Color (Colour?) Coding Standards Or Ordering Opinions for Track Groups?

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cgijoe
Posts: 77
Joined: 13 Mar 2016

01 Dec 2017

Hey everyone,

I was wondering a couple things about color coding and track organization techniques used. Is there a standard of any kind among producers or sound designers for how tracks should be ordered and/or colored? Are there any other conventions or techniques that y'all like to use for keeping things organised both in the rack, sequencer, and mixer? This is where there were collapsible bus groups in Reason, just to keep things tidying when need be. Also, why not custom RGB colors? I'd be so nice to use slightly different gradients of a particular color to distinguish tracks with a bus group.

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selig
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Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

01 Dec 2017

cgijoe wrote:
01 Dec 2017
Hey everyone,

I was wondering a couple things about color coding and track organization techniques used. Is there a standard of any kind among producers or sound designers for how tracks should be ordered and/or colored? Are there any other conventions or techniques that y'all like to use for keeping things organised both in the rack, sequencer, and mixer? This is where there were collapsible bus groups in Reason, just to keep things tidying when need be. Also, why not custom RGB colors? I'd be so nice to use slightly different gradients of a particular color to distinguish tracks with a bus group.
My 2 cents…
If there's a standard for colors I'm not familiar. Maybe best to use colors that make sense for you, unless you are sharing your mixes with others (then decide among yourselves). I typically use the bright colors to get my attention focused on the most important things, and sometimes earth-tones for natural sounds (like real drums).

For track order, as someone who started on analog tape I still use those conventions. You would typically put the bass or kick on the edge track (track 1) since that's the track most likely to loose high frequencies first. After switching to digital I still put drums first, followed by percussion and any other non-pitched instruments. Next I would start with the Bass and build up from there, with synths/keys next, then guitars, then vocals. If the singer played an instrument I would put that instrument (often acoustic guitars) next to the vocals because I associated them as "one".

When I broke these rules, it was for a specific project that either didn't have drums, didn't have vocals, or was otherwise an outlier (track wise). And even then I had "some" logic to the order, though it wouldn't make sense to someone else in most cases! The goal when working alone is to have the order help you move as quickly/efficiently as possible, and when working with others the goal is to have a standard everyone agrees upon.

That being said, even when working with others, if I'm the one mixing the project I put the tracks in the order that makes most sense to me! ;)
Selig Audio, LLC

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Wickline
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01 Dec 2017

cgijoe wrote:Hey everyone,

I was wondering a couple things about color coding and track organization techniques used. Is there a standard of any kind among producers or sound designers for how tracks should be ordered and/or colored? Are there any other conventions or techniques that y'all like to use for keeping things organised both in the rack, sequencer, and mixer? This is where there were collapsible bus groups in Reason, just to keep things tidying when need be. Also, why not custom RGB colors? I'd be so nice to use slightly different gradients of a particular color to distinguish tracks with a bus group.
I made my own color coding “standard” that I stick to. It makes it easier to keep track of things. Made a chart and printed it out so I’d remember it early on. I use lighter shade for the tracks and darker shades for the busses. For example, red on drum channels and burgundy for drum busses. Consistently using it makes it useful.



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strangers
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Joined: 06 Mar 2017
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02 Dec 2017

I've also come up with my own way of color coding and grouping. I'll assign one color per instrument. For example:

Drums = Brown
Bass = Blue
Rhythm Guitar = Green
Lead Guitar = Orange
Vocals = Purple
Synth = Yellow
FX = Grey

From there, I always label every mix channel so that I can easily look for an instrument based upon a decided color and then the obvious label. I make every bus red so that my buses are consistent and stand out while mixing. I arrange my instrument groups exactly like Selig happened to post above. I've always got drums first (kick, snare, hats, cymbals, percussion hits), followed by bass (sub bass first), then guitars or vocals depending where each fit into the mix and any random effects at the end.

When I first started using Reason I didn't bother color coding anything until I quickly became tired of scrolling through mix channels only to have to back track to find which instrument I'm looking for.

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