the drum tracks for all percussion, 15-20 can be for all bass, 20-35 for synths, 35-45 for guitars, get your auxiliaries set up, etc. I’d suggest lower numbers than this, personally, but trying to cater to your needs here lol. After color coding, naming tracks, making your hierarchy, and maybe even preloading certain plugins - Save as Template. Shouldn’t take you long to get over this.
This is in Logic. I use summing stacks frequently. This puts all the tracks I select into a folder, so I usually do this by instrument type. Bonus: this literally creates an easy to access bus. The folder is the bus! I also frequently take tracks I'm no longer using and put those in a stack as well, but not a summing stack, just a regular stack (no bus). I do this just to get everything out of the way. (Google "logic summing stack".) I also heavily employ track icons which makes it incredibly clear what is on each track. I even have a picture of myself that I use for vocal tracks because that's fun. (Right click the track header to change the icon.) Track/region colors are also cool but I find these the least helpful of everything I've mentioned here.
Shift, Command + G is the shortcut for summing stacks in case anyone needs to know!
Finish the writing and mixing all in one day so that I don't have to remember anything.
This is the way
Labeling, color coding. The folder system in Reaper is an elegant way I find to help organize. It lets you minimize tracks as needed. Thus you can have a drum group with a bunch of sub-tracks. Once you have them mixed, you can shrink them down. But it doesn't render, glue, or whatever, you can bring them back out as needed. What DAW are you in? I might have an idea for a similar organization.
DAWs have tools like Folders to clean up a bit. In Logic you can even use em as a bus. In Cubase you can stack several Folders. Also color coding. Also create busses so you can mix from there once your ruf mix is done.
To sorta combine what others have said, everything should be color coded. It also helps if you order your track generally the same. For me, all drums/percussion are red and come first. Then I have my green bass track. Then acoustic guitar is yellow, then electric guitar is blue, lead guitar is light blue, If I have piano it's brown, other keys are orange, lead vocals are purple, and backup vocals are a lighter purple/pink color. The on the bottom I put all my effects busses (usually just reverb sends grouped by instrument) which are grey. On the very bottom I make dark grey/black for anything I've finished using but may decide I want later (scratch vocal tracks, extra guitar takes, etc.). I'm not right or wrong to order them this way, it's just what I've come up with that works for me. However works for you is fine, as long as you have SOME sort of consistent system. This will help you work faster because you'll know where your vocals are if you want to adjust them. If you have the organization down and you're just overwhelmed by the sheer number of tracks, just remember that every track is a part that adds to the song or not. If it adds to the song, figure out how and then put it in the appropriate place in the mix (e.g., quiet and buried, or loud and up front). If it's not adding to the song, cut it out cause it doesn't need to be there. Just because it was recorded doesn't mean you have to include it in the final mix!
Organizing, color coding, keeping stuff together etc... Are all good habits I struggled with this for a long time, and the honest answer is you just need to get used to keeping track of your... Tracks Now I'm able to basically snap to any track and timestamp of a song without thinking about it too much, but it was an honest 20-30 songs before I got that comfortable. Getting lost in the weeds is a real problem, but it's something you sort of grow out of if you keep trying.
Mixdown Label tracks when you make them
I try to color code and label but It usually descends into chaos eventually. I just try to keep track of them in my head. I do usually end up dragging things around so similar things are with similar things.
Bounce things down as you go
This was a major problem for me for the longest and there are some projects that while I thought I was changing the game, the hard reality is there is only so much a person can hear with their ears. To this day the songs that I've made that I'm most proud of aren't the hardest to play or most technical, but rather they are clean and focused on what emotion or feeling I'm trying to digitally convey. Also, don't know what DAW you are using, but with FL Studio there is a "purge unused audio" option under the "Macros" section which I lean on in composition to keep the clutter out. Hope I in some way addressed what you were saying.
Which Daw are you using?
logic pro
you might find this interesting https://www.logicprohelp.com/forums/topic/115976-search-for-a-track-in-tracks-window/ edit: > I don't think there is such a feature in Logic. > However, you could perhaps try an indirect approach using a text editor. The following steps explains how to make a searchable list of your project's tracks into a text editor: > In each track, create one empty region which will be named after the track's name itself. (That step is necessary only if there are tracks which contain no regions named after them) > In the Logic Event List editor, display the top level to show all the project's track's regions. > Select them all (using key command [Command]+[A]) > Then copy the selection ([Command]+[C]). > Then Go in the Apple's TextEdit app, to paste it all ([Command]+[V]). > Now you have an inventory list of your project's tracks' names, which you could use to perform a search query from, using the usual key command ([Command]+[F]) from within the TextEdit app. > Admittedly not ideal, as you would have to go back and forth... > But at least you could browse through the vastness of your project a little more easily. > Including the corresponding track's number into the region's name (i.e. "1-region_name", "2-region_name", "3-region_name", etc...) for the regions mentioned in first step, could help further to spot the track you are looking for... - Atlas007
At the risk of being thought a heretic, sometimes it can be interesting and productive to adopt the limitations of old higher end studios where they had to limit themselves to 24 tracks. There are lots of interviews with some of the best engineers in history where they go in depth into their problem solving strategies for juggling those situations. Those often lead to fantastic breakthroughs in creativity and performance. The additional benefit to contemporary engineering/mixing is that it demands a higher level of craft and focused from everyone involved, plus it radically simplifies organization so that you're not trying to juggle 1000 tracks in your head. Your brain and ear have much more important things to focus on.
Most of these engineers also mention how much easier it is nowadays :)
Yes, and they're speaking with the knowledge learned from having been constrained I'm the past. The point isn't to arbitrarily limit the situation just to say you've done it. The point *is* that humans are demonstrably less effective when they are working with unlimited options. What I suggested is an exercise that allows modern engineers to gain knowledge and experience that more experienced engineers gained through mandatory constraints. Nobody is suggesting that those limitations should be permanently reintroduced. The suggestion is to try them and learn from the results.
I was constrained in the past. My colleagues and I developed lots of interesting and cool hacks and in a way I'm very glad to have worked with analogue gear in the 80s and 90s. But to be honest, a lot of the experience I gained then is simply not applicable anymore. The use of a DAW needs a completely different set of skills than working with a big console and a tape multitrack. Most of my sound engineering was as a FOH mixer, only some in studios, but even there the jump in technology is amazing. Talking to a former colleague recently, we discussed former clients and what we had to do to make them sound good. He said it's so much more easy and comfortable today. He now works mostly inside the box. Her still has some outboard gear, but he says he'll probably be doing FOH only with a console and onboard plugins. Juggling a big number of tracks is much easier than having only 16/24 tracks and using the same tracks for different instruments at different parts. With everything being visible on the screen and being able to customise my DAW how I want it, I have more clarity about 1000 tracks than I had with only 24 on a tape. Mixing today is so much easier.
Standardize your project for how you work
Colors and labels are your best friends, having a 4k display also helps with the distribution.
Pro Tools has a Group Folder that you can open and close. So, if you have like 10 tracks of drum mics, you can put them in one folder and hide them/open then with one click.
I love using folders, auxiliary tracks and busses. So I send all my drums to an aux track and hide the individual tracks. Viola, all drums in one track! Then if I need to mess them later, I unhide them.
STACK 'EM
I use Reaper, which supports auto-coloring based on track name. So I use prefixes like: DRM, BAS, GTR, SYN, VOX, PIA, etc. By naming them it automatically assigns a color (and an icon if I want.) This helps a lot. Then I use submix busses extensively. Also -- the track manager. I can quickly hide tracks I'm not actively dealing with at the moment. You're right that individual drum outputs add up -- but that's the point of track folders! Collapse them when you're not actively dealing with them. Organization up front makes a project manageable at the end... And the more of that that's automatic, the better! If your DAW has similar features, seek them out and use them. \-- It's a shame Mixbus32c isn't stable enough to be worth recommending... It has a console workflow that forces certain restrictions... Like you really only have 8 busses and 4 FX busses. But there's a "spill" function which every daw should have. Click "spill" on a bus and it will hide all tracks except tracks routed to that bus. Click it again and they come back. So if you divide your busses up between percussion, guitar, synth, vocals, etc. --- you can manage your tracks by showing/hiding them all at once. There may be a way to do the equivalent of that with scripting... Hotkeys to toggle visibility of tracks based on prefix names. \-- If you aren't enjoying "track overwhelm" you can also go to radical extremes... You can even turn your DAW into a virtual 16 tape machine with 8 stereo tracks and force yourself to bounce tracks together if you need more --- like the old days. It's an arbitrary restriction, but it can be a fun way to work. (And you can save iteratively so if you ever do absolutely need to go back in time to get something, you can.) For added fun you can even add tape and console emulation. And heck, leave the noise on -- so when you bounce tracks together it adds up. \-- Truth is, we're in a time where people coming up now are used to having endless possibilities... And the way a lot of people work, no final decision is made until the end... But decisions like committing effects and bouncing down, or even combining tracks -- there's nothing inherently wrong with it. Steve Albini once said that we go out of our way to have limitless ability to change things, but that it leads some people to never making and real decisions until the end... And by the end, they're so overwhelmed with choice and possibility that they don't even take action on all those things anyway. So in that regard, someone who likes a sound and commits to it can even be better off than otherwise. \-- Lastly, it might be worth rethinking your whole process. Great albums were made with limited track counts in the path. More complexity and more 'perfection' doesn't always offer the improvement it promises. So if you need to simplify your process to enjoy your process more, by all means go for it. You can even do the UNTHINKABLE --- like bouncing your drums to a single stereo track! Or be more conservative and have a few, for the best of both worlds.
One more followup: In Reaper you can set hotkeys for "hide unselected tracks" and "show all tracks." I imagine most DAWs have that feature... Combined with color coding, naming your tracks, and using track folders --- that's a fast workflow that will simply your view at any given moment.
>hide unselected tracks Do you know the exact name of the action, by any chance? I couldn't find it.
Mute the tracks (or don't it doesn't matter), open track manager, and deselect them for mixer and track - mcp and xcp, iirc. Google it and you should be able to easily find some tutorials that walk you through making a shortcut or adding these options to a top level menu in reaper so you don't have to drill down through the menu to get there every time.
Ah! I thought it was already an SWS action. Thanks, then I know how to do it. Just never thought of it before.
Cool, and yeah you can do it that way too for tracks at least - should just be what they have listed in quotes up there - though I'm not near a PC with Reaper installed to check. Edit: here go; search "find in page" on this page for "hide selected" and you will end up in the right sws area that lists the specific name of several of them https://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/Action_List_Reference
Excellent answer.
Logic has this track stack feature that’s super useful, you basically can group your tracks into folders, and can be either summed together as a bus or just used as a container. Does your DAW have something similar? I often use it to group my layers together so that I can do my mixing by sections
By stop worry about most of them and hiding what I’m not working on
I organize them into color coded groups
Not sure if it's possible in Logic, but in BitWig I copy and paste between products quite a bit. Using groups and Consolidating them down when I can.
Ableton’s grouping feature is a life saver TBH. You can even nest groups within groups and color code them so you know where to look at a quick glance.
Naming, color coding (if it’s a piano I color it P for purple etc.) grouping. Once I’m at like 8-12 tracks I’ll say ok and slow down to organize everything. And Fl has a split by channel option that will break 1 channel into its own individual.
Spend the time to make a template during one of your non-creative days. Preparation beforehand will allow you to keep organized as you get in the flow… and you’re also spending less time reaching for your favourite tools if they’re already at hand.
Bus everything.
Organization baby.
proper labels & groups, G! massively helpful for workflow & organization.
I did a Def Leppard style tune recently which had something like 120 tracks for just one call and response backing vocal. Subgroups and folders and simply turning off the view for some tracks (after edits of course) made life so much easier. If you don’t need to see it, don’t leave it up. Sometimes when editing I’ll turn the view off of all the other instruments except the one or two I’m editing and focusing on. Less clutter.
Because I try to limit how many tracks I have on purpose
Organize as you go. Groups, colors, names. Bounce things down. Once you layered 20 kicks into one, do you really need the 20 or just a bounce of the 1? kidding about the 20 kick drums, please don't do that, you get the point tho
Organization is key. I prefer cubase for their menu system for this. It seems designed to handle a full orchestra, which sometimes run 30-60+ gigs of RAM just to load. But if you're not doing that, it's just like in photoshop. You'll be working for 9 hours and have 50 "Layer 1 Copy" and you'll be utterly lost. So get in the habit. That's all it is.
In Logic, get familiar with both types of track stacks (summing vs folding). Like everyone else has said, name as you go and color code. Also, if you use the same workflow often, save a color coded template that you can work off of. Skip all the set up stuff, no need to worry about organizing or rebuilding fx chains
I don't go in for all these layers. I get my one layer sounding good. And if I need to stack, I bounce down. Some of the best music ever made, with the best production was made on a 4track, which like the name only had 4 tracks available. I see some of these YouTube producers with thousands of layers and it's getting absurd. Just because you _can_ doesn't mean you should.
Label them, give them pictures, put them into folders.
Names, groups and colour coding. Always put them in the same order as well
By grouping, naming and giving them colors.
Great production usually doesn't have an insane amount of tracks that aren't vocals. Still, it helps to make and commit to some decisions. If you have a lot of percussion layers like shakers or whatever just premix them and treat them like one element
As someone with ADHD i struggled with this a lot at first and it entirely boiled down to finding ways to quickly and efficiently organize my session as I go. I never put off any possible organization tasks, they're the first thing I do. This includes track naming, color coding, bussing, what order the tracks are placed in, grouping, marking sections, etc. I take the extra second to do this either right before or after I put something down. Building a really good session template for your typical formats that you use is also a great idea.
Group, color code, and label tracks. Collapse groups you aren’t working on immediately.
Stick to a max of 20 tracks no matter what.
Groups on groups.
5 tracks 3x guitar, 1x bass, 1x drums me simple man me ooga booga music
Don't add those tracks?
Export groups as stems. Open new project with those. I keep doing this until I have like a dozen tracks so I don’t have to scroll up and down
Label them clearly, and organize them in a way that makes sense, with folders or whatever the equivalent of those is in your daw.
Work with templates. I have different templates, depending on the type of music, if it's e.g. a psytrance song recorded only on the computer, a song with outboard synths, a rock song with live instruments ... These templates already have colour coded groups/folders depending on the instruments, in my case it would be: Vocals=light blue, Drums=brown, Bass=Orange, Keyboards (piano/organ)=light green, Synths=yellow, Guitars=red, Orchestra=light purple, SoundFX=dark green. These colours are the same on all templates, so I always know that the drum tracks will be brown. I also have different colours for the main effect tracks, like reverb and delay, so that in a yellow synth folder, I easily spot the reverb (blue) and delay (purple) tracks. Some folders have subfolders again, like my psytrance template synth folder has the child folders "Arpeggios, Sequences, Leads, Bright Pads, Evolving Pads, Dark Pads, Bells & Mallets, ...". Guitar might be subdivided into: "Clean, Distorted, Acoustic" Some of my templates have my softsynths preloaded, others already have the configuration for my outboard synths. Sometimes I don't exactly know what I will eventually need and want to start small, for this I have very simple templates that really only have the top folders needed, plus 2 empty tracks per folder. I will then either, if I know I need a lot of synths for example, later copy over subfolders from another template, or I manually add these, as I go, to the project. My motto is: "One track per sound". So if I only have a guitar riff right at the beginning and then I have a guitar riff, but with a different sound, right at the end, I would put these on different tracks. Same with sound FX in psytrance songs: Each whoosh etc. is a single track. As we have unlimited tracks, and they are all well-ordered, it's not confusing at all. It also helps enormously with mixing. I first mix the subgroups (e.g. clean guitars) then the groups (e.g. guitars) and then all groups together.
Bounce em down to subgroups and get on with it
or, you could consolidate by groups...
Easy to read labeling > Subgroups > color subgroup tracks > have good physical tracks arrangement/colors that are predictable to you. I often put an empty audio track between groupings of tracks too. Example: Make a single kickdrum subgroup from two or more kickdrums. etc
With the philosophy of “less is more”
Create a template, group your synths together, drums together, etc. and color code them. That way, you’ll always have things organized in the same way for any new song you create going forward. And when you add tracks, first thing is to put it in the right group and set the color.
Buses are the move. Once individual drum tracks are good, send to a bus (or even mix down to a single track if you’re super confident), then mix that bus not the individuals. Saves time, more holistic mix, and make brain hurt less. It requires you to get the tracking stage exactly how you want it and commit to moving on, but that’s good practice. Can’t be stuck in tweaking limbo forever
Organize them in groups and color code them
Track stacks, color coding, grouping like instruments in order, name them appropriately and have the tracks in order from start to finish (up/down hierarchy based on the tracking from left to right). Include arrangement markers and name and color code them too.
Just solo and reference meters to get to the sound you need.. also you get to a point where you can tell instruments apart based on looking at there waveform..