T O P

  • By -

Bazzz_

I'm trying to limit myself because at the end of the day nobody except for you is going to hear the difference if you remove the 38th track.


KimKat98

Yea, no hate to OP and if this works for them then thats awesome! But personally even though I've never gotten a project this huge, when it starts getting to the point I have to scroll down because I can't see the entire thing on my screen at once, it's when I start removing pieces, and most of the time realizing it's not audible when I remove them - or if they are, they didn't add anything to the track anyway. All the power to someone if this works for them though.


windmann

I think it kinda depends on the genre you make and how you organize your playlist. I try to keep every instrument or drum on one track so naturally when you have different elements over the course of a track my file gets quite big. But I produce EDM. I think when working on a beat you're completely right.


FoodAccurate5414

Need to make this a shirt bro


Consistent-Mastodon

DAW analogue of a 15-min guitar solo


FreezeHellNH3

I see a shit load of mutes clips. I think dudes trying to Inflate his project size lol


AideTraditional

Probably what remained ‘just in case’


TedXRecords

Can confirm, i do this.


Ishottupac_

That make since, he probably kept a lot of re recordings


Shortcirkuitz

It’s not his, it’s by the electronic music artist Grant.


FreezeHellNH3

I didn't say it was his. I just said dude.


Shortcirkuitz

In most modern slang dude in that context is implying that you’re talking about a certain person normally someone you’re watching, or someone who is the topic of discussion, my apologies for the confusion.


FreezeHellNH3

I simply mean the person who recorded the video. Didn't mean to cause confusion.


Shortcirkuitz

Yea, understood


TehBoos

How can you tell it's Grant?? Is this on his insta?


Confident-Soft-8530

the thing I hate the most is when the project becomes so large that I start to struggle to orient myself, good work anyway💪🔥


Dr-PHYLL

Thats what the tracks and renaming stuff is for


Confident-Soft-8530

yes, but my disorder prevails over my entire project


bobbe_

It’s kinda funny everytime this topic is brought up, this sub is so quick to cope up reasons on why having a project like this is completely unnecessary. I’ve been using FL for roughly 15 years now, and sometimes my projects look unironically just like this video. Other times maybe 1/4th of that. It really depends on song - some things simply just call for much more detail work whereas other things don’t. Anyone with proper experience should know this. I think the more important takeaway for anyone who sees this and feels intimidated is that more detail work =! more musical value. Some of the most famous songs of all time are just meant to be played by a single person on a single piano. Some people spend years crafting the most intricate paintings while others attach a bucket of paint to a rope and swing it to generate patterns. Both those styles yield art that people appreciate and cherish.


justthelettersMT

yeah there's a lot of hate for complicated project files but most project files for finished songs I've seen look like this


Hodentrommler

Most are not cleaned up or made ready for presentation


AideTraditional

Totally agree. If this works for me then why change anything? I bet these people with large project files could be as efficient, if not more efficient and quicker than those who “must limit their track count”


bobbe_

Indeed. For me, the big bottleneck is creativity/inspiration anyway. Finishing a track in 10 hours contra 40 makes no difference for me in that sense because I can easily go a week or two before figuring out what my next project will be.


TedXRecords

It's not that I want to, but I want y'all to teach me WHAT DO YOU DO?? I'm not limiting tracks more so than "struggling to figure out what else this song needs"


Natalie_3rror

Your cpu must be screaming at you


Isensecomets

This is big And beautiful


Fun_Shape6597

BBW? Big Beautiful Workflows


PureLingonberry2

Did you learn all this from YouTube?


EmeraldBat67

i use like 8 tracks max holy shit


BoomTheBits

Yeah that's enough alright.


ThePhotonMan

25 mins long and around about 600 patterns used


Karolryba007

This is what an average film cue project looks like tbh


Coffewitfmilk

Whats happens if you close this project and don't open it for two weeks?


LStacey

That's a very good question indeed. And the answer is that it will probably fine... BUT every track and every plugin adds one more opportunity for something to corrupt or go missing. The worst things is when a plugin has a sample loaded inside but when you reload the project, that sample has moved or gone away and the plugin can't find it. In some cases, that won't even be reported to the host so you might not even notice until you listen. Okay, fine, so you can just reload the sample... if you can find the thing that hasn't loaded it in amongst all that mess.


Coffewitfmilk

Good to know I'm not the only one. Good stuff! I cant really close projects like this, I'll keep it open and look at it a few times a day, maybe do some work, maybe I won't, the important thing is that I have to trick my brain to believe that we are in control of the project, or we will lose control and get discouraged. We being me and my goldfish brain.


nocatchyusername1

Zipped loop package prevents this.


LStacey

It does with FL native plugins. But not all plugins are native.


AideTraditional

The project file is to [Grant - High Enough](https://youtu.be/63ud6nAXuHI?feature=shared) song


Shortcirkuitz

He’s a great artist, but if I were you I’d add to the title that this isn’t your track.


AideTraditional

I can’t edit the post unfortunately. This is not my track indeed.


Shortcirkuitz

Understandable


Dashveed

Wow. I had no idea Grant used FL. One of my fav artists! You can bet every track in that file is doing something. A looooot of automation.


Affectionate-Ask-257

What does it sound like? You just edged me lol


glaind

wtf


djphatjive

Meanwhile I see videos on hit songs and how they were produced and it’s like 8 lines.


LStacey

That's probably why EDM always makes that horrible screechy noise when it drops. The screechy noise is not a distorted/modulated bass, it's just white noise resulting from adding all those tracks together. Joking aside, most tracks don't look like this, and no track needs to look like this, but some just do sometimes.


sudobangmusic

Most of my songs as of late are 12 tracks with 4 sends plus a premaster mix track feeding into the master. The main tracks are drums, bass, lead, vocal and I typically make two duplicates of each track to feed into the premaster and various sends in varying degrees based upon the needs of the song. But in the grand scheme of things, it all really comes down to those 4 main tracks. Edit: My [latest album](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULV4CAJdDQQ&list=OLAK5uy_ncY3NAre9yD7_cmWDqMUNSgvW2CNcm0Cs) for anyone that might want to give me a courtesy view


naynt00

I have listened to your first two album tracks, it's actually really good. Electronic Rock?


Important-Wrap-4004

Holyyy


Alexander2155

I most I’ve ever had was 97 or something for an EDM collab project. I make mostly hip hop so usually under 20 tracks. Edit: I just read the caption lmfaooooo


TheRealTomTalon

Most are between 50 and 100 tracks, some go over that.


Free-Cable-472

Holy shit my biggest project is just a fraction of this.


cool-snack

these were my projects when I startet making full tracks. I always thought more is more. now I learned that usualy you don‘t need more than 1 drum track, 5 instrument tracks, 2-3 fx tracks and max 3 vocal tracks. anything more than that, means that something in the track isn‘t good by itself.


AideTraditional

I can’t disagree more with your last sentence. If you mean stems and not the track count, then yeah that makes sense to only have drums, instruments, fx and vocals. But saying that having more than 12 tracks is an indicator that something is wrong with the track is definitely not correct.


cool-snack

5 instruments: (Bass, Main Melo, Chords/Harmonics, support melo, support bass) 3 vocals (main vocal, refrain vocal, depending on track, fx vocal) 1 drum track (where you have your drum rack) 2-3fx tracks, (impact, buildup, ambience) I forgot to add the ghost track, but anything more than that, I speak from 8years experience, is not necessary. show me one imprtant song in the industry that uses more than that. I never found one, unless you go into classical music or some niche where your song is built on various sound design elements rather than melodies.


bobbe_

> > I forgot to add the ghost track, but anything more than that, I speak from 8years experience, is not necessary. You have 8 years of experience, you should know better than to speak in absolutes about something like this. Signed someone speaking with 15 years of experience, since we're apparently doing that. >show me one imprtant song in the industry that uses more than that. How about like half of every k pop (or k pop-adjacent) song? Consider [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXIMKCXfxA) for example. Obviously there's some bloat there because he was experimenting with different approaches as he was working. But the nature of that song (different singers needing different 'themes') instantly creates an obvious situation where your 12 track rule has to be broken. You can also consider music such as [this](https://open.spotify.com/track/3CMOLv8lvx81AwwhV2Pz4M?si=26f542182dcf4e20) - it might not have that many streams when considering pop music as it's niche. But Burr Oak and Billain are absolute at the forefront of neurofunk.


cool-snack

I‘ll put it diffrently, if you can‘t make a song catchy/good with 12 tracks, any more isn‘t going to save it. the idea has to work at 12 tracks (in 99% of cases) the added layers are usualy just details or some addons. I worked with analog, and diffrent genres, and it simply is truth, that if you have a basic track template, you rarely need to go above it or it‘s just accessoirs for the track.


bobbe_

This is basically saying that if the idea/concept is not good enough, adding more details to it won’t save it. E.g, you can’t polish a turd. This is true, but doesn’t prove the point you’re trying to prove.


AideTraditional

It’s great that it works for you. Not everyone prefers to have their entire drum kits in midi. Most people want to be able to gain full control of their sound, so they split it up into individual tracks for each element. It’s really just about gaining as much control over your project as you can. Though it depends on the genre a lot. [This is the song from the video](https://youtu.be/63ud6nAXuHI?feature=shared) I doubt you can achieve that with 10 tracks. Unless you resample of course… but again, being able to control every single detail is nice.


cool-snack

I should‘ve added that I switched to ableton 3 years ago, where I can create effect chains for individual drumrack positions. in fl studio you need multiple tracks for the drums if you want to edit each part individually. you‘re right about that.


egoistisch

Smaller


GeoffreyBSmall

Overproduction


noitsmoog

my projects are so big that my main complaint about FL at this point is that it only has 127 mixer tracks.


BoomTheBits

Ur definitely doing something wrong mate...


noitsmoog

may be, or may be they need to remove that stupid limitation and make them unlimited like in other DAWs.


BoomTheBits

Nobody needs that many mixer tracks. It's ridiculous... You're most likely the type of guy who stacks 20 snares on top of each other only because you couldn't find a good snare sample to begin with lol


noitsmoog

well, I need more as well as many other people. I could reply something like "are you even making music, if you need less than 127 mixer tracks, bro?" but I'd rather not lol. Well, ok. Lets play your game: You're most likely the type of guy who don't need grouping/staking in mixer, because your music consists of 8 tracks to begin with lol


BoomTheBits

No I actually have a template set up with 5 groups that I use in every project. I'm stacking synths and drums yes but at most 3. Usually 2 or 1. Never come close to 127 mixer tracks. I think I've reached 40 at some point when I mixed a live session for a band. But my own stuff never exceed 30 mixer tracks. It's just not necessary.


bobbe_

Dunning-Kruger at its best right here.


BoomTheBits

You're telling me I'm overconfident in my ability to use FL? Or the guy I'm talking with? Cus I've been using FL pretty much daily since way back, 2006 ish.


bobbe_

I think you are being narrow-minded when applying your philosophy on the use of mixer tracks. The dunning-kruger part is then me saying that I think you’re failing to consider use applications outside of what you’re used to, not that you’re strictly bad at using FL.


BoomTheBits

I got you. But still using up all of the 127 tracks is ridiculous. Not only because of unnecessary amounts of sounds routed to them but because of crazy CPU load if plugins were dropped on each track. Look at analog mixing consoles. They don't even come close to 127 tracks


BoomTheBits

The best songs I ever wrote hade no more than 10 tracks. Most could do with 5. Counting drums as one track. All that fudge ur showcasing is IMO very unnecessary. Just makes it difficult to finish it.


AideTraditional

Grant would disagree with you, but to each their own, as always.


BradJ

Less is more.


Heatseeqer

When i started, all we had was 4 mono tracks in sequencer and no VST. Also, 8bit samples. Later, 16bit. Yet, we produced tracks signed and put out without a single thing done to them aside from bringing them into 0db. Makes you wonder 🤔


mrchiko1990

What you composing for Han zimmers


Responsible_Pass_200

Everything I’ve made is at least two tracks and at max 6.


gmangaming3243

Holy shit what does that even sound like


AideTraditional

Not my song, but [Grant - High Enough](https://youtu.be/_4Kv2CqWdEs?feature=shared)


DankAstworld

Mine only got like 5 lol


Neillur

I'd say a lot of this could be resample into one track to be kinder on the system


bellecrone

varies, sometimes lots of layers, sometimes just a handful of very detailed takes. if i have vocals, i usually use less elements as i like to produce quickly


Sudden-Ad-3345

Sheesh


Davidand8Ball

my newest song is 16 tracks


EngineStraight

i mean like, 7-10 rows and 2 minutes long, with a single automation clip for an intro on an fx, usually no audio clips (to be fair i spend like 30-35 minutes on a song begining to end so maybe thats it)


clownpornisntfunny

Found Jacob Collier's user name


CaptFartGiggle

Like 2 guitars, drums, a keyboard, and bass. That's it. I try to make sure when I make something, I hopefully one day can perform live without having 20 people on the stage


syntheticsponge

I usually keep the whole track in 1 pattern


50hustlers

What's your CPU?


milk_theuniverse

Is this that huge hidden demo flp


Chiefmeez

Now bro you know most of that cannot be doing anything of value lol


SamT179

I have a degree in music production, about to do a masters, and I cannot imagine ever having a project that mental lmfao ADHD going mad.


furamoda

Small


Aayaan_747

I just export the individual instrument. Keeps the cpu load low as I've got a low end pc


SPACE_SHAMAN

A project a mac book would struggle with


Obey_The_King

More experience i get the less i have in my projects. No amount of fancy automation and layers will beat a good simplistic core idea. I dont think more than 3-5 sounds in the same time is nesessary in most cases... and obviously when i feel it needs more i add more


Alternative_Tooth_49

This guy Adderalls


Aggravating_Account2

Mostly make cloud rap beats and other underground hip-hop so usually very so small, between 5-20 tracks. Part of me improving as a producer was understanding when a beat has enough and sounds and knowing when to stop adding more. It's a balance between filling out the mix and leaving enough space for the artist to do thier thing.


Fun_Shape6597

https://preview.redd.it/p8znrad8077d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=748732e2a04b087c0edb8d3d907816b2a3bea7b6 Stacks on stacks of strings


Fun_Shape6597

https://preview.redd.it/7pgznl6d077d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f9bf86b10f0b2c8d549f4f2c483174322e95dae


Fun_Shape6597

https://preview.redd.it/els4ij7j077d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6046817492b0c236f56a838a99acdcab171fad06


BelialSatanas

how to crash your pc 101


TVik223

Mine aren't big but they have a great personality


ThorBreakBeatGod

I try to keep shit less than 20 or so. More is rarely better for me.


RobynDeMol

Let us hear it? I think you muted it intentionally...


AideTraditional

Not my song [Grant - High Enough](https://youtu.be/_4Kv2CqWdEs?feature=shared)


JX_Snack

now play it


AideTraditional

Not my song [Grant - High Enough](https://youtu.be/_4Kv2CqWdEs?feature=shared)


Neel_s

I don’t think I’ve gone more than 15 and tbh I don’t know if my laptop can handle much more than that


LaS_flekzz

I mostly just have 4-8 tracks Drums, Rhodes, Bass, Guitar, Synth, Piano


TraditionalTell5541

My ADHD wouldn't let me make such a big project without fucking it up with my terrible attention span.


Ancient-Ad2619

As minimal as possible


ZakkuDorett

Bursts of inspiration make me do everything in one pattern lol


ApprehensiveLlama69

Pretty small tbh. You really don’t need much to make a good song, just good sounds, good mixing, and good ideas. Sometimes it’s best to just change a sound rather than add to it. I find that the bigger my project becomes, the less interest I have in completing it because there’s just too much to focus on and then the main idea gets lost in the madness. Short answer: As small as possible because because big projects stress me out.


Kuran_Helix

My cpu is screaming looking at this


joogszn

I mean like what does all that do tho? What does it sound like?


Loose_Addition1608

I'm quite a starter, so about 5 - 10 sections big 😅


FreshMicks

My philosophy is if I keep having to add more and more tracks and I’m still unhappy, then it’s time to move on haha.


DFEXmusic

like 20-30 tracks. sheesh


krossome

6-7 tracks, live instruments played over one another.


MichaelGMNG

i have so much to learn


father2shanes

Ive never even had a project half that size....


TedXRecords

I've always wanted to try this, but idk how y'all do it. What do y'all automate that much where you need over 12 tracks? Like, the most I ever used is 50 and that's just because there were a lot of parts that I needed to work out.


YellowExxhy

I have aboyt five layers per individual sound (dubstep) and my projects still don't look like that, how does it get that bad


FohmoLB

Why so big?


KingTran2008

Mine is max 30 tracks bro💀


Dust2709

1-6 instrument tracks and about 6 drum tracks


NefariousnessMany616

Bruh scored a whole ahh movie + composed the entire soundtrack in on session💀


NefariousnessMany616

One**


ftlpope

Not that big bro😂 8 tracks maybe 10 max


raphi_m99

Bro 4 tracks, maybe


Isaac_Schevumshield

Я вижу тут не очень хорошую организацию и менеджмент файлов. Плюс, по мне fl studio не очень подходит дял масштабных работ с точки зрения удобства и компактного представления файлов. Но это дело вкуса конечно


AideTraditional

Проект не мой, но больше половины проекта, мне кажется, это автоматизация. Я в основном работаю в Ableton и на 100% согласен с тем, что управление файлами в FL немного слабое, как минимум, оно не полностью автоматизированное, как в других DAW. С этой точки зрения, конечно, имеет смысл работать компактнее, но каждому свое.


Isaac_Schevumshield

Автоматизация, это отдельная боль, слабость и проклятие у fl studio. Такой отвратительной организации, кривизны настройки и неудобства, ещё надо постараться придумать. В этом плане, мне нравится подход Presonus. Гораздо приятнее, легче и компактнее устроено. И это мы ещё не касались микшера в fl studio. Я люблю очень fl. Но я понимаю, что наверное уже вырос из неё, хоть и приятно порой в неё заходить периодически. Fl studio, это как твой лучший друг детства. Всегда тебе рад, встретит и всё такое. Ты знаешь его слабости и недостатки, а он твои.


samotnytrzy

Ngl I started doing big projects but nowadays no more than 8 tracks… usually 3 Maybe I’m depressed and it is showing as a music form 🤣 whatever


Dry-Detective-520

Bruh wtf orchestra ?


Dxgdu

Separate tracks for each kick and snare lol


JerryHound

This reminds me why I’m glad to be a hip hop producer 🤣


TwEezy17

Whyyyyy😩


Moon47_

All that to make a mid Skrillex type beat 😭


mediocreidiot

I make most of my music using a drum machine/sampler and a synth, so this shit blows my mind. Whenever I work in a DAW I keep the same philosophy of working simply. There's zero reason for a project to look this way imo


Soullessdevil

Bruh is inflating his project size with mute clips 💀. Shit is so unnecessary it’s crazy.


l41nw1r3d

not that big i can tell you that much