Track Colouring Conventions

Harry Wrigley · Post by **Harry Wrigley** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:53 pm

Hi, I know a lot of engineers like to use the same track colouring conventions when they are handling sessions.

Does anybody know any commonly associated instruments > Colours? i.e. Drums = Red, Bass = Blue etc.

I'd like to get into good habits whilst I am learning to be an engineer so if you have any other suggestions that are 'good practise' in session management feel free to chime in.

Thanks.

rockstudio · Post by **rockstudio** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:37 pm

I generally use my same color set for instruments. I haven't heard of a single, universally accepted code however. It's up to you to color your instrument tracks as you see / hear them.
I like to make guitars orange, because they are grindy, hot, loud things.
I make bass a deep purple, vocals light blue, because they are easy to see and adjust when you have a huge session! Drums are mid green, keys are pink, reference tracks are bright yellow. I color my sub-group channels the same way, so you can quickly grab a fader.

Lately I have been working on a more "spiritually rich" album, so I'll ask the musicians their feelings for the color of their instruments on a particular song, and that way they may feel more comfortable and in-control about their tracks.
Here are some videos of this album I'm working on (just a side note)
http://www.youtube.com/user/ctts

Tims96 · Post by **Tims96** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:27 pm

I know a good deal of people who color all their tracks black or gray, but I really enjoy color-coding my tracks and being able to quickly identify what any given track is.

My general scheme, adopted from others and tweaked a bit, is pretty simple:

Bass = Blue
Guitars = Green
Vocals = Violet (Leads bright purple, almost pink, with backgrounds darker)
Drums = Yellow
Keys = Red

From there, anything goes. Percussion is often orange, strings a dark red or brown, effects bright green, cue mixes bright blue.

It's all a matter of taste really. As far as I know, there's no "standard," but even if there was, who cares? I really like the above poster's idea of choosing the color that corresponds to how the instrument sounds. That could lead to different color schemes for different sessions, depending on the style of music and instrumentation, but again, who cares?

Experiment a bit and find what you prefer.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:37 am

I always colour my vocal tracks brown, as they are such shite.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:01 am

For my ad sessions lately, I've been coloring the voice tracks yellow and the music tracks blue or green. SFX tracks vary as far as color, but for some reason I have settled on the yellow for voice. Slightly darker yellow for the takes, bright yellow for the edit. I keep thinking I'll formalize the effects and music track colors someday but I never do.

niccolo gallio · Post by **niccolo gallio** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:34 am

Drums=red
bass=dark orange
gtrs=brighter orange
reeds=yellow
vocals=light blue
rev or dly=pink

but, just as vvv says, I might as well color all of them shit-brown.
too bad my workstation doesn't have a "puke" color scheme..

ricey · Post by **ricey** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 1:47 pm

Drums - Deep blue
Bass - blood
guitars - green
keys - blue
horns - bronze
lead vox - gold
back vox - lime
perc/loops/chowder - baby blue

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:34 pm

What I wanna ask, and prob'ly jes' 'cuz I hadda few, butt do they have live music and hookers at Track Colouring Conventions?

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