Improve Your Workflow in 5 Minutes or How to use…

As well as most of you, I use Pro Tools Session Templates to get my stuff done. It’s a nice way to save your arrangement in the way you like to work – track arrangement, panning, sizes, color, plugins – you get it.

But have you ever thought about doing this for a plugin chain and whole track of groups? I’m sure you did! Well, a guy from the Pro Tools Experts community, Phillip Nichols, did it as well: he found a way to set up Track Templates. They work similar to Session Templates, but in a smaller way. So this hack allows you to add preset tracks within a session. Isn’t that awesome?

Just imagine you need some more VO Tracks. There is no need creating all the single tracks, naming them, arranging them or setting up all plugins. Simply use a pre-created track template.

The track presets store naming, arrangement, grouping, levels, plug-in settings, and color, input and bus settings as well as included regions.

How to Create Track Presets

1. Create your tracks
2. Arrange them however you prefer. Name them. Color them. Add plugins and their settings.
3. Select the tracks you want to save as a template
4. Choose the menu item File /Save as Template…
5. Select the Select location for template… button from the following pop-up menu.
6. Create a folder called “Track Presets” within the main Pro Tools app folder.
7. Create another folder, and give it your preset name (f.e. Andy VO Track CHR).
8. Save the preset inside this folder. Note: the preset must have the same name as the folder in the previous step.

Now it’s possible to choose your settings in the “New Track” dialogue. Note that it’s even possible to set up different types of presets for one category. Let’s say you have different VO Artists which need different kind of processing. By saving various types of presets in one folder, you can choose the presets in a second drop down menu in the New Track dialogue. This keeps it structured and clear.

You also can save single tracks with a specific kind of processing. If you need several tracks with the same kind of settings, just increase the amount of created tracks in the dialogue and let the magic happen. It’s even possible to pre define aux/bus and instrument tracks.

This is a short guide based on a tutorial video from KennyMania and a blog post from Paul Virostek. Watch the video, if you want to know more details about it.