What EXACTLY is the point of tracks?

Alright, I've been making beats on the mpc for a few months now and am starting to get the hang of it. The only thing I'm a little confused about are the tracks. I have been making beats fine out of recording separate sequences and haven't been using the track feature. I am still reading the manual and I'm sure I'll find out from it eventually but I'm curious now.

also, you make a mistake while you recorded the sequence.... you can push stop, and then record+play without recording over the entire sequence of sounds... it will only record over or replace the stuff on that track.

In reality, no you don't need tracks, only sequences. But I don't know how long you've been producing for, it's quite easy to get lost in the sequences when you want to revisit them. More advanced techniques can be used on tracks than just sequences.

A video should be made about this point because it will save people a lot of time.
Cheers,
Ian

Thanks everyone for the prompt replies. That's what I thought. @Lampdog you have definitely been a huge help for all of my posts!

Ok, I'm a little late on this one but I thought I would contrib anyway.

A track can...
- only use one program
- record midi data
- mute its midi data
- can run an external midi instrument by sending midi data over one channel

Here's an example… Let's say you have a program for some drums, a program with some sweet bass and a program with random samples. If you want to use those 3 programs in your sequence, you'll need 3 tracks. One for each program.

Another example… I've got a program with some drums and a real synth that I want to drive with the 500. In this case, I'll need two tracks. One for the program and one for synth. The drum track records midi for the drum program and the synth track records midi for the synth.

The track mute on the 500 can't be recorded. So for me, it only serves one function. When I'm working on a song, I'll record just about every part or instrument on its own track on a single sequence. Then I'll copy that sequence a few times and mute certain tracks in each to make the different sections of my song.

I ALWAYS go back and forth about how many tracks to use and how many programs to use. I want to have the program in the track only contain the instruments on that track so I don't get confused. That is hardly ever realistic on the MPC though. I've even tried using only one program but each pad gets it own track. That didn't work out either.

Usually what I do is make the whole thing on one track in overdub mode and if I need to split things out, I'll move the pad events I want out to other tracks.

Anyway, good luck. I've been doing this for a little while now and I still don't have the one single magic workflow. Each song is different.

The main thing that I like about tracks myself is that I can make like a master sequence with all the different parts in tracks. Then, I just copy the sequence over and over muting the different sections that I want the certain parts of the song to be. Put all the sequences in song mode, then I have my full song!