# DAW Color Coding prefrence



## ChristopherDoucet (Feb 20, 2015)

Hi there,

This may seem like a really silly thing to ask about but I'm not using the color tools to their full advantage and I'm curious about how you all choose to use color coding in your template.

I'm not so interested in "what" colors you choose, but rather, how you choose to color code the different sections, or returns organizationally for efficiency.

Do you break down different Sections of the Orch as different colors? i.e.

Winds - Blue
Brass - Yellow
Percussion - Purple 
Strings - etc?


I've noticed some templates recently that had sort of a next color up, kind of "rainbow"method,

In Cubase, I've seen others in which it seemed like they purposefully colored their Midi different color tracks than were used as the color of the folder that was holding it, so that the contents showed easier when the folders are closed. 

Anyway, really curious on how you have things organized!

Thank you very much!!


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## Lassi Tani (Feb 20, 2015)

Interesting question. I'm very much into colors, and organizing instruments with different colors. I'm using following:

Winds - Green
Brass - Orange
Percussion - Grey
Strings - Blue

Other sections:
Choirs - Turquoise
Keys - Purple

Also I give different shade of the section color to each instrument. Lighter color to higher instruments and darker to low instruments. E.g. piccolo is very light green, when double bassoon is very dark green.

It's much easier to find a certain instrument in a huge template, when at least they have section colors.


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## Anders Wall (Feb 20, 2015)

Midi - Black and White.
Audio stems in Blue.
Auxes in Green.
Master fader in Red.

/Anders


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## ChristopherDoucet (Feb 20, 2015)

Interesting! 

I appreciate your responses. Lighter shades for lighter instruments...of course! 

Any ideas of combating the fact that i have 300 string tracks and even if I was too use different shades, the red still becomes overpowering and not efficient to navigate.

That being said, I really identfy RED with strings, so if there was a way to vary the midi tracks more, but still keep the overall red theme...Maybe just red for folder tracks containing strings and anything inside could be a different color?

Interested to hear you if you have any suggestions for that!

Cool!
Thanks!


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## Stiltzkin (Feb 20, 2015)

Woodwinds: Light Blue
Brass: Orange
Percussion: Red
Keyboards: Green
Choirs: Purple
Strings: Deep Blue
Synths: Yellow
Mix/FX tracks: Black

And then one room tone track which is grey

Just makes most sense in my head for some reason - decided on that and got used to it..!


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## CharlesB (Feb 20, 2015)

My present scheme is to assign contrasting colors per-instrument, so that, for example, all the Violin I tracks (sus, leg, pizz etc.) are pink, all Violin II tracks are green, and so on. Same with the other sections. This way it's easy to keep track of the different lines in the piano roll when viewing multiple tracks from the same section at once (which I often do). By now I know all the colors by heart, so a quick glance is enough to recognize which instrument is doing what.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Feb 20, 2015)

CharlesB @ Fri Feb 20 said:


> My present scheme is to assign contrasting colors per-instrument, so that, for example, all the Violin I tracks (sus, leg, pizz etc.) are pink, all Violin II tracks are green, and so on. Same with the other sections. This way it's easy to keep track of the different lines in the piano roll when viewing multiple tracks from the same section at once (which I often do). By now I know all the colors by heart, so a quick glance is enough to recognize which instrument is doing what.



Very interesting. That seems to make a lot of sense for what I'm doing. 

Are you working with several different developers?

I ask because do you have a way of differentiating the Violins I from lets say Hollywood Strings, vs. Violins I from Spitfire?

Thanks,
Really helpful!


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## benatural (Feb 20, 2015)

I use the color spectrum, starting with red at the top. Everything is in score order. Truthfully I want to try something else, just can't take the time to fiddle with colors right atm.


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## dgburns (Feb 20, 2015)

sekkosiki @ Fri Feb 20 said:


> Interesting question. I'm very much into colors, and organizing instruments with different colors. I'm using following:
> 
> Winds - Green
> Brass - Orange
> ...



we're not far apart-
for me it is
winds -blue from light blue to darker blue lower down 
brass-orange
perc-yellow-this is because logic coloured it that way ,so got used to it
piano,orch keys harp-can vary from purple for pno to green to magenta
strings-BROWN ,again not sure why,but the large sections in light brown and the violins dark brown.The violas brown/grn.the cellos grn/drk blue.the bass dark blue to purple
vox-pink to amythist
synth-orange or blue if pad
bass guitar -dark blue
axe-brown again,very much like strings
acc gtr- lighter browns

Subs are orange,master red.audio master file is GREEN,premaster or stems lighter green.Re-use or edited stems light blue.guide tracks used to be black,now dark purple or anything dark.
unused tracks or midi get white or no colour
don't know why,but it 's a thing I guess,almost brings an emotional response,call me strange.


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## pmountford (Feb 21, 2015)

Same as sekkosiki here too (although slightly different use of colours). Lighter colours for higher instruments so I know that say oboe is a very light blue, contrabassoon is dark. Don't differentiate between developers with colour though as they're all in different adjacent folders - ie. Spitfire grouped in one folder followed by VSL and then 8DIO etc.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Feb 21, 2015)

Even though I have +100 string tracks and they are all the same color I don't find working with them an issue. I just keep everything broken down into folders.

One thing besides color which you can do to help organize (I've never done) is there's a way that you can make midi tracks almost invisible so that they create an empty space and separates your tracks. I don't remember how to do it. I believe there's a thread on here where someone was asking how HZ does it after they saw it in a video of his setup.


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## chibear (Feb 21, 2015)

Same as CharlesB. Just as long as any track contrasts with the 2 adjacent I'm happy. All my tracks are located in submixes organized by stage location so each submix track is also a contrasting color


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## JFK (Feb 21, 2015)

Gerhard Westphalen @ Sat Feb 21 said:


> Even though I have +100 string tracks and they are all the same color I don't find working with them an issue. I just keep everything broken down into folders.
> 
> One thing besides color which you can do to help organize (I've never done) is there's a way that you can make midi tracks almost invisible so that they create an empty space and separates your tracks. I don't remember how to do it. I believe there's a thread on here where someone was asking how HZ does it after they saw it in a video of his setup.



Disabled audio track in Cubase. I used to use blank MIDI tracks when I was on Logic


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## CharlesB (Feb 22, 2015)

ChristopherDoucet @ Fri 20 Feb said:


> CharlesB @ Fri Feb 20 said:
> 
> 
> > My present scheme is to assign contrasting colors per-instrument, so that, for example, all the Violin I tracks (sus, leg, pizz etc.) are pink, all Violin II tracks are green, and so on. Same with the other sections. This way it's easy to keep track of the different lines in the piano roll when viewing multiple tracks from the same section at once (which I often do). By now I know all the colors by heart, so a quick glance is enough to recognize which instrument is doing what.
> ...


Not to any great extent, but if and when, I maintain the color scheme: if it's V1, it's V1. o/~


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## DynamicK (Feb 23, 2015)

CharlesB @ Fri Feb 20 said:


> My present scheme is to assign contrasting colors per-instrument. Same with the other sections. This way it's easy to keep track of the different lines in the piano roll when viewing multiple tracks from the same section at once (which I often do)..


I have been using a similar scheme since I switched to Cubase 5. I also find it much easier when in the Key Editor with more than one instrument loaded.


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## Whatisvalis (Feb 24, 2015)

I like to create a VST instrument, then jump into the VST folder and move the instrument out of it's folder, duplicate the folder (delete the instrument) and use it as my spacer between sections. The cool thing about this is if you vertical zoom the folder doesn't follow and stays locked to the smallest size.

Will have to look at a disabled audio track.


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