track nuber pole, to keep things in perspective

[Arsenu,]

hey guys!

i have an interasting pole...
a standart metal band usually consists of bass, drums, 2 guitars, and vocals

now, i have seen engineers working on songs with dozens of tracks and some with like 5-7 tracks max.

so let's do a little pole to see how the average engineer works...
write down how many tracks you ended up with on your latest work so people will get some pespective about where they are standing.

personally, latest demo i recorded with my band (live) ended in 7 tracks only 2 for drums and it's not bad (good recording gear)

- note: count drum tracks seperatly!

 

[pipaguapique]

20-30 tracks...plus 10-20 drum tracks in my case

 

[Skinny Viking]

48

about 12-16 for drums

 

[guitarguru777]

Really depends on what the song needs. But my base projects usually start out as.....

1.Kick
2. Snare
3. Snare Bottom
4. Tom 1
5. Tom 2
6. Tom 3
7. Oh L
8. Oh R
9. Bass
10. Distorted Bass
11. Guitar L
12. Guitar R
13. Lead Vox
12. Backup Vox
13. Guitar Solo

If needed I will add additional guitar and vocal tracks, but for the base of the une its usuallt 2 bass tracks (same performance split) and 2 guitar tracks (2 separate takes).

This is cause I only have an 8ch interface at the moment. I am sure as time goes on this will get bigger with things like High Hat mic, Ride and splash mics, Guitar DI's and things of that nature

 

[John_C]

20-40 tracks, 10-15 for drums, 3-12 for electric guitars, up to 8 for clean/acoustics, 2 for bass, 1-3 for lead vocals, as many as 10 for backing vox, then keyboards, fx etc....

obviously sometimes you just get 12 tracks and it's great but generally there's gonna be more.

 

[Ionei]

Opened a old project the other day and had 50 tracks.
But that was fully unoptimized and unautomated.
So i cleaned up like ten tracks just with moving shit about.

Now usually its like 30-40
So pretty much the same haha.

 

[nwright]

30-40 here as well. around 12 or so drum/cymbal tracks, 4-8 rhythm guitar tracks, 2-6 harmony/solo tracks, 2 for bass, 4-10 for vocals, etc.

once you add in group tracks and miscellaneous stuff, I usually have 55-80 tracks

 

[Fragle]

30-40 here as well. around 12 or so drum/cymbal tracks, 4-8 rhythm guitar tracks, 2-6 harmony/solo tracks, 2 for bass, 4-10 for vocals, etc.

once you add in group tracks and miscellaneous stuff, I usually have 55-80 tracks

this

 

[professorlamp]

20-30

 

[Jind]

As a solo musician I still find myself using between 25-35 tracks on any given project - what with multi-tracked drum samples and layered guitars both bass and electric/acoustic, DI tracks, keyboards, pads, leads, ... it can add up really fast.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Between 40 to 120 tracks

 

[Seth Munson]

Throw a 57 on the ground at the bands practice and hit record. That's how the pros do it with one mono track

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

60-140 depending on a lot of things, never less.. how you guys are getting by on less than 20 is beyond me.

 

[guitarguru777]

60-140 depending on a lot of things, never less.. how you guys are getting by on less than 20 is beyond me.

Cause I am not a pro and still learning Also theres cash issues, trust me I would do 16 to 20 for drums if I had the money for more inputs

 

[Trevoire520]

At mix time it's something like:
16-18 drums
2 bass
8 guitars
6 vocals

So about 30, plus guitar DI's

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

16 drum tracks when going fake, 10 when doing it for real
4-10 stereo synth tracks
10-15 mono vocal tracks
4-16 mono tracks of guitars
2 mono bass tracks

I don't know how anyone works with a shit ton of tracks. Consolidate as you go and make your life easier my friends.

 

[ahjteam]

depends on lots of things... 4 to 120 tracks.

 

[amarshism]

1 kick
2 kick trigger
3 snare
4 snare trigger
5 rack 1
6 rack 1 trigger
7 rack 2
8 rack 2 trigger
9 floor tom
10 floor tom trigger
11 china spot mic
12 hats
13 oh l
14 oh r
15 mono room
16 mono room 2
17 bass into preamp
18 bass di
19 gtrla
20 gtrla di
21 gtrlb
22 gtrlb di
23 gtrra
24 gtrra di
25 gtrrb
26 gtrrb di
27 gtroda
28 gtroda di
29 gtrodb
30 gtrodb di
31 leadgtra
32 leadgtra di
33 leadgtrb
34 leadgtrb di
35 clngtra
36 clngtra di
37 clngtrb
38 clngtrb di
39 clnvox1a
40 clnvox1b
41 clnvox2a
42 clnvox2b
43 clnvox3a
44 clnvox3b
45 clnvox4a
46 clnvox4b
47 scrmvox1a
48 scrmvox1b
49 scrmvox2a
50 scrmvox2b
51 scrmvox3a
52 scrmvox3b
53 scrmvox4a
54 scrmvox4b
55-70 gangvox
typical aux tracks would be
1 & 2 - snare bus and kick (I usually blend snares and kicks)
3 tom bus
4 oh bus
5 room bus
6 nycomp (parallel compression)
7 master drums
8 bass
9 gtrl
10 gtrr
11 odgtrs
12 lead gtrs
13 clean vocals
14 heavy vocals
15 vocal send (reverb/delay etc)
16 vocal fx (dist/filter etc for automation)
17 reversed panned gtrs sometimes for widening

this is just the basics, I'm by no means amazing, but i don't understand how you could get by with anything less in a modern metal production.

 

[arv_foh]

I average 30-40 tracks and about 8 busses. I can have a lot more or less it just depends on what the song calls for

 

[colonel kurtz]

my projects now hit about 40 tracks

would be more, but that's the absolute limit of what my CPU can handle, and even then i'm having to freeze a bunch of tracks and turn off VST's for playback

i can't wait to get a new PC so that i can finally listen to everything at once =/