How many tracks is enough ?

[Gucky]

Hi dellboy, Hi Tj Shredder,
thanks for your kind feedback.
I had the idea for "Canadian rain" when I was listening the group "boards of canada".
Do you know this group?
BOC uses tape style sound or VHS sounds with wow and flutter effects.
I wanted to make a little tribute song to BOC and not to simulate real instruments.
So I use a Kontakt library that made Kontakt instruments form very old films.
I think that this sounds have a very special mood that I like.
So I use also an old drumbox loop and not a real drum kit.
I could use real string or flute instruments but that would not have that special old VHS sound.
I made know a new version because I think that the song needs a fretless bass sound.
So it has now 6 tracks. Hope you like it.
https://soundcloud.com/musikus/canadian-rain

[Aloysius]

How many tracks are enough? said the train spotter.

[dellboy]

Hi dellboy, Hi Tj Shredder,
thanks for your kind feedback.
I had the idea for "Canadian rain" when I was listening the group "boards of canada".
Do you know this group?
BOC uses tape style sound or VHS sounds with wow and flutter effects.
I wanted to make a little tribute song to BOC and not to simulate real instruments.
So I use a Kontakt library that made Kontakt instruments form very old films.
I think that this sounds have a very special mood that I like.
So I use also an old drumbox loop and not a real drum kit.
I could use real string or flute instruments but that would not have that special old VHS sound.
I made know a new version because I think that the song needs a fretless bass sound.
So it has now 6 tracks. Hope you like it.
https://soundcloud.com/musikus/canadian-rain

Ah! "Boards of Canada".

"Everything you do is a Balloon"

Thats gotta be a Roland TR808.

Whats the pad ?

Ensoniq something ?

I thought your pad had an Ensoniq workstation sound about it !

[dellboy]

How many tracks are enough? said the train spotter.

Depends if he had a one track mind.

[dellboy]

Good post, pretty much sums up my feelings.

I have just listened to your Soundcloud "Tyger" and it seems influenced by Genesis - Mike Oldfield.

LIke.

Much.

Will listen to some of the others later.

Hey, thanks a lot for listening in! Yeah, you just named two of my biggest influences. Over the last year, I recorded 4 pieces in this "long-form" vein, and once I've finally gotten over the flu and its annoying long-term effects, I'll tie them up in a neat package and set about "releasing" them (probably on bandcamp).

You are a master.

I have been listening to this since I first clicked on your Soundcloud page on Saturday.

Did you produce this at home ?

It sounds like a studio produced album.

How many tracks ?

It sounds like you used an awful lot.

[Gucky]

Hi dellboy,
the pad and the flute is the "pastoral tones" vst from Samplescience.
The drum loops are from CR 78.
I just corrected the panorma of the flute and the volume of the rain.
I think now it is perfect for me with only 6 tracks.
Here is the final version:
https://soundcloud.com/musikus/canadian-rain

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

How many tracks is enough ?

So many that your computer freezes trying to handle them all at once.

On a serious note, I think it depends a lot on the genre and scale of a song, as well as your production skills. The most tracks I recall having on one song is 25-ish - and more than half of them were vocal tracks because of a "choir" thing I did on it. And for a hobbyist musician/producer like myself, I'd name that as a reasonable upper limit.

[THE INTRANCER]

There are around 170 tracks used in this production I created over a year ago, and this is what it sounds like..

https://soundcloud.com/scott-moncrieff- ... hour-night

There's a scaling limit in Studio One with track lanes so this is the best I could do to show this many at 1080P.

[Boone777]

One thing that can influence the track count is distortion. With orchestras you can add more intruments without it being a complete mess as opposed to metal guitars for example. Lowering distortion you will be able to add more though like double or quadruple tracking. The number of tracks in orchestral music might simply be 2 overheads or a 100 tracks when working with VSTi.

You can't add distortion by adding tracks. The projects I know with a lot of tracks for sure don't have sound all the time. That is more a question of composition or arrangement. DAWs work internally with 32-bit floating point. It is not analog, its digital...
I did not understand your last sentence, maybe repeat it in your native language, then someone can translate it correctly...

The distortion is coming from the recorded guitar amp. As you add more and more tracks the distortion builds up. It will sound much clearer by reducing the gain on each tracks. It is a cummulative effect. As saturation adds harmonics the sound is all over the place frequency wise and that's why we end up poking holes into the guitars for the vocals to sit for exemple. Sure you pan them hard left and hard right to make some place for other instruments, but compared to an orchestra for exemple many intruments that we can hear well without the need for extreme eq or pan.

[Boone777]

One thing that can influence the track count is distortion. With orchestras you can add more intruments without it being a complete mess as opposed to metal guitars for example. Lowering distortion you will be able to add more though like double or quadruple tracking. The number of tracks in orchestral music might simply be 2 overheads or a 100 tracks when working with VSTi.

What do you mean with distortion? Why should adding a track in a DAW add distortion? That doesn't make sense to me.

Recorded distorted guitars will pile up to add a lot if distortion. The more you add tracks the less distortion on each track you will want to record so it does'nt end up in a pile of mud. Especially true for low tuning, rythm guitar. Sorry for not being clear. As opposed to tracking clean instruments where you can add more and still hear much better the various instruments. And yes like mentionned in another post arrangement will still have a big role to play here. For exemple a lot of bassy sounding tracks wont cut through the mix as well as a lot of high pitched instruments.

[dellboy]

There are around 170 tracks used in this production I created over a year ago, and this is what it sounds like..

https://soundcloud.com/scott-moncrieff- ... hour-night

There's a scaling limit in Studio One with track lanes so this is the best I could do to show this many at 1080P.

Thats an awful lot of tracks to keep track of !

Could you not have just played a lot of what seems like doubled up tracks (too small to see) into one track and then deleted them ?

Or is that what group tracks are for ?

This is not my genre of music,but I am surprised at the amount of work that goes into making it.

[ariston]

You are a master.

I have been listening to this since I first clicked on your Soundcloud page on Saturday.

Did you produce this at home ?

It sounds like a studio produced album.

How many tracks ?

It sounds like you used an awful lot.

Thanks a lot, but I wouldn't consider myself a master just yet! But I am really pleased with everything I did last year, I'm happy that all of that experience in recording and mixing is starting to pay off. Especially because my "studio" is a nightmare acoustic-wise. I mix on two JBL-Ones and a pair of high-quality Beyerdynamic headphones - not really an ideal setup. Bass is especially problematic, which is why the 60 to 200 Hz area is usually not done well on my mixes.

A lot of it comes down to picking the right sounds from the outset. That strategy really helps me keep the track count low. I've also invested in a bunch of really nice sample libraries, so a lot of that "studio" sound is already there - can't take credit for that!

I'd have to pull up the Ableton sets, but I'm pretty sure that the track count never exceeds 15 (counting stereo tracks as "1"). But keep in mind that Tyger is a suite, so the track count is obviously per segment - I didn't have the whole of it as a single project, that would drive me mad.

Anyways, thanks again for listening and the high praise, I'm really glad you're enjoying the music.

[dellboy]

Thanks a lot, but I wouldn't consider myself a master just yet! But I am really pleased with everything I did last year, I'm happy that all of that experience in recording and mixing is starting to pay off. Especially because my "studio" is a nightmare acoustic-wise. I mix on two JBL-Ones and a pair of high-quality Beyerdynamic headphones - not really an ideal setup. Bass is especially problematic, which is why the 60 to 200 Hz area is usually not done well on my mixes.

A lot of it comes down to picking the right sounds from the outset. That strategy really helps me keep the track count low. I've also invested in a bunch of really nice sample libraries, so a lot of that "studio" sound is already there - can't take credit for that!

I'd have to pull up the Ableton sets, but I'm pretty sure that the track count never exceeds 15 (counting stereo tracks as "1"). But keep in mind that Tyger is a suite, so the track count is obviously per segment - I didn't have the whole of it as a single project, that would drive me mad.

Anyways, thanks again for listening and the high praise, I'm really glad you're enjoying the music.

No need to feel embarassed, your stuff passed the ten second test,which is often as far as my listening patience extends to.

I have listened to "TYGER" five or six times.

And if the rest of your Soundcloud page is left to run it seems to cohere into an album.

It has a lot of that Mike Oldfield feel about it. Tension and release, major dropping into minor keys, some great chord changes, muffled piano, nice guitar crunch. Quiet passages with single instruments.

Well done .

[THE INTRANCER]

There are around 170 tracks used in this production I created over a year ago, and this is what it sounds like..

https://soundcloud.com/scott-moncrieff- ... hour-night

There's a scaling limit in Studio One with track lanes so this is the best I could do to show this many at 1080P.

Thats an awful lot of tracks to keep track of !

Could you not have just played a lot of what seems like doubled up tracks (too small to see) into one track and then deleted them ?

Or is that what group tracks are for ?

This is not my genre of music,but I am surprised at the amount of work that goes into making it.

For me, this number of tracks is pretty normal nowadays, although it didn't use to be with the previous daw I used that really only was practical to use around 40 or so before it became a chore both on track management and CPU usage (Propellerheads Reason 7.1).

Because the track (song) is built on the diagonal in blocks in each part in the song, it can be easily managed, not only in a practical sense but in terms of CPU utilisation/pre calculated buffers. Drums and percussion elements can be grouped into folders if needed and even bounced down to single tracks, but it's not always necessary. I also mix as I produce rather than leaving it to the end and don't move to the next section till I'm happy with it, and thus it makes it easier to embellish additional sounds on it near the end. Additional instruments are optimised and bounced down but still if needed, keeping the original note data.

Dance music is often built upon the layering of sounds from the same or different instruments, but to make them work effectively, they need their own frequency spectrum to be able to fuse correctly.

If you start something you think has promise, it's often best to take the bull by the horns and run with it. Inspiration can evaporate before you even know it, if you let it slide by.

[Hink]

There are around 170 tracks used in this production I created over a year ago, and this is what it sounds like..

https://soundcloud.com/scott-moncrieff- ... hour-night

There's a scaling limit in Studio One with track lanes so this is the best I could do to show this many at 1080P.

Thats an awful lot of tracks to keep track of !

Could you not have just played a lot of what seems like doubled up tracks (too small to see) into one track and then deleted them ?

Or is that what group tracks are for ?

This is not my genre of music,but I am surprised at the amount of work that goes into making it.

If you start something you think has promise, it's often best to take the bull by the horns and run with it. Inspiration can evaporate before you even know it, if you let it slide by.

by the time I got done with that many tracks the bull's grandbulls would be dead and buried

Seriously this is great contrast on a few levels. For me that much would kill inspiration, far too much think for me to be a creative thinking mode. I garner inspiration most often by playing instruments and I write the same way, staring at a computer screen is not going to accomplish that. That's not to say that having to put down the instruments and work in the box isn't essential because it is, but that much wouldn't cause my inspiration to evaporate though...it would drown it.

Of course that's just me, I dont find that inspiring at all but I absolutely love the fact that so many people will and do.