How to Use Track Grouping in DAWs

Love your DAW more by giving your tracks a group hug

By Craig Anderton

Grouping is the process of controlling some parameter of multiple tracks with a single control. The classic example dates back to when engineers started putting multiple mics on drum kits. To change the level of the entire kit, you could either a) change all the faders individually, which messed with the oh-so-delicate balance you had created, or b) group all the tracks so they were controlled by one fader. The standard way to do this was to assign all tracks to a bus, dump the bus into the main stereo output, and use the aux bus master level control to set the level of all drum tracks simultaneously. 

In the era of the DAW, grouping has become more sophisticated. Sometimes you can group entire tracks, so that changing any parameter on a grouped track changes the same parameter in other grouped tracks. And with almost all hosts, you can simply assign any parameter from any number of tracks to a group; changing the parameter of one track will change that same parameter on all tracks, either ratiometrically or linearly. 

As an example of what those two terms mean, suppose you have two grouped faders with fader one at 100% (full up), and fader two ar 25% of the way up. With a linear relationship, if you bring fader one down by 25%, then fader one will be at 75% and fader two will be at 0% (i.e., all the way down), because each fader moved a linear amount—in this case, 25%. With a ratiometric change, fader one will be at 75% but fader two will be down 25% from its original setting (a ratio), or 18.75% of the way up. You’ll usually want the ratiometric option, so check whether your host defaults to that setting. 

Here are a few tips to get you started on your own personal group hug.

PROPER GAIN-STAGING THROUGH GROUPING

So you start a project, and keep adding tracks. The overall level creeps up with each new track, so you pull it down the master volume to compensate. Eventually, all your tracks are hitting 0, but your master is at –20 or so. This was a real problem with older digital systems that had low resolution, but even in today’s world, many engineers maintain you’ll get a better sound if you keep the master at 0 and lower the individual track levels. To maintain the mix among tracks that you slaved over for the past few hours, group the trim controls for all tracks and bring them down (ratiometrically, of course) until your master can sit at 0 without clipping. Then, ungroup so you have independent control over each channel again.

BREAK FREE FROM A GROUP

One of the big advantages of sending your tracks into an aux bus and using it as a group level control was that you could still tweak the levels of individual tracks if the balance wasn’t quite right. However, most DAWs let you temporarily free a fader from a group, perhaps by holding down Ctrl or Alt while moving the fader. Once you release the key, the fader joins the group again.

CUSTOM GROUPING, PART ONE

One of the most powerful features of digital grouping is being able to set a start and end point for a grouped parameter’s travel (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: In Cakewalk Sonar, the volume controls (blue lines) in tracks 19, 20, and 21 are grouped together, as indicated by the small vertical red stripe to the left of the control; each group can have its own color. The Group Manager is open, where you can choose the color associated with a group, as well as specify whether the group faders travel in an absolute, relative, or custom mode. Choosing Custom mode lets you edit start and end values.

An excellent example is “complementary panning.” Suppose when one track is panned right you want a grouped track to pan left, and vice-versa. With custom grouping, you can group the two pans together and set different start and end points. For one pan control, the start would be full left and the end, full right. For the other pan control, the start would be full right and the end, full left. Then, as you move one pan control, the other moves in the opposite direction.

CUSTOM GROUPING, PART TWO

Let’s say you have multiple tracks of drums, and several of them go through aux sends to a reverb bus. But you also want to add an occasional reverb “splash” on the snare in specific places. Only problem is, when you push up the snare’s aux send to get a bigger reverb sound, it’s too big. With a custom grouping, you can set the other drum track aux sends so that when the snare aux snare increases, the other aux sends decrease . . . problem solved.

GROUPING MUTES

As you go through the process of building a song, you might appreciate the convenience of grouping the mutes on all vocal tracks, all percussion tracks, etc. so you can mute selectively and focus your attention on other tracks.

CUSTOM LOOOONG FADEOUTS

The usual fade protocol is to grab the master output level and pull it down. Another method is to group all your tracks together, and at the fade, fade out on one track: Automation curves should be written for all grouped tracks. Now you can edit each curve so that some tracks fadeout at slightly different rates, or some instruments become more or less prominent during the course of the fadeout.

Fun stuff, eh? Go ahead, give your DAW a group hug . . . it can not only save you time, but lead to more creative projects.

  Craig Anderton is Editor Emeritus of Harmony Central. He has played on, mixed, or produced over 20 major label releases (as well as mastered over a hundred tracks for various musicians), and written over a thousand articles for magazines like Guitar Player, Keyboard, Sound on Sound (UK), and Sound + Recording (Germany). He has also lectured on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and three languages.