Average number of track.

[Jolaff]

Hi,

I'm curious to know about how many track do you have in general when you are at the point "ok the song is pretty much done, now I'm gonna clean the mix"

Do you have a tendency to bounce your vsts into audio tracks, to bounce a group of track together as a "committing yourself" journey to a single track song ?

Or your final export project still have all your virtual instruments ready for a last second modification ?

Also, do you sometime put more than one audio file into a single track. For exemple, in track A you would have a snare from mesure 1 to 8 and a clap from 9 to 16. Or 2 different samples automatically means 2 different tracks.

Thanx

[foosnark]

My process is a bit different -- I just record a live mix, a combination of hardware and software synths. So there's no bouncing, and there's no going back to change anything unless I want to record another take.

Somewhere around 4 stereo tracks is my average. I tend to go for complex, spectrum-filling sounds rather than having lots of layers. (I make drone/dark ambient/abstract stuff so it doesn't break down into typical roles like drums, bass, pads etc.)

[BONES]

The average track count over our five albums would be 10-12 - Kick, Snare, Hats/Cymbals, Loops/Percussion, 4 or 5 VSTi synth tracks, Voice samples and a couple of Vocal tracks. Moving forward, we will be streamlining our track count further. As we are now mostly using Ujam drum VSTis, we only use one drum track, maybe two if we want to use some Ferrum (Kontakt instrument) as well, so I expect out track count to be under 10 for the songs on our next album.

We never freeze or bounce anything, all our VSTi remain live throughout the process so we can be tweaking sounds as we master if we need to. For us it is one seamless, end-to-end process, not discrete stages of writing, arranging, mixing and mastering.

We often combine different things into a single track. e.g. On this song, we combined the voice samples and the klaxon sound onto a single track. (This song has 12 tracks.)

[legendCNCD]

Average.. 15 maybe. Very very rarely render to wav anything or freeze. Its live instruments and effects still when we are mixing. If CPU is done, then freeze something.

Basically, Compose & rough levels and EQ, then mix, stereo wav to master and tune out.

[excuse me please]

Depends on the genre. As a minimalist electronic producer I try to limit myself to about 8-16 tracks.
The lesser the better, I'd say.

[sircuit]

Stephan Bodzin 8-12, rarely 16. Extremely thoroughly automated.

Bruno Mars 80-120 (around two thirds are vocals). In pop they often use different tracks for the same sound but with different processings for different sections of the song.

[kritikon]

10-15 tracks usually. Mostly bounce down to audio (sometimes quite early in the process) though I tend to run FX live. And I keep drum tracks separate (I used to render a drum buss, but got out of that habit recently). VSTi I'll tend to unload once rendered...I almost never go back to redo anything, though I will keep midi parts. Once it's finally rendered that's it...finished, in the past, set in stone, won't be recalled. I file them away on a hard drive, though I don't know why because I really won't use it again. I should probably just keep the rendered audio and free up space. I never got attached to my own music in the way most probably do, and the joy for me is the process, not the result.

[vurt]

I should probably just keep the rendered audio and free up space. I never got attached to my own music in the way most probably do, and the joy for me is the process, not the result.

i dont even do that any more.
the recordings happen, drive gets full, drive gets purged.
on my site i only have so much space, so things get purged.
im more interested in the doing, i listen rarely to stuff ive done before, as id rather be doing something new...
i only post stuff, because after my return, i was happy just not even recording, like i had been doing for the years i was away, but someone requested my offerings

[vurt]

now, i record pretty much everything to two track.
cant remember the last time i used midi, for anything other than knocking up drum loop samples for the modular
as i said above, its just the having fun, making noise for me now.
moments in time that pass...

[thecontrolcentre]

now, i record pretty much everything to two track.

My last album was made pretty much like that like ... 6 live improvs on my Dreadbox Abyss recorded in mono.

[vurt]

now, i record pretty much everything to two track.

My last album was made pretty much like that like ... 6 live improvs on my Dreadbox Abyss recorded in mono.

i remember it

its a liberating way to work.
can spend too long doing tedious edits and destroying the essence of a track, or you can hit record and play, if it works you feel it and its done!
suppose you also know "can i do this live?" straight away

[jamcat]

Maybe around 20
Half are drums

[Googly Smythe]

...
The lesser the better, I'd say.

As many as I want.
The more the merrier.

[tehlord]

The question itself is rather pointless as 'it depends'.

Personally, anything from 20-70, but I have composer friends who use several hundred channel templates, although they never use them all. When I used to make dense trance music, always over 100, when I made chillout/ambient music, rarely over 20.

Don't worry about it. Use what you use. That's the luxury of the DAW.

[harryupbabble]

pretty standard classic rock setup here.
i just pretend each track is for a band member.
the drummer gets at least five tacks for snare, kick, hihat, cymbals, toms.
the singer might also be playing an instrument, so two tracks for that.
some bands have many singers. fleetwood mac has three.

most of the bands in my music collection are:

trios (rush, cream, elp, hendrix experience, police, etc)

quartets (beatles, led zeppelin, ccr, doors, kinks, metallica, queen, who, ramones, sex pistols, etc)

quintets (the fixx, rolling stones, pink floyd, the strokes, fleetwood mac, etc)

track 1 is singer's track or melody
track 2 is bass track
track 3 is riff or solo track
track 4 is chord or rhythm track or keyboard or synth track
tracks 5 to 9 are for the drum kit
tracks 10 to 16 are for everything else