tracks, how many???

Z

ZANY

Guest
Hey, I wanted to know how many tracks everyone uses to record usually?? and whats the most amount of tracks you ever used? I wanted to know mainly because Im looking into buying a stand alone multitrack recorder workstation and I just wanted to know how many tracks I might need so I'd appreciate it. Also if you use or have used a multitrack recorder I'd appreciate some input on the one you used like how was it?, was the learning curve steep?, did it work well with your set up? and anything else you want to add

thnxx

1 yaself
 
Depends on how many sounds you have in the song.

Could be anywhere from 1 track and up.

Average song with over dubs, layered sounds, could be 20 - 35 give or take.

But like I said it all depends, my tracks I record here average about 19 or 20.

Hope this helps.
 
Kanye he asked "what is the most tracks anyone used"

And 20 was not for vocals, it was for everything.

Vocals usually eat up 4 to 8 tracks, depends on if I need to separate a lot of stuff.
 
I usually end up at about 28 to 32 tracks for r&b, and Im limited by Pro Tools LE. For rap tracks, I usually use about 20 to 25. I usually track everything on a different track though.
I know some people record all the lead vocals on one track and so on, but I don't have a big mixing board so I usually can use compressing and automation to bounce without even touching the faders.
 
20+ for me

The reason is that when I do punch-ins I just use a new tracks and keep some tracks free for little things here and there. I could do with 10-15 if I was less carefree. Computer recording has me spoiled. My hat goes off to older and more experienced engineers that had to deal with 4/8-tracks.

This is with the music 2-track being on 1 channel. It would be 30+ easy if I had the music sequence on different channels in the same project.

I can do with a max of 10 channels for tracking if needed though.

2 for the music. 1 for vocals, 1 for doubles, 1 for ad libs, and 1 for people that like doing another set of ad libs. Same for the hook, which totals 4 as verse parts.

I generally like keeping different people on different tracks to avoid normalizing to get vocals to the same level. That's another reason for so many tracks,
 
The reason is that when I do punch-ins I just use a new tracks and keep some tracks free for little things here and there.
Click to expand...

I use the same track for the punch-ins,
Cubase has stacked recording so the previous take is under the newer one.

After all the tracking is done, I edit all the takes and punch-ins accordingly.
 
You should turn the VST tracks to audio if they are set in stone.

Thats what I do.

I make everything into audio, I feel better doing so.
 
yeah, that's what I usually do when I have my final mix. Saves a lot of cpu power, too. The biggest cpu hog are reverbs. I usually bounce them to a track when I feel happy about the results as well.

Cheers,
Gig

Listen to my new track
My Problem
 
My biggest CPU hog is the multi-band compressor with cubase.

It eats up at least 15% CPU power when I arm it.
 
I usually use atleast 25. About 10 for vocals its alot but i like to seperate different parts of the vocals so i can apply effects better that way. The most ive ever used on vocals was around 20 that was a long ass 8 min song with 5 people on it though.
 
Yo thanks alot for the replies, helped alot. I now know the estimate of how many tracke I'll need but I'm still trying to figure out what I want to use to record. I dont want to use computer for one reason I just dont want to lol, and the I dont have one thats good enough for recording at least i dont think I do, so the options I know of in hardware are hard disk recorders, which I hear are no starting part for a begginer like me. And then theres a stand alone multitrack recorder which I'm considering, so any comments on other ways that are good?(and for a begginer, but I dont want no cheap $h!t that I'll have to buy something else later as in too soon, I want something I can stick with ya know)
 
Wow, my latest has over 60 tracks. but, that could prolly easily be cut in half. and my beats are on the minimal side, with no vocals! but i seperate everything, to minimize having to go back and add in little edits and sh1t. i guess i am spoiled too. i dont even think about how many tracks i use. i make tracks that just a have a single drum hit looped. i make tracks for edits of edits of edits. ha. must just be me. i dont build tracks as a 'live' type of thing. I like to get it all set in front of me, then take time to build the track.

peace.
 
Yea i just used up 3 tracks on an echo
One track dead center one panned right and one panned left. The word im echoing is dead center and it echoes twice. the first echo is panned right and the 2nd echo is panned left so it bounces from speaker to speaker. I know theres got to be a better way to do this rather than using 3 seperate tracks. im using Cubase so if someone could give me some info on that, that would be cool.
1
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top