How many tracks?

Freebird

I keep on reading articles where producers manage to use 60 to 80 music tracks for a 3-minute song.

I think I might be doing something wrong 

equalsql

I can never get my head around some of those DAW sessions I see on youtube where the recordings have so many tracks.

I struggle to use 16 let alone 60 and that's with all the drum mics out on separate tracks.

Of course I'm old school having grown up in the reel-to-reel tape recording era, so for me less is more.

What do they do with all those extra tracks?

octatonic

Yes, pretty typical.
It helps to understand it coming from a tape-based methodology.
In the past you would have 16-24 tracks on your tape machine.
This means that if you want to record more tracks you need to bounce down multiple tracks to free some up to keep recording.

Since Pro Tools and other non-linear editors we've had the ability to track as much as we want and the amount of tracks available to mix being limited by how powerful a computer you have.

Now we all have computers capable of mixing down hundreds of tracks and the bottleneck is now how many plugins you can run before your system falls over.
With HDX, UA DSP and modern high end Macs and PC's the limit is basically so high that it doesn't matter.
Audio doesn't really push a machine anymore, not like high resolution video does.

So 60 to 80 tracks doesn't mean you have all the tracks playing at once.
This is a track I did a few years ago- you can see how many tracks are running- 56 tracks with everything mixed down to busses and the processing done there.

Guitars are tracked in sections, everything double tracked at a minimum, acoustic drums were recorded with about 10 microphones, 2 bass mics with a DI.
A few tracks of keys, percussion etc.
This was an instrumental so the 'lead' was a guitar, but with a vocal you might have a few tracks comped together.
60-80 is easy to get to.

Cirrus

Yeah, really easy to end up with massive track numbers depending on your methodology.

The thing is... the number of tracks doesn't matter. 120 tracks isn't a problem, and 8 tracks isn't a problem either. As long as you use a methodology that makes sense to you, and get the results you're looking for.

Example - you could easily end up with 4 kick tracks, if you multi-mike, use a sub-kick, snare might be 2 or 3, 2 per tom, overheads, extra character mics, rooms... maybe 24 tracks, and that's just your drums. And that's before you, say, set up extra tracks with samples, tracks to aid triggering/gating, etc.

Or... a different band with a different aesthetic might end up with 6 tracks for drums, because the song doesn't have toms in and the engineer summed the two kick mics he wanted to use to one track on the way in etc.

Just do what works.

octatonic

Cirrus said:

Yeah, really easy to end up with massive track numbers depending on your methodology.

The thing is... the number of tracks doesn't matter. 120 tracks isn't a problem, and 8 tracks isn't a problem either. As long as you use a methodology that makes sense to you, and get the results you're looking for.

Example - you could easily end up with 4 kick tracks, if you multi-mike, use a sub-kick, snare might be 2 or 3, 2 per tom, overheads, extra character mics, rooms... maybe 24 tracks, and that's just your drums. And that's before you, say, set up extra tracks with samples, tracks to aid triggering/gating, etc.

Or... a different band with a different aesthetic might end up with 6 tracks for drums, because the song doesn't have toms in and the engineer summed the two kick mics he wanted to use to one track on the way in etc.

Just do what works.

Yes, blending of mics is something I do a lot of, but not a lot of people do it so much these days, certainly those without mixing consoles as blending mics at an audio interface can be problematic.

In pop music there is a real trend towards leaving all your options open and basically recording things dry and then using the DAW to tweak things (somewhat endlessly).
There is a notion that committing sounds is a bad thing and I don't agree at all.

When I am tracking I like to get the sounds in the analogue realm and then you have less to do when it comes to the mix and you already have a degree of sonic footprint to work with.

PolarityMan

An average internal demo for my band looks like this:

4 x tracks of distorted rhythm guitars (2 parts, each double tracked)
2 x tracks of clean guitars
1-4 tracks of leads / solos
3 tracks of bass (DI, lows and highs)
2 x tracks vocal main clean
2 x tracks vocal main screams
2-4 tracks harmonies
4x tracks programmed drums separated into kick, snare, OH, rooms

So thats 20 tracks already.

In a recording where the sound wasnt coming from VSTS each of the 7-10 guitar tracks would be multiplied by 3 (DI and 2 mics) and the drums would probably be 11 tracks so that takes it up to 50 tracks already. We're just an amateur level band too.

Having seen a number of pro sessions its fairly typical to have far more tracks of vocals and to stack parts plus alot of contemporary stuff will have a fair few tracks of synths and production elements too. 

Tbh as long as you bus/folder tracks them all together sensibly its pretty easy to manage. 

WiresDreamDisasters

120+ tracks is very common here.

guitarfishbay

WiresDreamDisasters said:

120+ tracks is very common here.

Same. 

But the number of tracks is a byproduct of the intended aesthetic and workflow, there’s no reason to try to add more tracks if they aren’t needed musically.

andy_k

I'm having a lot of fun using midi file versions of songs in Reaper.
An 8 track Midi file, can end up with 50-60 final track count, by the time I have duplicated things with different Vst's, Bussed tracks together in folders-and sub-folders, exploded the drums out to per note tracks, bounced stuff down to stems, and added Auxes for FX, Reaper has a unique way of dealing with tracks-there is only one kind, which can itself hold 64 tracks EACH.
It is a crazy bit of software, and nothing else competes, 2020 PT update got folders FFS.
Highly recommended as a DAW to get into. 

PolarityMan

andy_k said:

I'm having a lot of fun using midi file versions of songs in Reaper.
An 8 track Midi file, can end up with 50-60 final track count, by the time I have duplicated things with different Vst's, Bussed tracks together in folders-and sub-folders, exploded the drums out to per note tracks, bounced stuff down to stems, and added Auxes for FX, Reaper has a unique way of dealing with tracks-there is only one kind, which can itself hold 64 tracks EACH.
It is a crazy bit of software, and nothing else competes, 2020 PT update got folders FFS.
Highly recommended as a DAW to get into. 

Oh yeah forgot about FX buses and folder tracks! 

WiresDreamDisasters

guitarfishbay said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

120+ tracks is very common here.

Same. 

But the number of tracks is a byproduct of the intended aesthetic and workflow, there’s no reason to try to add more tracks if they aren’t needed musically.

lies.

thegummy

You're definitely not doing anything wrong, I also think the same as you when I see it.

I think it's overkill just because they can.

One thing is that it's not 60 tracks all playing throughout the song; e.g. there could be, say, 6 vocal tracks but each time the chorus comes round they're given new tracks to effect them differently.

There could be a dozen tracks of synths layered that only play for a second to have an effect for a transition.

The reason I can confidently say it's overkill is because it's never the case that songs that use 50-100+ tracks sound better than ones from yesteryear that use around 20 tracks. So fair enough for anyone who wants to use all those layers but it's not improving it and you're definitely not lacking anything by having far fewer.

For me personally, I've always preferred minimalism anyway. Like, even before the technology was available to record each track separately, there was the "wall of sound" approach with loads of instruments mashing together to make a thick but indistinct sound. I always prefer to just hear a few instruments where you can hear the parts clearly but that's down to personal taste.

Freebird

Here is one of the articles I read which is quite informative, and this song has 81 music tracks.

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/inside-track-paramore

https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_preview/s3/imagelibrary/I/IT_Jul_02-mr8L7Wr84Ox9bQi8iIAuX5h1EEB6lhQ9.jpg
"The Pro Tools session for Ken Andrews' mix of Paramore's 'Still Into You' consists of 81 music tracks. From top to bottom, these comprise 15 drum tracks, 14 percussion tracks, 13 guitar tracks, seven intro keyboard tracks and 17 more keyboard tracks (the region names indicate that the hardware keyboards used included an Arturia MiniBrute, Roland JX3P, Roland Juno 106, Korg MS20, ARP, Doepfer modular, Eowave Persephone and AtomoSynth Mochika), plus 15 vocal tracks, including the main lead vocal spread out over three tracks. Below the audio tracks are six aux effect tracks labelled Shimmer, Room, Snare Reverb, Plate, Long Delay and Slap Delay, and nine aux group tracks (three drum auxes, percussion, rhythm guitars, lead guitars, keyboards, lead vocals and backing vocals), a stereo bus and a mixdown master track. Unusually, perhaps, the regions in the Edit window have not been colour-coded by instrument group."

And here is the song..

octatonic

You can see that the edit window is half empty,
You might have 80 tracks but you only probably have 30-40 playing at once.

Freebird

octatonic said:

You can see that the edit window is half empty,
You might have 80 tracks but you only probably have 30-40 playing at once.

Yeah, it's more like painting with sound. Interestingly, that guy mixes with a Kensington trackball and a Faderport, and has a lot of faith in Waves plugins.

octatonic

Freebird said:

octatonic said:

You can see that the edit window is half empty,
You might have 80 tracks but you only probably have 30-40 playing at once.

Yeah, it's more like painting with sound.

I dunno- I look at it as simply being more flexible than having to put separate sections on the same track, as you would have done with a tape machine, which means you have to massively change the mix levels between sections.
I come from a time when a mix was a performance, done by the engineer, producer, tea boy and most of the band- all hands on faders.
One wrong move and you have to do it all over again.
I don't miss those days.

Freebird

octatonic said:

Freebird said:

octatonic said:

You can see that the edit window is half empty,
You might have 80 tracks but you only probably have 30-40 playing at once.

Yeah, it's more like painting with sound.

I dunno- I look at it as simply being more flexible than having to put separate sections on the same track, as you would have done with a tape machine, which means you have to massively change the mix levels between sections.
I come from a time when a mix was a performance, done by the engineer, producer, tea boy and most of the band- all hands on faders.
One wrong move and you have to do it all over again.
I don't miss those days.

When I say painting with sound, I mean they would never come close to replicating that sound live due to the creativity at the mix level. That guy doing the mixing knows his stuff, and has produced a very polished mix with lots of fine detail. The production article is worth a read, if only for affirmation that nearly all of the software plugins used are affordable for most people.

PolarityMan

thegummy said:

The reason I can confidently say it's overkill is because it's never the case that songs that use 50-100+ tracks sound better than ones from yesteryear that use around 20 tracks. So fair enough for anyone who wants to use all those layers but it's not improving it and you're definitely not lacking anything by having far fewer.

Well that's just demonstrably not true. Modern production pisses all over stuff from yesteryear. 

octatonic

PolarityMan said:

thegummy said:

The reason I can confidently say it's overkill is because it's never the case that songs that use 50-100+ tracks sound better than ones from yesteryear that use around 20 tracks. So fair enough for anyone who wants to use all those layers but it's not improving it and you're definitely not lacking anything by having far fewer.

Well that's just demonstrably not true. Modern production pisses all over stuff from yesteryear. 

Agree 100%.
What all this technology shows us is it is easier to make a nicer sounding 'thing' but just as hard to write a good song.
When people say 'music was better in the old days' they are almost always talking about the songwriting.
That is a completely different argument.

There is no defensible position that says that production quality has gone down since, say, the sixties.
What is certainly easier is to now make bad music sound pretty.

thegummy

PolarityMan said:

thegummy said:

The reason I can confidently say it's overkill is because it's never the case that songs that use 50-100+ tracks sound better than ones from yesteryear that use around 20 tracks. So fair enough for anyone who wants to use all those layers but it's not improving it and you're definitely not lacking anything by having far fewer.

Well that's just demonstrably not true. Modern production pisses all over stuff from yesteryear. 

How can you possibly say "demonstrably"?

It's completely subjective what sounds good.

It's not even subjective as a technicality while in reality there is a majority consensus - many many people prefer the sound of older records. I much prefer the sound of records from decades ago - or modern records that sound like those; i.e. ones that don't have 20 snares, 50 synths and 70 guitar parts layered on top of each other. Or where the vocals are completely squashed and even brighter than everything else.

Maybe I was wrong to say it's overkill if, in some people's taste, it does sound better with all those tracks. I wonder if you snuck in during lunch and muted a few of those layers would they even notice.

andy_k

There are plenty of multi-track stems floating around, stuff from Rockband and other games. usually they are between 5 and 12 tracks, some of them are real and some are re done for the games.
It is a revelation to hear the Van Halen ones, 5 stereo tracks that individually sound quite messy, but when summed-they work fantastic.
I realise, these are stems-ie, the drums are all on one stereo track, but you can hear the bleed of the guitar.
In both the guitar and bass tracks you can hear the drum bleed, basic track was recorded live.
Guitar is usually 2 tracks panned hard left and right-main in one side and reverb in other.
Solos, if overdubbed, are punched in  and sometimes on the vocal track.
I know these have been mixed to work inside the game, and do not necessarily relate to real recordings, but they give a good idea as to how a well structured song can work with a minimum track count.
If you look really hard, you can find stems from original Led Zep recordings-which are either 8-16-or 24 tracks, and there is even the complete Chinese Democracy album, in stem form out there. 
It is all good fun.