Do you guys make presets?

[bryan_kilco]

When mixing, do you have presets for individual instruments that you always use to start with? I am mainly just doing the recording thing for my own personal fun/learning/enjoyment. I'm finding lately, I get a bit unmotivated from "finishing" my own mixes since I haven't saved any presets (kick/snare/toms, guitars/bass) with the plugins I normally need (EQ, comp, etc) and having to bring each one of these plugs in again and set everything is just starting to become a pain. Obviously, you'll need to tweak all of these for every mix either way....but just having something to start with seems much easier. This is probably a very dumb question to start with.....so sorry, if you all just want to punch me in the face right now.

 

[sam14]

I have drum, guitar and bass presets/fx chains in reaper that I always start with for tracking, then I change things up once I start mixing. it makes things easier because I can get a whole mix worth of tracks up in a few minutes ready to track the instruments.

 

[Skinny Viking]

don't know what you're using but in PT you can just create a mix template or you can just import session data from another session that has all the plugin chains and settings you want on each track

literally takes a few seconds

 

[Trevoire520]

I've got some presets for bass on my sansamp plugin, but to be honest they never transfer from project to project, so I've stopped saving them. Also got guitar presets on pod farm but that's just for guide tracks anyway.

I understand your point about having somewhere to start, but really if you know where you want to take your tracks then you should be able to get there pretty quickly.

 

[AndrewB]

I tend to rely on presets a lot. I NEVER import a preset and say "OK, it's done!", but I'll have something like a Kick EQ preset that will have a wide scoop at about 400Hz and a bell boost at around 65Hz, just so I don't waste any time setting it up again. I do this for most of the drums, but I never do it for guitars, just because each guitar setup is different, and the only constant is that there is a high pass, which even then can be shifted around.