building tracks on the LIVE

ive been away from the mpc for a few years but the live (and x) brought me back.

when building a beat, do you cats mainly use one track for EACH sound or say do you group a sound or two together per track so you are not using lots of tracks?

im aware this is a novice question but i would honestly appreciate good tips.

maybe worth noting, but i don't plan to use the live (or x) in controller mode. i plan to use these machines sans computer as much as i can.

I love to put drums on one track and send the hihats and snares to one bus and the drumkicks to another bus so I can put different kind of effects on those busses.. then for the melody part such as piano, strings, ets. I put those on their own track.

I've always put each instrument on its own track, far more organised and easier to see where you stand, especially if you ever wish to track out externally. If I initially record the drums together (e.g. finger drumming) I'll usually separate them out into separate tracks later using 'track copy' and erase. If required, I'll use sub mixes to group together tracks for mixing purposes.

I mostly play all my drums on one track like zangetsu01 then separate the events to individual tracks as Tutor explained.
I noticed on Beta 2.0 coping (only) selected Events transfers (all) Events over to the new track.

MPC-Tutor wrote:I've always put each instrument on its own track, far more organised and easier to see where you stand, especially if you ever wish to track out externally. If I initially record the drums together (e.g. finger drumming) I'll usually separate them out into separate tracks later using 'track copy' and erase. If required, I'll use sub mixes to group together tracks for mixing purposes.

If memory serves, there's an "explode track" command to save you the trouble of the duplication / erasing step.

Icepulse wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:I've always put each instrument on its own track, far more organised and easier to see where you stand, especially if you ever wish to track out externally. If I initially record the drums together (e.g. finger drumming) I'll usually separate them out into separate tracks later using 'track copy' and erase. If required, I'll use sub mixes to group together tracks for mixing purposes.

If memory serves, there's an "explode track" command to save you the trouble of the duplication / erasing step.

Explode Tracks is the method I use most of the time. It allows you to just be creative.

When you've finished recording each part just explode the track..then you can get into further edits and processing. Obviously, this method is better suited for drum programming not for recording keyboard parts (melodies, chords etc. )

I also use the one instrument per track workflow. Just depends on what I'm trying to accomplish.

All good tips. I appreciate your responses.

Icepulse wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:I've always put each instrument on its own track, far more organised and easier to see where you stand, especially if you ever wish to track out externally. If I initially record the drums together (e.g. finger drumming) I'll usually separate them out into separate tracks later using 'track copy' and erase. If required, I'll use sub mixes to group together tracks for mixing purposes.

If memory serves, there's an "explode track" command to save you the trouble of the duplication / erasing step.

True, forgot about that (it's in my book though ), although in many of my programs an 'instrument' is made up of multiple samples across multiple pads (e.g. centre snare, rim, side, edge, flam), and for mixing purposes I don't want 5 different snare tracks, just the one as it's really just one 'instrument', so the copy/erase or some combo of track and event copying often seems more fluid for me.

zangetsu01 wrote:I love to put drums on one track and send the hihats and snares to one bus and the drumkicks to another bus so I can put different kind of effects on those busses.. then for the melody part such as piano, strings, ets. I put those on their own track.

What's cool about the live is you can layer efx (4 i think) and you can even route efx to the input of an external sound as it's being recorded into the live.

I think keeping the sounds separate (hats, snare, kick) makes the most sense to me, as yes i can make stems later if i need to track out to something else (not likely but good to have the option).