I saw some people said, "Creating hundreds of tracks is necessary for every genre."
For orchestral tracks, I agree. But I don't think it is necessary for every genre. What do you think?

 

Of course not, do whatever rocks your boat and don't be afraid to try things out. Even if it pans out against your kung fu, it will be a valuable lesson.

 

Yep. Definition of Trancey Slap House means using exactly 184 tracks.

 

I mean it's pretty obvious. Take any modern successful producer who's making banger tracks. Then go back to his or her first tracks. There'll be a massive difference in pretty much any metric of quality you can imagine.

 

Some examples: Pharrel - Happy was 30ish tracks (considered "simple"), and Lily Allen - the Fear was 100ish. They're both very famous artists with high production values.

 

Producing can be 100. Mixing should = lower #.

 

Its because of having a template. Consider you have two libraries with 20 patches each. Some people create 40 tracks for them, even if they don't use.
But for a rock band, 20 is more than enough.

 

Current work I'm doing atm is 528 Tracks and if the so called producer doesn't get his act together that will climb, It was all sounding great at 86 tracks it's a mess now, but hey they are paying for the mess .

 

Last edited: May 22, 2019

Now, look George, we're definitely going to need another 96 tracks.

 

Drums, bass, melody, accompaniment, background sound effects = 5 tracks for pop song. Let's say you have 4 tracks of drums, that's still 8 tracks.
These guys with 100-500 tracks are using a separate track for every incidental sound. Most daws offer individual control (panning, pitch, amplitude etc) or even applying vst fx on individual audio fragments, so there is no need for hundreds of tracks.

 

Or 8, hence why they practically invented ping-ponging/bouncing.

I want to live in your reality.

 

Who said that?
It's simple logic really. You use as many/few channels it takes to create a song. But even with a simple piano and vocal song the track count can go up to 8, depending on mic'ing techniques, overdubs, harmonies, parallel processing, etc. Yes, stacking/layering and overdubbing is a big part in creating a professional, lush and big sound. There are many artists, producers and engineers who go for that sound - because we can do that today without any hiccups. Back in the days of analog tape they weren't so fortunate so they had to get tricky (Phil Spector, George Martin, etc).

I've made and mixed songs ranging from 4 to 190 channels. I recently watched Junkie XL working with a template with channels reaching over a thousand, ready to be enabled with a press of a button.

 

Last edited: May 22, 2019

Now here's an example of where you need that many tracks.

 

As already said, except for classical music, I don't see any reason for hundreds of tracks.
So far, I have never used more than 15 tracks per project but hey, what do I know...

 

Shit! My drumkit alone is 16-18 channels.

 

the result not the number......

 

Indeed!
Sidenote: Speaking of which - usually Glyn Johns' setup works wonders, but it doesn't work on all genres.

 

And I can remember a dude saying it was two mics too many. If you can forget the seventies you weren't there.

 

You don't use every track in a mix by default, do you? How do you deal with phase issues?

 

I use them all (mics) usually as I've found a technique that works for me (for the last 24 years of doing it). I measure when recording (old habit to get in the ballpark right away) as well as phase align (offset and flipping polarity) in post. The A/B OH are tilted so snare and kick are as centered as can be. Then I have a centered dynamic OH (that I squash) to fill out the "hole" in the middle of the spaced A/B.
OH, snare and toms are aligned in phase (meat of the kit) Then it's just a matter of nudging in the kick mics (three of them) until it sounds good. The roomies are also in phase (by themselves), but less dependent on the close-mics.