Assigning Colors to Regions

Color is useful for identifying sections of your arrangement, or particular track types. Newly recorded or added regions initially adopt the color of the track channel strip.

By default:

To change the color of one or more regions
  1. Select the regions (drag to select or Shift-click, for example).

    Note: If you select all regions on a particular track, and no regions on other tracks are selected, coloring them alters the hue of all selected regions. This also changes the color of the selected track’s channel strip.

  2. Open the Color palette by doing one of the following:

    • Click the Colors button in the Arrange toolbar.

    • Choose View > Colors in the Arrange area (or use the Open Color Palette key command, default assignment:  Option-C).

    Figure. Color palette.
  3. Click a color.

  4. If you want to create a custom color:

    1. Double-click any color square in the Color palette to open the Colors window.

    2. Create a custom color using the color wheel and contrast and opacity sliders.

    3. Click the OK button to replace the color square in the Color palette, and close the Colors window.

Note: While custom colors are memorized for all projects, you can always reset the Color palette to its original colors. To do this, Control-click the palette, then choose Reset Colors.

To assign channel strip colors to regions
  1. Select the regions.

    Tip: If all regions are on a single track, click the track name in the track list to select all regions.

  2. Choose Region > Color Regions by Channel Strips/Instruments in the Arrange area (or use the corresponding key command, default assignment:  Shift-Option-C).

    The colors of all selected regions are replaced with the colors of the corresponding channel strips.

Tip: This feature is handy after copying or moving regions between tracks, when you may find that the Arrange area resembles a patchwork quilt.