Standard color coding of parts in arrange?

Hey guys i was just wondering if there was any sort of standard color coding of parts you would go by say if you where collaborating on a project for instance. Iv heard people mention it before i just wondered if anyone had applied it to there own work? I think i watched a video and someone mentioned blue for drums ect.

 

cheers Jamie

Everyone has their own standard (well some don't care....).

 

Just make your own, and/or discuss it with the person you're collaborating with.

 

In fact I'll change my standards from one project to another. Depending on the instrumentation.

 

But I do like to have all drums one color, all vocals one color, all guitars one color - then I can use variations of that color for different elements in one group.

 

Some people also use color for other reasons, i.e. to indicate good and bad takes.

Drums have to be brown. That's just how it is. Blue drums? Not a chance.

 

During production I use the color of the actual instrument or synth, i.e. a Nord Rack synth will be dark red while a Nexus2 synth will be black (my Nexus skin of choice).

 

When mixing other people's projects I tend to use colors to make the overview easier. Using shades of the same color makes sense, i.e. brown for drums, light brown for percussion.

 

During the recording process I often use colors to indicate the quality of takes, i.e. red = good, orange = really good, yellow = brilliant. This is especially useful if I don't do the editing on the same day.

I'm so opposite. I colorize whole sections, where the chorus is and so forth, all regions belonging to that part. Yes, I could make a marker but it's just easier to navigate and copy things around based on this color system.

Cool thanks for the help i'll have to sort out my own little way of doing it i think.

 

thanks Jamie

FYI... Drums are black. Not brown. BLACK!!!!

 

Another trick I did lately was having recorded a band, while cutting beds I'd color code the takes in order of the rainbow. ROYGBIV. So take 1 would be red, 2 would be orange etc. That way if I made a notee that the chorus of take 4 was tighter, I'd know take 4 was green etc. That's probably just the artschool student in me though. It makes for beautiful edits though!

 

-PP

Bass is brown. But I could come around to the idea of brown drums except for the fact that Hats have to be ice blue. I like the shades idea though, never thought of that.

 

I also use something similar to Lagerfeldt's colour scheme for rating sections of takes when I'm comping except that red = crap. I don't tell the client that however. ("Hey, I thought you said that yellow means a really great take..... so what's with all the red?")

A useful way of using colors and shades for me is if, for instance, you have a verse part that repeats a chord progression - say 4 times. Some instruments play pretty much the same thing all 4 times, but certain instruments play differently every other time (so the counterpoint or syncopation changes on the 2nd and 4th sets). I like to make that other part a different shade, so it's easy to see which, and how many, instruments are handling that extra part. You can see there are 5 green pianos, but two play that other part, light green. And 4 guitars, red, but one goes along with those other pianos, and it's light red.

Iäd do something similar to Davidäs approach, different colours per instrument, and different shades per part/riff/phrase

Sometimes I use coloured markers to mark how developed a section is, red needs a lot of work, orange a little less, yellow even less work and green is ready to go!

You can also keep notes with each marker so you know what the issues are when you open the project again.

Edited December 24, 2009 by Elektrovert

oops! sprry for all the ä's,

 

I'm not used to this Swedish keyboard.

A lot of people are mentioning the color red. I don’t have red in my logic. So I use orange. Unless you guys know something I don’t. Please feel free to help.

Actually it should be in the top left corner of the palette.

 

Did you use a different skin on Logic once ? That could have changed the palette as well.

 

Anyway, you're also missing black. 10 years ago, when this zombie thread was still alive, it was there. As was white. As was any shade of color, actually. And grays. Lots, if you wanted. But that was 10 years ago. Where Logic X wasn't. In every version of Logic up to that you could choose the colors you wanted and deemed pretty, nice, right, matching, contrasting, ugly, helpful and, most of all, useful. Then Apple scoffed and said, "Nah. You don't need that. That isn't cool. Or intuitive. Look here. We don't want you confused with choices. From now on, you will live on a diet of either fried chips or rice or mashed potatoes and you can even choose between more or less salt. That's it. And stop asking for fish or salad, will ya ?"

Lol. Thanks.

all my projects seem to be mostly green and blue, and some random crap on a few regions.