What is the max number of Tracks that you have used in a song?

[Hink]

I use a lot more than I need because I can, it's a tough question to answer because one track might only have a few seconds of audio or be audio for the whole song. It also depends on the stage of the creating I am in, Samp has revolver tracks which helps keep the count down on tracks I record but dont use in the end otherwise I might have 5 different guitar parts that I am trying to pick the one I go with. When I record guitar I always record 5 tracks, 4 mono ( two mics, line-out from my amps and direct dry from the guitar) and one stereo track for the output of my effects I monitor through when I am recording my guitar fx are not recorded to my guitar tracks). So those tracks can add up fast.

So like I said it's a hard question to answer, without revolver tracks I could easily need over 100 tracks but only use little pieces here or there and then I narrow them down to stems for mixing. With revolver tracks I might use18-30 tracks, this of course does not include VSTi's with multiple outs like with jamstix or indy pro...those would add up to maybe 16 more depending.

Now ask me about takes

[Turello]

Certain for The Beatles was a necessity and there have not all the definition of the Earth Wind & Fire (George Massenburg was a child!) but sounds so cool!!!

[fluffy_little_something]

Keeping it simple also makes live and even more so unplugged performances a lot easier, without disappointing the audience

[Lost_Highway]

The maximum I've done so far was a five minute section of a piece, which had 103 tracks (before bouncing) and 43 busses. I had to bounce as my old Phenom quad-core/4GB RAM system couldn't cope With my new machine I should be able to top that, if I ever get around to actually writing/recording any more music...

In my defence, I make progressive rock and as someone, I think it was around these parts, once said,"I like it because it's excessive, it's excessive because it's prog" or something to that effect

That particular piece of that piece had a subsection with massed Mellotron strings, using pretty much every string sound there is in M-Tron Pro playing in unison to create a Tron string section. That seriously added to the track count. Layered rhythm guitar parts (to add weight) didn't help either. Programmed drums probably accounted for about 12 tracks.

I also tend to mult out parts, so instead of having a single track for the bass guitar, if it changes sound (e.g. between fretted and fretless, or clean/DI and dirty/amp sim) I'll have each one on a separate track rather than setting up lots of automation. Same for synth parts and guitars.

[RunBeerRun]

Sometimes I layer guitar tracks, up to 3 of them, 1 track for bass, 1 for drums, 1 for vocals.

[debra1rlo]

*puts little finger against mouth* one million

[BERFAB]

I usually top out at around 10-16. And many of those are just accent-type hits requiring some specialized FX. The bare bones of what I do is probably closer to 6-8 tracks.

Funny, but I remember back in the day when there really were no stereo tracks, just paired monos. So naturally, the track count would tend to be much higher.

Everything seems so much easier now. For the most part, assuming you have some reasonably modern hardware, there's very little need to worry about track count or memory. But this was a huge concern not too long ago.


Cheers
-B

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I did a 20 track ambient piece once, because I had several sample-based audio tracks that required individual processing. And balancing them all out took 2 weeks, and was a pain in the ass nightmare.

Typically, now, 8-10, mostly soft synths and 2-4 sample-based audio tracks (processed loops, field recordings, etc.)

Not really minimal, I know, but manageable.

[V0RT3X]

About 200 something back when i was using Reason 6 and live in rewire.

[jancivil]

Track count is just a number. It's meaningless.

When someone runs into things her computer isn't handling, it's meaningful enough and to go into it is responsive to the OP. As more than one person has said, 'consolidate'. So rather than 200-some pieces of audio (which I had zero problems with), if one's modus operandi in the DAW is load into RAM in favor of using CPU one doesn't so much have, one would for instance glue events together into parts, thereby contained by fewer 'tracks' and less RAM is called.

Or if 'tracks' = MIDI parts each per a whole soft instrument instance, CPU cycles are gained by freezing/bouncing. If I wanted to do symphonic right, this will be a much higher MIDI track->instrument channel count than I have done, and I would have to distribute to cores better than I can which will mean a whole computer as a slave or a farm of them as it stands now.

[4damind]

Up to 50... on a i7 3770.

[jancivil]

Always when I have more than 40 tracks, my computer shuts down with a blue screen and the message: "Stop! The Beatles made great songs with only 4 tracks!"

Don't be daft.
The Beatles also made recordings with a whole orchestra and had the resources to cover that and the space and all of the expert engineering and George Martin to make that work on four tracks.

For KVR which serves quite a number of people working in their bedroom or even a small project studio in the den, a full production, say an orchestra means a high number of tracks, which would seem obvious.

[robogone]

Always when I have more than 40 tracks, my computer shuts down with a blue screen and the message: "Stop! The Beatles made great songs with only 4 tracks!"

Don't be daft.
The Beatles also made recordings with a whole orchestra and had the resources to cover that and the space and all of the expert engineering and George Martin to make that work on four tracks.

For KVR which serves quite a number of people working in their bedroom or even a small project studio in the den, a full production, say an orchestra means a high number of tracks, which would seem obvious.

Their first handful of tracks were made on 2 track and if memory serves me correctly they didn't even do tape overdubs on the first few.

As you say, they also made use of the various engineers who knew a hell of a lot more about microphone placement and acoustics than the average bedroom producer.

But even though they only had 4 tracks to work with for the majority of their career, I would be surprised if they didn't at some point acquire a second machine and bounce down all 4 tracks to the other 4 track machine.

[jancivil]

"I would be surprised if they didn't at some point acquire a second machine and bounce down all 4 tracks"
Yeah, me too. People used tracks as tracks were physically available evidently.

[Hink]

Always when I have more than 40 tracks, my computer shuts down with a blue screen and the message: "Stop! The Beatles made great songs with only 4 tracks!"

Don't be daft.
The Beatles also made recordings with a whole orchestra and had the resources to cover that and the space and all of the expert engineering and George Martin to make that work on four tracks.

For KVR which serves quite a number of people working in their bedroom or even a small project studio in the den, a full production, say an orchestra means a high number of tracks, which would seem obvious.

Their first handful of tracks were made on 2 track and if memory serves me correctly they didn't even do tape overdubs on the first few.

As you say, they also made use of the various engineers who knew a hell of a lot more about microphone placement and acoustics than the average bedroom producer.

But even though they only had 4 tracks to work with for the majority of their career, I would be surprised if they didn't at some point acquire a second machine and bounce down all 4 tracks to the other 4 track machine.

I thought that was common knowledge, tbh I thought I was smart back in the day when instead of bouncing tracks I would record 4-tracks to a two track machine then re-record those two tracks back to two tracks on the 4-track again (of course not at the same place on the tape)...then I read that's how sgt pepper's was done but with two 4-tracks