JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum Color schemes

I'm just curious what color conventions people follow in their recording. There is no "official" color scheme for waveforms and tracks I know of. I'll share mine, although I play around with it. I usually assign a hue to an instrument group -- guitar, for example, is red. Then bass guitar will be a dark red, and a harmony or secondary guitar will be lighter red or pink. The main vocal is royal blue, and harmonies are light blue. Drums have been yellow, but that doesn't seem right somehow. Keys are green.

I have often wondered if their was a universally accepted coding. I think most folk use their own colour scheme to easily identify diff types of tracks with a colour. I remember in the days of old midi files pro produced midis always adopted the same colours for each instrument group. Interesting topic would love to hear other views. It has been scientifically proved that we can identify things better with pictures colours or symbols than with words.

I sort of identify colors with certain instruments or sounds, but there are artists who really do. They make engineers crazy by asking for more purple in the sound and things like that. On the other hand, Geoff Emerick is among those who says he sees sounds in colors.

If I'm doing something with a lot of tracks I will color code.

I use the colors that are easy on the eyes. After 30 yrs in QC I tend to reserve red for problem areas, yellow for caution or questionable and greens and blues for the good stuff.