Track Colors

[Kenn]

Is there a standardized color pallet that everyone uses to mark specific tracks? Bass - Green, Vocals - Yellow, etc...

 

[SwitchBack]

No, there is no generally accepted convention for this. But there are several toolbars and macro's available for S1/SP that provide a (sometimes automated) suggestion, or allow you to create your own.

 

[Sebastian Holtzer]

It's just taste and feel

 

[AAV]

Would depend a lot on your style of music and as noted previously, personal preferences. The old Color Toolbar was a great utility that I believe Lukas is going to incorporate into a new feature in one of his add-ons that will aid in automating the process.
But just to share, I personally use RIGBY (Red, Indigo (actually dark purple in my preference), Green, Blue, Yellow) as my colour organization "system" for "conventional" (Rock/Pop/Folk/Country) styles.
Red - Drums - Acoustic drums, percussion and electronic drums each get their own bus out to a main drum bus. Slight colour variations for each type of bus, but they're all red
Indigo - Bass. I use just a single bass bus for synth, acoustic and electric basses
Green - Guitar. As for drums, different busses and colour shades for electric and acoustic.
Blue - Keys. Pianos, Organs, Synths. I usually have a lighter blue shade for a separate "Strings" bus and instruments that all get routed with keys (I don't do any orchestral work obviously).
Yellow - Vocals. Again separate bus and shade for background versus lead vocal to a main Vocal bus
All main instrument buses go out to an Instrument Bus (pale pink for visual identification)
FX channels are generally whites and greys
Instrument bus, FX Channels and Vocal bus goes out to a Mix Bus (also a pale pink shade), which then goes out to the Main (Grey). Listen bus is also grey.
IIRC, Joe Gilder uses a Blue, Red, Green, Brown, Yellow colour scheme for Drum, Bass, Guitars, Keys and Vocals (same order, different colours). Once set up, it's really easy to incorporate as templates so standardization from project to project becomes incredibly easy. That I think is the real benefit of thinking through your choices and sticking with something that works for you. (Not advocating, just keeping the conversation going )

 

[lokeyfly]

I've added my own color pallette which includes gray shades to the existing. This avoids some of the redundant duplication that exist on the default pallette. It seems, SO/FP can't get past the existing color swatches from the default pallette. Others here have useful setup scripts you can use or customize. A potentially good thing.

As to styles of music, I don't change from one style to another, but I do keep a general color guide towards some instrumentation. For example, bass would always be yellow. Be it a synth bass, stand up, electric, etc. Any genre.

So my guideline looks like:
Bass - yellow
Guitars - blue
Drums, Percussion - beige/tan
Synths - purple
Piano - gray
Vox- orange or pink - depending on sex.
*this includes non binary, and ilk.


Any immediate attention to events, arrangements, etc. Red. Otherwise, red is never used for anything.

Color changes happen about midstream when a song gets actual mix refinement, and structure attention. Otherwise, I dont care about color. Its more important to simply press on with music than to left-brain this stuff. ; )

Others mileage may vary.
Peace, and enjoy your development.

 

[Stuart Welwood]

I use a much simpler system, as my needs are relatively simple. Wanting to avoid memorization as much as possible, I use the first letter or two of the instrument's name to pick the color:
Guitar - green
Bass - blue
Piano - pink
Organ - orange
Rhythm - red
Busses - black and white
Percussion - purple
Drums - an exception to the rule, light brown
Cymbals - ditto, yellow
Strings - dark brown

Go with whatever works for you.