Is there a standard scheme or something this is commonly used?  I am liking the new color options in Sonar but I haven't been able to decide on what my standard will be.

I think the standard scheme is what you choose for yourself.  If you consistently use orange say for vocals, and yellow for lead guitar and so on, it helps keep you and your tracks organized and will assist you in finding what you are looking for. 

Just pick them purely at random. It really won't matter once you're waist deep in the project. I'm working on 2 songs at the minute - in one, the synths are red. In another, the synths are green. I can quite happily switch between the two color schemes. 

I have just left them mostly on the default colors and work with that.... but I do like the idea of color coding vocals one color and guitars another...etc.... might have to try that on the next project.

sharke
Just pick them purely at random. It really won't matter once you're waist deep in the project. I'm working on 2 songs at the minute - in one, the synths are red. In another, the synths are green. I can quite happily switch between the two color schemes. 

That's what I have been doing, but my mild obsessive/compulsiveness is struggling with not having a standard.  I guess I will just make up my own and save it as part of my template.  At least the main instruments will be consistent.

I tend to keep all my tracks  e.g. drums, bass, guitars etc. in the same place and the same color so I automatically know what and where everything is. It's just easier and one less thing that I don't have to spend any time thinking about.

dwardzala

sharke
Just pick them purely at random. It really won't matter once you're waist deep in the project. I'm working on 2 songs at the minute - in one, the synths are red. In another, the synths are green. I can quite happily switch between the two color schemes. 

That's what I have been doing, but my mild obsessive/compulsiveness is struggling with not having a standard.  I guess I will just make up my own and save it as part of my template.  At least the main instruments will be consistent.

I have been doing this consistently for 15+ years:
 
Blue = Drums, Percussion
Brown = Bass
Yellow = Vocals
Orange = Guitars, Manodo, Banjo etc.
Red = Horns and Winds
Purple = Piano, Keys, Synth
Green = Scratch tracks and experimental stuff.
 
If you do the exact same thing we may be able to get bapu to start calling it the Q system.
 
:-)

Three things of note I'm doing since Sonar X3 and the introduction of track colors, and after I experimented around different ways.
 
1. I'm setting my audio and instrument tracks to follow the Bus color.  I'm leaving track folders and MIDI tracks as the default gray.  That means less clicks overall to maintain, and where the track colors really help a lot is on the console anyway.  Also, I can adjust a particular bus color if necessary and everything still stays intact.
 
2. I do keep a song template that I work from, so I do have a generally consistent set of colors as I move from song to song.  Not the same selection as Mike McCue, but the same principle of a set of colors I like per Bus.
 
3. I set the Master bus to red.  I like this particularly because when I insert a new track, especially a soft synth, and I insert it as one MIDI track and one instrument track, the instrument track pops out as red - which essentially alerts me to remember to set the routing to the proper bus instead of the Master bus which it routes to by default on insertion.

Interesting to see how everyone approaches this.  I have not yet settled on a definitive system, but I do save colors with track templates so similar projects end up with same scheme.  I tend to make my brass sections yellow. Not sure why but my drums often end up blue.  I make my fx snd bus a dark grey while leaving master bus default console color.  This way if I make a new track and it is routed to master, i don't need to switch colors to match bus and i know at  glance wich tracks are routed to master.

Jimbo21
I tend to keep all my tracks  e.g. drums, bass, guitars etc. in the same place and the same color so I automatically know what and where everything is. It's just easier and one less thing that I don't have to spend any time thinking about.

I'm very much the same, but perhaps more so...
 
I put drums in a folder and color-code them.
I put multed instruments in their own folder(s) and color-code.
Vox, same thing.
And my track order is always the same: drums, percussion (if any), bass (guitar, double, brass, etc.), rhythm & strings (the 'atmosphere' instruments), keyboards, vocals, lead instruments.
 
As for busses, I use the darker version of the matching color code (green for drums, dark green for drum buss, etc.)
 
I always use the same colors for the same instruments, the same types of instruments or those that serve the function in the mix (bg, color, fg). I get confused easily, otherwise.