I need help setting up a mixing template on pro tools

[mikebailey92]

A lot of professional studios will use outboard gear... but what I'll say applies to plugins too. You could go in and look at their chain. They might be running a compressor into an EQ. There's a reason they've run the compressor in to the EQ, and not the EQ into the compressor. It's good you know what your plugins do, but keep practising and learn what effects they will have on other plugins that are on the chain, as well as what they do individually.

Example: Dave Pensado often talks about doing cuts in EQ, before compression and then boosts after compression. He cleans the audio up first. compresses. then basically uses the second EQ to pretty it up.

I wouldn't worry about spending too much time "making it sound good". After all, that's the name of the game really.

With all this said, I'm not sure it's worth doing a template, because every mix will demand different effects, and different orders in the chain.

A good thing to do could be to just set deadlines with your mixing. Otherwise you'll constantly find faults, and you'll never ever finish mixing that one track. I think most people who mix are perfectionists like that, myself included. Deadlines help.

[steroberts]

Personally I don't think mixing to the same template will help you any, as you said yourself every band and artist and even song is different so you have to approach any mix at its own sound and start from there.

It sounds as if you are unsure of your own work flow. This is an important skill to develop but perhaps if you are willing to pay for all these plugins to mix with then paying for a couple of hours with a respected local engineer and get to grips with a couple of approaches to workflow and plugin use would be a smart investment (and not that expensive).

[decypha]

okay guys what i'm really trying to say is not that I really want it as a template I really want to have a foundation and then I can build from that give it whatever it needs based on the song and the artist

[Stackx]

yea only template i have is 48 tracks, 8 buss tracks, 8 aux tracks and 1 pre-fader track and 1 refrence track. anything other than that is always a give and go.. no point in adding any type of plug-in's yet or anything cause i have no idea what the mix is going to need.