Avoiding Option Paralysis Options

[Todd Simpson]

Here again is the legendary Chris Lord Algae talking about his workflow. At first I thought it was worthless to me as a guy who works "in the box". I don't have an SSL nor huge racks of outboard gear and I never will. It's now how I work. However, Mitch Gallagher from sweetwater is in the room and points out that this does apply to folks who work in the box. Just as Chris always has his same 4 reverbs and 4 delays preset and waiting on four sliders that can have any track bussed to it, folks like us who use DAWs can use templates to select our fave 4 delays and reverbs and have the buss sends all set up and ready to go. Same thing for plugins we often use. We can have a track for vocals ready to go and labled vocals with our vocal chain on it, for example. This is the software version of doing what Chris Lorde Algae is doing in hardware. He is basically working from a template, but he's doing it old school with an SSL console and patch bay and outboard hear. We might do the same thing by starting with our own template or just buying a template from one of the many folks out there building great DAW templates like DREWSIF. Our own BEN bought a reaper template a bit back and was very happy with it. Of course, you can build your own templates. However, for many folks, this is about like building guitar sim presets. Sure it's possible, but it's time consuming and tedious and only costs a pinch of money to get some great ones pre built and ready to go. The best part of this is it avoids "OPTION PARALYSIS". There are soooo many plugins available for free, soooo many presets to dig through, it can be daunting. Finding what works best for you and keeping it at hand is a great way to focus on making music and not on wasting time knobbing/mousing around.

ARE YOU GUYS USING DAW TEMPLATES?

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[klasaine]

I don't use a mix template per se but I do have custom presets (Ken's default) for most of my plugins.
Since I started mixing my students projects I have made presets for each kid's general sound. They are all recording with just one cheap mic and some of them are even just doing it with the built in laptop mic. *1 mic on a drum kit - get your head around that. So yeah, I have these starting points for what I need just to get it in the ballpark. Mostly channel strip (EQ and gain), compression and reverb. Also a few drastic 'correction' plugins like autotune, a general enhancer (eq, comp, resonance) and a quick and dirty mastering plug (bx_masterdesk). I make a preset for what each kid/instrument usually requires to get it sounding decent.
Having starting points definitely makes things go a lot faster.
*I also don't have a ton of plugins. I have way too much gear for one guitar player and I refuse to go down that road with recording and plugins.

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This post has been edited by klasaine: Dec 16 2020, 05:20 AM

[Kristofer Dahl]

Very interesting!

It's fun to see him so excited when explaining he can go back to previous settings with his setup 😅

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[Todd Simpson]

I found myself with far too many plugins and have uninstalled several. Also been trying to use
aux/sends and take the chris algae approach. IT's hard not to drown in plugins these days

.or one guitar player and I refuse to go down that road with recording and plugins.

Like a kid in a candy store!!!

Very interesting!

It's fun to see him so excited when explaining he can go back to previous settings with his setup 😅

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[Phil66]

Bottom line, you can't beat simple!

Nice share Todd, thanks.

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