Why do people “need” more than 8 tracks?

J3RK · 2023-10-31T20:44:35.638Z

Short answer to the original question (already answered many times) is different music, different muscians, different processes, different eras in musical history, different budgets, different engineers, etc. etc. etc.

For me, I do my best to use the least amount of tracks that the music I’m making requires. However, I have no qualms about adding more tracks if something I want to do would make sense, or sound better on its own track.

If say, I’m mostly using an 808, I’ll cram the kick, snare, and maybe a few other sounds into one channel (two if it’s not really an 808 ) and then maybe I want to add some space to the sound. I’ll toss the hats, shaker, clave, and other higher frequency sounds on their own tracks with their own effects, and maybe widen the field a bit with some stereo effects. Bass sounds always go on their own track, so I can EQ them against the lower frequency percussion. Sometime I do the same with the kick, but not always, as it doesn’t always matter. Maybe some modular sound effects, or something semi-melodic. Each instrument goes on either a mono or stereo track. So that’s probably pretty close to 8 tracks or so.

On the other hand, sometimes I want to make a stereo track with just my modular, using serial effects. So, two tracks.

If I’m writing music with software, I usually end up with 12-24 tracks or so. The reason being, that I have little hacks I do for certain things. Like having four 303 tracks for a single bassline. The reasoning here is that I don’t have to program pattern changes. I can just swap between tracks to change patterns. Then I can also tweak them differently with automation too, so it’s just easier for me to bounce back and forth that way, or compare two parts, instead of paging back and forth, I can see both. I tend to program more intricately in software too, so I like lots of little sounds and tiny effects happening, where more tracks is very helpful. I don’t do multitimbral arrangements on one synth (in software at least, with Elektrons I obviously do) so having a few copies of the same synth with different sounds is vastly easier than doing it all within the synth.

Anyway, just a few reasons that I personally have for various track counts.

I write music much differently depending on which subset of gear, or hardware vs software, etc. I’m using. With software, I program every single note, automate ever single change, and create something very structured. If I’m using hardware, I generally do this more for fun, or for live playing/recording, so the music is less intricate in the way the software stuff is, but it’s more organic and human sounding, because I’m doing everything on the fly. Other times, like the modular example, I’m just plain experimenting or designing sounds, and sometimes hit record.

Suspect_Frequency · 2023-10-31T21:54:12.848Z

I was at about 400-ish audio/midi tracks total connecting all my hardware devices, and it’s been a real chore populating them all with something coherent across it all.

Spreading single hi hats and other drums or midi notes across multiple tracks to make a bar is helping. I’m tempted to add in an Ableton project with my laptop to try and get to 500.

I might have become an alcoholic since I first saw this thread and dove in deep. I’m not sure I slept last night, and this is the t-shirt I put on Friday morning.

It’s Tuesday.

I’m afraid to press play. I’ll keep you posted.

chaocrator · 2023-10-31T22:49:18.389Z

g3o2:

why do DAWless solutions not offer you more than 8 to 16 tracks to work with?

because in live/jam situation, which is the point of DAWless thing, more than 16 would be way too hard to manage. and even 16 is not that easy.

(however, if one really needs more, it’s always possible to use more than one machine.)

and yeah, human brain can only handle about 7–9 objects simultaneously. it’s the ultimate hardware limit.

J3RK · 2023-10-31T22:50:19.263Z

I’ve had some sessions like that (in my 20s and early 30s) though I’d replace the alcohol with various other “things”. Track count wasn’t the goal, but the overall feel of your post is familiar to me.

toot · 2023-11-01T10:19:58.782Z

Don’t let it, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The stuff of mine that I actually end up liking is usually simple and made quickly.

Strutter · 2023-11-01T10:26:47.680Z

I would like to have a quality comparator not only for unlocking recording on my DAW but also for unlocking more than 4 tracks as I really think so much can be accomplished with just that.

Aside from partly joking I don’t always get good stuff done with just 4 tracks.
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t aim for that.

As said before limitations boost creativity.

bambrose · 2023-11-01T10:34:03.804Z

Yeah was a bit of a tongue in cheek response… I favour hardware jams over software automation personally… It’s all ‘horses of courses’ and depends on what style of music you want to make.
I don’t think most of the records I love had a timeline that resembled that one.
Thanks though

tha_man · 2023-11-01T12:30:40.587Z

There’s another thing with track count - for producing, 8 tracks with some sequencer wizardry like s-locks could be more than enough. But for jamming, I prefer “more tracks/less patterns” approach, so I can just mute or fade in/out certain elements of track instead of changing to different pattern, where new elements replace previous on same tracks. I find this more fun and flexible and for this 8 tracks can be quite limiting.

chiasticon · 2024-02-28T18:04:38.179Z

bangonadigi:

Just recently I read an interview with Anthony Naples where he said he’s never felt the need to move past Ableton Intro and “can’t imagine” what people would do with more than 16 tracks. I feel the same, but even with 8.

just ran into this interview, actually (below). pretty funny he basically says he barely EQ’s anything and previously never did; just made it loud in Live and sent it off for pressing. and that he learned on Live Intro. yet now he’s got a summing and mastering setup worth the better part of $10k, and he confines himself to 16 channels just because that’s all he can sum with it.

new album isn’t my favorite of his, but I love his stuff in general. and actually, what I love about his early stuff is how rough and raw it sounds. so maybe he should go back to the Live Intro setup!

MusicRadar – 16 Jun 23

Anthony Naples: "Any time I get new gear, it's just a way for me to resist...

Anthony Naples' fifth album is a masterwork of musical escapism. He talks us through how orbs was made, his relationship with gear, and how 16 channels are more than enough

error.eyes · 2024-02-28T20:15:16.669Z

Some people dream bigger than others, and they need more “containers” to put stuff in (note that I said bigger, not better). To account for these creation, people need more than 8 tracks to manage ideas, groups of sounds, sections of a song, etc. better. It’s a management thing really, not a qualifier for quality. If person A can put all their belongings in one box, great. Person B will need 4 boxes, and that’s fine too.

And just like anything else, it is possible that the size of a project can also mean a mismanagement of a project. Like, person C could put all forks in one box, all knives in another, all spoons in a third one, whereas person D would just put them all in one box…

tecker · 2024-02-28T20:46:39.707Z

Thinking about this a bit, I feel like I gravitate towards music with relatively few concurrent sounds. Often it’s basically 1. drums, 2. some form of bass element, 3. a ‘lead’ or more prominent melodic line perhaps (could be call and response between a few different sounds even), and 4. maybe some background elements or harmony in the form of drawn out chords/pads.

The same applies to my own music, where I try to limit the number of sounds but make them memorable if I can. It’s arguably out of ‘laziness’, which is actually more accurately described as a strategy for the conservation of energy and focus, as well as keeping up the momentum so as to not get burnt out. Because being too tired to continue an idea most often leads to abandonment in my case, with the result being an unfinished husk of a track.

I find this works for me and gets stuff done, most of the time.

So my tracks rarely go above, say, four-five elements at once. Usually the same sounds are present throughout the duration of a tune and come and go. It might be as few as two-three sounds + drums much of the time, even! Regardless of it being hardware or DAW-based stuff.

holonology · 2024-02-29T06:00:33.282Z

I find my songs have a lot of tracks but those tracks are grouped into 6 themes (usually.) Drums, bass, vocal, leads, pads, ambience & fx.

Where samplers and grooveboxes are helpful is in focussing on the idea before the layering stage. I find that my DAW songs only have reached 80 tracks and with an M1 (standard not Pro) this is about as far as it will go, so there’s a hard limitation there. (Though it’s pretty luxurious by all accounts.) It’s pretty boring I guess, but part of the reason is I tend to keep all the experiments that I do as I build a track, mainly because computing power means I don’t need to delete them as I would on a more limited device.

However my favourite workflow lands somewhere in the middle. Ideally this is working on some form of hardware groovebox with 8-16 tracks. Taking 8 tracks from a groovebox of some kind and then starting with the stems, I am less likely to add for the sake of adding. In my head I think this is because I’m trying to preserve the feel of the original and instead of layering it to within an inch of its life, I want to hear the core of the original come through. This tends to lead to sessions with more like 30-40 tracks and I tend to feel this is a decent workflow that makes the best of both worlds.

thermionic · 2024-02-29T08:05:25.311Z

I don’t need much but I skew towards maximalism, sometimes to my detriment.

Lokua · 2024-02-29T08:13:22.649Z

A “track” doesn’t necessarily have to produce notes, either. For example some sequencers can send MIDI control data, and you may want to use more than one of these “control” tracks in order to modulate different parameters of an external sound at different rates. Right there that’s 3 entire tracks for a single “sound”, and continuing down this road you can easily see how a track count can add up even for super minimal styles of music.

J3RK · 2024-03-05T21:23:53.084Z

After posting a more reasonable reply earlier in the thread, I thought maybe I’d come back at this from a different perspective.