Normally, my tunes have about 12 to 18 tracks. Sometimes less, sometimes more. It really depends on the song. I think the most I have used is about 24.

Professional studios that record the songs you hear on the radio often have well over 100 tracks.

It's not uncommon for a song project for a hit singer like Mariah or Beyonce, for example, to have well over 100 vocal tracks alone. Keep in mind that not all the tracks will be complete tracks. They may have just a section of the song....a verse or a chorus, or even as small as a line or a word. That gives the mix engineer a lot of options for finding the perfect take and comping it out to the final vocal track. many of those tracks will end up as doubling and harmony tracks in the final mix.

In our home studios, we often don't have the reasons to lay that many takes so we might record several..... in one of my projects.... ( Missing Person ), there are about a dozen vocal tracks beyond the instrument tracks. There were 2 singers, and each had at least 3 lead vocal tracks as well as several harmony tracks. None of them were cloned. They were all unique recordings. When I mixed them, I took the best vocal performance and put it in the center and up front. The other two were -16dB or so panned left and right respectively. The harmony tracks were also panned L&R but at around -12dB for a thickening. Volume envelopes were used to bring the various tracks...vocal and instruments, in and out, up and down as needed.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
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