How many tracks do you normally use?

[nativeaudio]

How many tracks do you normally use (not including muted/backup/archived/non-playing tracks)?

[allencollins]

200+ or bust. Anyone can make a record with 8 16 or 24 tracks. Just try to make a clear punchy cd with 200+ I dare you..............


I bet most will say 24-32 since most folks are limited by PTLE and 7200 rpms

[NathanEldred]

I record 'bands' (acoustic or electric). The few times I've exceeded 32 tracks, the band didn't know what they were doing or what they wanted (just in my experience not saying this is always the case). Even with a big drum kit close mic'd, lots of layered guitars, and layered voxs I'm still around 24 tracks give or take a couple.

[jchadstopherhuez]

TOTALLY depends on the project.

a few records i did last year....

1. MySpace.com - Caleb Travers & Big City Lights - Saint Louis, Missouri - Alternative / Country / Rock - www.myspace.com/calebtravers

8-22 tracks total for each song. mostly cut live with some overdubs.

2.
MySpace.com - Jon Hardy and The Public - SAINT LOUIS, Missouri - Pop / Pop / Pop - www.myspace.com/jonhardy

18-36 tracks per song. most tracks were for drums, percussion and horns.

3.
MySpace.com - KING THIEF::: - St. Louis - Rock - www.myspace.com/kingthiefmusic

48-128 tracks per song. LOTS of automation. lots of layering. 20 tracks for drums/rooms/samples(of the kit used in tracking)/transient design...etc. many tracks for vocal and guitar layers., strings, keys, fx, etc...etc...etc.

4.
MySpace.com - VICTORIA - SAINT LOUIS, Missouri - Rock / Rock / Rock - www.myspace.com/victoriastl

15 tracks. all live except some vocals, handclaps, and guitar doubles. drums(5 tracks), guitars(2-4 tracks) bass(2 tracks) vocals (2 tracks) live room (2 tracks)


i find that normally i track WAY too many tracks...especially with drums...and then whittle it all down by mix time !

i do miss the days of the ol' 16 track !!!

best,

jchristopherhughes

[robmix]

How ever many it takes . . . . .

Currently, projects I mixing and producing have anywhere from 16 to 120 or so . . . .

[Mark Kaufman]

Somewhere between 1 and 40, usually. Yes, sometimes it's just one.

[Capstan Cappy]

bla up to 32

[filin]

Originally Posted by allencollins

200+ or bust. Anyone can make a record with 8 16 or 24 tracks. Just try to make a clear punchy cd with 200+ I dare you..............


I bet most will say 24-32 since most folks are limited by PTLE and 7200 rpms

200 tracks? Keeping everything sperate like that is for cowards. If I kept every source completely seperate I'd prob have 100-150 tracks, but I'm a real man and I merge down in a logical fashion, so mixdown time is more like 8-24 tracks.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Originally Posted by allencollins

200+ or bust. Anyone can make a record with 8 16 or 24 tracks. Just try to make a clear punchy cd with 200+ I dare you..............


I bet most will say 24-32 since most folks are limited by PTLE and 7200 rpms

Holy Crap 200+ what will us this say in a musical way.
You don´t know how to arrange you have to impress with a lot off things going on.

Listen to all the crap on the radio 200+....yes it makes music not better.

A good song will work with 4 tracks.
Guitar/Voice/Percussion/A Snare Drum

[alyricalmind]

Hip hop and R&B is usually about 16 tracks for the instrumental and about 6 tracks for vocals. Never recorded a song with more than 32 tracks.

[davidwilson]

WOW who ticked 161 or more?

I guess 140 of those are from a neurotic guitarist. I bet CLA could weed them down to 4 tracks in no time.

I'm usualy around 32 at mixdown and no im not limited to that as I can get up to 128 on a HD3 I think, havent tried it.

Have been up to 48 before though for a mix.

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by allencollins

I bet most will say 24-32 since most folks are limited by PTLE and 7200 rpms

Guilty as charged.

Should be plenty though, don't you think?

[nativeaudio]

Originally Posted by allencollins

I bet most will say 24-32 since most folks are limited by PTLE and 7200 rpms

According to this poll, less than 20% of those who voted use RTAS as their main plugin format... Anyway, you can easily play back 100-150 tracks from a 7200 drive...

[ambiguity]

I ran a 96 track session from a single firewire 800 drive.. and I don't see why using multiple 7200rpm drives would be a problem.


I mix sound for picture more often than music, so I relatively often get into the triple digits. Still, there's rarely more than 30-40 voices playing at once, more often about a dozen.
My own music goes between 4 and 40 tracks, but there's never more than 20 playing simultaneously.

[RCM - Ronan]

Usually between 20-35 tracks. Some records as low as 8-12, very few ever over 40.

[dbjp]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

Holy Crap 200+ what will us this say in a musical way.
You don´t know how to arrange you have to impress with a lot off things going on.

Listen to all the crap on the radio 200+....yes it makes music not better.

A good song will work with 4 tracks.
Guitar/Voice/Percussion/A Snare Drum

So I take it you're using a Tascam 4 track very successfully?

[chris carter]

Originally Posted by alyricalmind

Hip hop and R&B is usually about 16 tracks for the instrumental and about 6 tracks for vocals. Never recorded a song with more than 32 tracks.

Wow, I'd love to know what kind of r&b records you are working on. The r&b records I produce as well as the ones I mix for other producers typically run over 100 tracks.... maybe 20 to 30 music tracks and 70 to 100 vocal tracks. If I could get r&b records with only six tracks of vocals I could work a LOT faster

[Lipps]

Originally Posted by chris carter

Wow, I'd love to know what kind of r&b records you are working on. The r&b records I produce as well as the ones I mix for other producers typically run over 100 tracks.... maybe 20 to 30 music tracks and 70 to 100 vocal tracks. If I could get r&b records with only six tracks of vocals I could work a LOT faster

6 vocal tracks as well as 100 vocal tracks are both equally crazy to me

[Battles]

I usually run around 32 to 40, but this is more of an organizational structure than a voice issue. Never do I have 32 tracks playing at the same time.

I'll set up tracks strictly for each verse and chorus so I can make playlists and not have to chop up the song when I want to hear different takes within context.

[taturana]

Originally Posted by robmix

How ever many it takes . . . . .

Currently, projects I mixing and producing have anywhere from 16 to 120 or so . . . .

+1

[edvdr76]

I try to keep the track count under 24 so that I can keep it on the 2"

[peeder]

Originally Posted by filin

200 tracks? Keeping everything sperate like that is for cowards. If I kept every source completely seperate I'd prob have 100-150 tracks, but I'm a real man and I merge down in a logical fashion, so mixdown time is more like 8-24 tracks.

Yes, CLA has his assistants submix everything to 48 tracks before he gets to it.

Originally Posted by davidwilson

WOW who ticked 161 or more?

I guess 140 of those are from a neurotic guitarist. I bet CLA could weed them down to 4 tracks in no time.

I'm usualy around 32 at mixdown and no im not limited to that as I can get up to 128 on a HD3 I think, havent tried it.

Have been up to 48 before though for a mix.

Probably someone doing sound-for-picture, where you have multiple layers of dialogue, foley, scoring, etc. etc. This is a music-oriented board but not music exclusive.

[nativeaudio]

Originally Posted by dragan

I ran a 96 track session from a single firewire 800 drive.. and I don't see why using multiple 7200rpm drives would be a problem.

You can add more drives, and faster than 7200 drives, use RAID systems etc - but on a fast computer, you can probably play back all the tracks you need from one single drive. I'm pretty sure that even those less than two percent who have replied that they use more than 128 tracks don't have sessions where all the tracks play all the time...

[John Willett]

2 normally - but now I have a Nagra VI (arrives tomorrow) I might just go up to 4.

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by chris carter

Wow, I'd love to know what kind of r&b records you are working on. The r&b records I produce as well as the ones I mix for other producers typically run over 100 tracks.... maybe 20 to 30 music tracks and 70 to 100 vocal tracks. If I could get r&b records with only six tracks of vocals I could work a LOT faster

70-100 vox tracks...come on...don't you think thats so unnecessary...could be done on 8 tracks if people knew what they were doing....don't argue..it is just plain ridiculous

[chris carter]

Originally Posted by gearaddict

70-100 vox tracks...come on...don't you think thats so unnecessary...could be done on 8 tracks if people knew what they were doing....don't argue..it is just plain ridiculous

That's just the way most r&b and pop/r&b records are done. These are typically complicated vocal arrangements and you have lots of doubles/triples/(even quadruples) of many parts. A chorus might have two sections and each section is 12 voices - that's 24 right there and all you did was the chorus. Then you could have a similar situation for the bridge - now you are up to 48 in my hypothetical situation. A breakdowh or vamp could be a ton more tracks. Then you have stuff like various backup vocal sections in verses, intros, outtros, whisper tracks, talking tracks, blah blah blah. The mixes can get really complicated and even after you put everything on it's own track you still often have a ton of automation to do. It's WAY different than mixing a typical rock record (I do both BTW). Usually at the end of mixing I'll look at all my channels and I'll be up in the 140 neighborhood and maybe a dozen of those are groups and maybe a dozen are fx retruns - so the rest are all channels playing back audio.

Often when I get r&b projects that were tracked in PTLE. They will send me one set of consolidated tracks for the music alone. Then for vocals they will have to use a two-track of the music and then 30 or (or 46) tracks for vocals. But because of the track limitation they will have tracks do double duty for a lot of stuff. So I have to spend an hour going and separating stuff because the talking parts might be on the same track as the verse hi harmony parts, the bridge low harmony might be on the same tracks as the chorus high harmonies, etc.

I realize the high track counts might shock the hell out of people who do mostly rock or rap or some other genre, but really this is par for the course with r&b. When I mix typical rock records, the track counts are more like 24-48. Same with typical rap records.

[audiovisceral]

Originally Posted by chris carter

A chorus might have two sections and each section is 12 voices - that's 24 right there and all you did was the chorus. .

I'm intrigued by this. Lets say a chorus just has the one singer, no adlibs or "baaabyyyy.."'s sung over it. Just the primary part. Are you saying you would track that 12 times, or that you usually have three harmonies and quad track each, or what? how do you pan all of these? stacked or separate?

isn't it often for pop, verse and adlibs mostly down the center, then chorus quad tracked, with 2 of those stacked on the left, and two stacked on the right? i don't know ... how do you guys put it all together?

this is interesting (and quite foreign to i think most of us 'rocker' slutz). details please.

[The dman]

The older I get the more I'm trying to par it down on most things it's amazing what has been achieved with 2,8,16 and 24 tracks

4-32

[beau]

Originally Posted by nativeaudio

How many tracks do you normally use (not including muted/backup/archived/non-playing tracks)?

so is the question how many tracks we mix? or send to have mixed? because if i were tracking a record, i would count the tracks that are not being heard..(guitar di for example. click track, etc. ) as a track... and so will pro fools.

peace

beau

[chris carter]

Originally Posted by audiovisceral

I'm intrigued by this. Lets say a chorus just has the one singer, no adlibs or "baaabyyyy.."'s sung over it. Just the primary part. Are you saying you would track that 12 times, or that you usually have three harmonies and quad track each, or what? how do you pan all of these? stacked or separate?

isn't it often for pop, verse and adlibs mostly down the center, then chorus quad tracked, with 2 of those stacked on the left, and two stacked on the right? i don't know ... how do you guys put it all together?

this is interesting (and quite foreign to i think most of us 'rocker' slutz). details please.

This is a ‘typical’ r&b tune. I think it has around 90 tracks of vocals, which is fairly common. If you want to hear it so the rest of this post makes sense, here’s a link: www.millraceonline.com/music/LIM_T_theshow.mp3 .

The grey tracks at the top are the music tracks, then I typically put my groups, then my fx returns, and then all the vocals. The cluster from channels 60-79 is the chorus. There are four lead parts (l/c/c/r) and the rest are harmonies and alternate/overlapping parts. Panning is a matter of personal taste, but I tend to use the cardinal point panning method so most stuff is hard left, hard right, and straight up the middle with other parts falling between as necessary. 81 through 106 is the bridge, which is kind of a two-part bridge. 107-112 is the breakdown. Pink below that is the intro. Dark green is the lead vocal and 120-142 are the verse backups. 143 – 150 is the end section and the pink tracks below that are a couple small girl parts.

Now I know a lot of the rock folks are saying, “WTF?? You know you can put a lot of that sh!t on the same track you dumbass!” But you really can’t, or it’s ill-advised. If a part is different, then it goes on a different track because it’s getting different processing. A high harmony backup in the first verse can obviously go on the same track as the same part in the second verse, but you can’t go and stick it on the middle harmony part in the bridge because it’s a different sound. Kind of like how you can’t take a rectifier guitar mic’d with a 57 and a 121 and stick it on the same tracks as an acoustic guitar. They get treated different in the mix so they go on separate tracks. Same thing with vocals – they might get not only different level and pan, but different compression, different effects, and go to a different buss. You don't want to automate it - you just put them on different tracks. If you shared tracks on a lot of this stuff you'd be automating for days and it would take two weeks to crank out one tune! That's why sometimes youll a couple words that only happen once in the whole song, but you really have to put them on their own track because they don't share any settings with any other part and you don't want to have to automate the thing.

Because it's a lot of tracks to manage, you wind up often using a lot of groups. The chorus goes to three different groups in this song. Partially for separate group processing (like compression, or whatever). But it also makes things simple when you get the blend right, but you just want to bump the whole chorus a half dB, or do automation on the whole section isntead of writing it for each track.

In the old days, r&b tunes weren't quite as complicated as they are now, but they still had track count issues. Choruses were often tracked and then mixed down to L/R and sampled and flown back in on a pair of tracks. As well, verse backups were often mixed and bounced down to a pair of tracks. And so on, just to get it all to fit on two sync'd 24 track tape machines. These days we don't have to do that bouncing because we have unlimited tracks so you can just send stuff to a group and it's just as easy, but more flexible. Also, in the old days you were limited in your outboard gear and you only have so many compressors and so many channels on the desk with EQ, etc. Now we've got virtually unlimited plug-ins so two different parts don't have to share the same compressor and comprimise on a settings - they can each have their own setting without having to have an extra person ghetto-automate the thing during mixdown LOL.

Anyway, I hope this kind of explains why r&b tunes have so many freakin' tracks. Yes, it can be a headache. When I get songs to mix where the trackign engineer was sloppy (no offense to anyone, but this is like 95% of the ****!ng time) it can litterally take three or more hours just to sort out the song and get it organized and trim up all the parts.

I know lots of people say too many tracks make a song sound bad, and others say the opposite. The reality is that different genres require different things and the audiences have different expectations as to what they like. It’s a talent to be able to make records with very few tracks, it’s also a talent to be able to handle a record with a ton of tracks. R&B songs just typically have a ton of different vocal parts while indie rock songs or rap songs usually have relatively few - it's not better or worse, just a different kind of record for a different audience. BTW – I do rock stuff also, so it’s not like I have an opinion on more or less tracks; it’s just what’s right for the record.