Let’s say I’m working on a piece using Latin percussion and have a virtual instrument playing a percussion preset with a different sound on each note. To understand why, consider the following example. As a result, the solo button on an instrument track also solos the instrument mixer channel because both performance data and audio are needed to solo an instrument, but the mute buttons are not linked. These are different entities with different functions. But virtual instruments use both an instrument track for performance data (MIDI) and a mixer channel for audio. Muting or soloing an audio track also mutes or solos its channel. Tracks and channels both have solo and mute buttons, but their actions are linked only for audio tracks.

As we shall shortly see, however, virtual instruments are a different story, and can be responsible for a good deal of variation in track and channel quantities. There is a one-to-one correspondence between audio tracks and mixer channels every audio track has one mixer channel. Behind the scenes, the audio channel is where it all actually plays out - both figuratively and literally. Other control data such as fades, event levels and automation are also stored as part of tracks, but those, too, are just instructions. Studio One’s mixer, which is referred to as the ‘console’ in some contexts, is at heart the user interface for the actual audio engine, while tracks in the arrange view are basically glorified edit decision lists (EDLs): instructions as to which bits of audio should be played at which time. Studio One does things differently, and its system has its own pros and cons.

Many DAWs, including Pro Tools, maintain a one-to-one correspondence between tracks in their arrange or edit views, and channels in their mixer views. What’s the difference between a track and a channel? In Studio One, this is not a trick question. With all the percussion sounds feeding a stereo output, balancing them can be done only by modifying note velocities.

Screen 1: All three of these tracks are playing the same instance of the Presence virtual instrument, yet there is only one stereo mixer channel for all of it.

Tracks one