Track Color strategies...

[doctormelodious]

"None more black."

--Shooshie, via YouTube

I often find uses for this quote in my own everyday life.

Nice vid. I was unaware of the cool new color controls added in DP8. Yet another compelling reason for me to upgrade and get with the times.

DM

[Prime Mover]

Guess I'm getting the picture that unless you constantly baby the track colors, they're not that useful. That's sorta what I've always felt. Shame. But no wonder I gave up trying to coordinate this. It just doesn't seem worth it, for something that's designed to be a casual, helpful thing, having to spend so much time tweaking and plotting.

[doctormelodious]

I stick with one scheme across all projects. E.G. drums are red, bass is orange, guitars are gold, etc. What I like about the new feature is the ability to fine-tune the way the waveforms are displayed. This is an improvement over DP 7's limited number of fixed options. For me, it would still be a "set it once and forget it" situation.

DM

[BKK-OZ]

I use track colors to differentiate between track types. Red=MIDI, Blue=vox, Green=guitars/recorded audio, etc. Then in the track names I use a name to remind me what is in there. with track type all in caps (e.g. 'Lead Guitar AUDIO'). I keep all track types together in the TO. Makes it relatively easy to quickly spot and go to a MIDI track, etc. when I have to.

[Shooshie]

To address Eric's time concern:
This is just something that has evolved for me, based on a need to see certain tracks in different contrast. This is a feature I've actually asked for in years past, and MOTU has graciously given me more than I knew to ask for, but I've grown into using it.

The actual tweaking takes a fraction of a second. When I need to change track colors/contrast, QuicKeys makes it basically instantaneous. This helps me to see things more clearly, and therefore to work faster and more accurately. I don't see why that would be in any way a liability. There's just no down side to that. What I'm hearing from you is that you don't understand how I work or why I do this. So…

As for the ultimate purpose of colors:
I also use colors to organize instruments or parts, and to group them in types. It's especially handy in MIDI usage, where I'm seeing all MIDI tracks simultaneously in the Graphic Edit window, and this enables me to see the tracks separately while viewing them all together. But if you have a different color for every track, some tracks are going to be lighter than others. When you actually work on those tracks, they're harder to see. Rather than going in and changing the individual track color while working on those tracks, I just instantly change color sets. Suddenly the tracks that were hard to see are now brilliantly visible. Further, I haven't disturbed the actual color organization of the individual tracks. Problem solved.

Are you seeing why I use it this way, now?

Shooshie

[Prime Mover]

Yes, I am. And no disrespect intended btw. For one, I don't have QuicKeys, so it's hard to get my head around it, and I wouldn't be able to do it anyway (got about 10 other things in front of it that I need to get). Also, even though this takes care of any conflicts with the current theme (I don't change themes much), I do fail to see how this counters my problems of being able to tell individual tracks apart, as well as groups. But I do understand how and why you do what you do, and it sounds pretty cool. Not sure that would be the best strategy for me, though, since I tend to rely on color coding, and continuously changing track colors would probably confuse me as to which track were what. But I understand different brains categorize things differently, and some people don't rely on the colors so much as use them to separate them out from one another. I'd like to be able to do both, but that's where I'm not seeing any solutions:

A) Be able to distinguish different types of tracks/parts from each other
B) Be able to tell the difference between adjacent tracks within a similar part

Shoosh, it seems as if you're not all that bothered by B, which is cool... if I were to pick one (and I do), I usually go with A and label all parts in a section the same. I can't really tell all that much of a difference in the fine gradations between different shades of the same color. So I tend to just label all colors in one instrument exactly the same color.

[SixStringGeek]

On my wish list is some sort of track dividers. A simple heavier line between tracks would suffice. I think something that could visually block off sections (without the use of color) would be useful.

That would be GREAT. I would want them to be rigid rather than elastic. I have a Mackie MCU (old version) and three extenders. So 32+1Master Fader in 4 groups and I tend to group things into ranges of colors (everything on the first 8 faders might be shades of red, second 8 shades of blue...) so I can map from the screen mixer to the faders on the desktop more quickly. Channels to the right of the master fader don't get mapped to MCU faders so I tend to put the ones that are just hosting VI's over there because I don't generally need to fiddle them.

[twistedtom]

I use a color different color group for each kind of thing, MIDI, audio, VI's and so on, to make it easy to see what track I am working on in that group I put a light color then a dark color then a light color and so on. Works for me.

[Steve Steele]

I took Rainbow and edited some of the colors and assign a single shade of a color to each type of track.

It's all about the eyes. This has always been a slight problem with DP I think. I've never found a good balance. One choice of colors will look good in the Tracks window, but look obnoxious in the Mixer or the other way around. And then if you're happy with the Mixer colors, then you realize you don't like looking at the MIDI tracks in the Tracks window with that color.

It's hard to pick a priority. But I think the tracks in the Tracks and Sequence window have to be inviting to edit, and the Mixer needs to seem organized. Yellow for MIDI tracks is difficult but looks ok on the Mixer for example.

Small price to pay to use the best DAW on the planet.

The icons in Logic look ok, but that can get silly real quick. MOTU, let's keep it clean and easy on the eyes please.