# Ditching Templates and Loving QuickLoad



## Garry (Feb 18, 2018)

With the help of some kindly forum contributors, I recently was able to get my VERY modest template (only around just 100 tracks) running, which was crashing my system, even though I have a recent machine with reasonable specs (2017 27 inch iMAC, 32Gb RAM, around 4GHz processor), although I don’t have SSD or slaves or VEPro. I also found this YouTube video which included all of the steps I’d taken, with some additional ideas I hadn’t. Ok, I had it working, but still the load time was slow, and I wasn’t entirely happy with the setup.

Then I decided to set up QuickLoad. With all my instruments categorised (which was VERY quick to do, compared to setting up a template), I can select an instrument in about the same time it would take me to navigate to a track in a template. I think I much prefer this, and don’t need different templates, or have long load/save times.

So, what am I missing - I see that lots of people go to the effort of setting up very large templates, needing slaves and additional software to run it. What is the benefit of all of that, rather than just using QuickLoad to get what you need when you need it?

I dont’ think I’m going back to templates, but just wondered if there’s something I’ll miss that might make me rethink it’s worth the effort to set up templates, and invest in SSDs, slaves, VEPro, etc - given all of that though, the advantages would need to be pretty impressive, no?


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## MatFluor (Feb 18, 2018)

Well, A couple of points:

- Open up projects to work on them - a couple of seconds vs a couple of minutes (depending on track count)
- Switch quickly between different tracks/files/projects
- Being able to quickly bounce down a sketch, which already sounds 80% there or is even "ready to master", hence saving tons of time
- Having all your instruments pre-mixed, balanced, panned and "FXed", see point above
- No need to take the extra step to always load in your 20-something instruments, balance them, mix them before you can compose
- Let the "Kontakt instance, load instrument, assign proper outputs, routing etc." get out of your way to be creative
- Convenience of just "sitting on your pc and write" as if it was paper, quickly, directly

That all said, I also do 2 approaches. One, is my big Orchestral template with everything loaded etc.etc., and Two, a custom template for the project. It just gets tedious and unnecessary to set up your reouting everytime, route the stems correctly, bounce down different versions if needed, balance the whole stuff, EQ it and do other effects if needed. When I construct a "project-specific" template, I do all those steps before hand, once I decided on the proper sonic pallette to use - e.g. I know that I only need flutes from the Woodwinds, a synth and strings. So I set it up like this, and if really needed add something afterwards, I just use quickload or other means to add it. But if it's on my local machine, it will always take some time to load - time I waste staring on a screen, time I waste not being able to write.

So for me, the main advantages of having a VEP-Slave setup are:
- No wait for loading up a project (a full Orchestral project takes me 4-5 seconds to be ready to go)
- Having all the routing, balancing, pre-mix done and ready to export various stems, full mixes, single instruments - whatever the client needs, I can deliver it without the need to do anything except "press record" or "click export". Plus, since it's pre-mixed and balanced, I know that it will sound reasonably good for a sketch, or even a TV underscore right out of the DAW.


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## Garry (Feb 18, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> Well, A couple of points:
> 
> - Open up projects to work on them - a couple of seconds vs a couple of minutes (depending on track count)
> - Switch quickly between different tracks/files/projects
> ...



Fair enough - all good points. I guess there's no one size fits all here. I'm not a professional musician (oh, that would be a dream!), just a hobbyist, so I don't have the pressure on my time, like I imagine you do when you sit down to play. As a result, I almost certainly don't have the expertise and familiarity that you have with all the additional components it takes to have 1 or more large templates running smoothly. For my purposes, keeping things simple is key, so that when I sit down to play, I'm playing and not fighting computer issues. So, I think that's my realisation at this point: whilst it's nice to see the elegance of the large setups that others have, being seduced into trying to emulate these for an occasional hobbyist like me just takes away from the reason this is my hobby. So to others in my situation, I highly recommend the QuickLoad approach - but it's probably pants if this is how you earn your living!


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## procreative (Feb 18, 2018)

I am obsessed with a template, but the bigger it gets the less productive it can be. Using Logic with VEP, switching projects is a passion killer as VEP while sharing the CPU/RAM load, has to disconnect and reconnect each track.

This can be 3-5 minutes all in and while not that long it feels like forever.

Thats without having any Komplete Kontrol instances which seem to take extra long to load.

2 steps forward, sometimes feels like 2-3 steps back as the temptation is to load most of what you have "just in case". It does help to remember what you have, but it can result in unwieldy templates.


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## Garry (Feb 18, 2018)

procreative said:


> I am obsessed with a template, but the bigger it gets the less productive it can be. Using Logic with VEP, switching projects is a passion killer as VEP while sharing the CPU/RAM load, has to disconnect and reconnect each track.
> 
> This can be 3-5 minutes all in and while not that long it feels like forever.
> 
> ...



Yes, this is my (albeit naive) impression too: that we end up doing more and more work to save less and less time! For the more modest projects that I'm able to achieve, quick load works great. I spend zero time fixing it, zero time waiting for it to load, it has zero impact on CPU/RAM, and it's simplicity means I don't have to buy more hardware (slave PCs), software (VEPro), and spend yet more time learning how to manage them all efficiently, and deal with their downsides (such as load times, as you mention).

For those for whom this is not even revving the engine, and is already a time saver, rather than a time dump as it was beginning to become for me, I'm sure it's a finely tuned, purring engine. I guess I just don't really need a finely tuned Porsche for driving around the local shops, and it actually becomes more hassle than it's worth. I will wave and admire those of others as they drive by though!


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## MatFluor (Feb 18, 2018)

I didn't know that Logic doesn't take VEP well. In DP, it takes me 2 seconds to close a project and 5 seconds to open a new/existing one, all with VEP. Plus of course, a template is made once, tuned every once in a while, but e.g. I spend 3 days making it, and since then pretty much didn't touch it.

What VEP enables me as well is to sport less than "hardcore" hardware - my slave PC is one of my repurposed Homeservers (32 GB Ram, i3) and my main DAW machine is 16 GB, i3. VEP enables me to make large projects without crackling, freezing and whatnot, I can just work. My slave is maxed out, but my main machine can handle a couple Kontakt instances, that I want to run locally - and if I upgrade my main machine (which means buy a new machine, can't upgrade with this MoBo etc), that means I got a second slave for free, ready to take some more stuff.

So, as said, for me, there are pretty much only upsides - no waiting time, no routing headache, no finetuning of the instruments. Before I used VEP, I couldnt playback a larger track without crackling. I had to freeze every second instrument. Loading times of a purged template was agonizingly long (a couple of minutes).
For me, it's the opposite of a "passion Killer" - It's ready to go in a matter of seconds, when an idea hits me, I am playing it in in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Let alone being able to experiment on the fly (e.g. "nah, doesn't sound nice on violins, lets take the flutes. Hm, what about Trumpets, and letting Horns handle the chords instead of the strings") without having to load them all in, because they are ready to go anyway.

As said earlier, e.g. when I work on my mobile rig or for some projects, I create custom templates. I take the day and create the template for the project at hand, when I know it won't be too many Instruments and I know I want to work on that on my mobile rig as well, I don't use VEP for that. Once everything is loaded I can work normally - and DP does quite some good work with the loading - but I still miss the luxury of VEP in certain aspects 

VEP excels when templates are involved - I think you wouldn't like doing your whole setup over and over again when you have to make 10+ Tracks with the same instruments (or full orchestra). Even if Quickload has its advantages (I use it frequently as well of course), I dont like to do the same steps over and over again until I'm ready to go. VEP takes this "pain" away from me.

I don't want to sound aggressive, I hope that comes through right  I'm not affiliated with VSL or anything, just the ease of work, the possibility to use my old hardware, the benefits on speed and the possibility to run less than high-end hardware and still be able to comfortably let my creative juices flow are my selling points. Of course, if you work on a track-by-track basis, where every track has few and different instruments or work a lot with audio, VEP doesn't make too much sense. It's by far not the magic pill.


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## Garry (Feb 19, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> I didn't know that Logic doesn't take VEP well. In DP, it takes me 2 seconds to close a project and 5 seconds to open a new/existing one, all with VEP. Plus of course, a template is made once, tuned every once in a while, but e.g. I spend 3 days making it, and since then pretty much didn't touch it.
> 
> What VEP enables me as well is to sport less than "hardcore" hardware - my slave PC is one of my repurposed Homeservers (32 GB Ram, i3) and my main DAW machine is 16 GB, i3. VEP enables me to make large projects without crackling, freezing and whatnot, I can just work. My slave is maxed out, but my main machine can handle a couple Kontakt instances, that I want to run locally - and if I upgrade my main machine (which means buy a new machine, can't upgrade with this MoBo etc), that means I got a second slave for free, ready to take some more stuff.
> 
> ...



Not aggressive at all - it's great to hear a different perspective, and my initial post was genuinely to ask what I may be overlooking by deciding to avoid using templates, and you've definitely helped me do that. 

On balance, just from my perspective, both the time (3 days you mentioned it took you to build your template!) and the cost of adding a slave (>$1200), VEPro ($250), and some other peripherals (for those wanting to go this route and who are new to this like me, this video was a really helpful overview), it doesn't feel worth it to me. I would need to do a LOT of pointing and clicking in quickload to make up that time and cost! Once it's all bought, set up and maintained, I'm sure it feels great to have everything loaded right there, I can definitely appreciate that, and it might be a route I'll go later as my number of libraries increase, but for now you've helped me determine that now is not the time to do so, so I appreciate the help. Hopefully the discussion is helpful for others who may be considering the same question.

Thanks


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## jonathanwright (Feb 19, 2018)

For a long while I struggled with the need to have a template 'ready to go' and my preference for starting with a blank project.

I've no idea why, but I find I'm a lot more creative when I haven't got hundreds of tracks staring back at me.

In the end I've settled on a hybrid of both. 

I set up a huge template using VEP in Cubase, then I hid everything. So when I boot up the template is 'empty', as if it were a blank project.

I then use the _Find_ command in Cubase and type in the instrument/track name I want. Press enter and it appears on screen as a single track, as if I'd added it as an instrument.

The advantage being it's already loaded, named, coloured and routed.


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## Garry (Feb 19, 2018)

jonathanwright said:


> For a long while I struggled with the need to have a template 'ready to go' and my preference for starting with a blank project.
> 
> I've no idea why, but I find I'm a lot more creative when I haven't got hundreds of tracks staring back at me.
> 
> ...



Since it takes <5 secs to load an instrument through QuickLoad, and Kontakt database allows the same searching, and it doesn’t require routing, the remaining advantages you list would be naming and colouring! 3 days and around $2k for naming & colouring!


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## jonathanwright (Feb 19, 2018)

Of course it depends on your own workflow, go with what works for you!

The advantages are a _bit_ more than colouring and naming though. Load time is zero, the tracks are pre-mixed, placed in a room etc, so the benefits come at the mixing stage as well as the composing stage.

I have to apply routing for mixing and to prepare for stem delivery, so that’s a massive timesaver for me.

Finally, it takes the processing load off Cubase, so I can run big arrangements without worrying about CPU/RAM etc.


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## lucor (Feb 19, 2018)

I like having a modular template and tried the quickload approach for a while as well, but found it too annoying to work with. The main reason was the fact that quickload always resets if you close the Kontakt window. So if I, for example, wanted to load in all 5 Cinematic Studio Strings patches I had to wade through the folder structures in quickload to find Violins I, duplicate the current Kontakt instance, open the new one and wade through the folder structures _again, _and so on. I thought this was way to time consuming and infuriating. Apart from that, a filled quickload menu also seemed to make Kontakt slower, especially when opening and closing windows.
I settled with another approach, which is making every Kontakt patch I have into a Track Preset in Cubase, which works like a charm (if only it would also remember routings... ).


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## wst3 (Feb 19, 2018)

I use templates and quickload. To be fair, I'm still working on the template approach, and should probably devote a day or three to just get it done, but alas...

Templates offer me (Sonar and Studio One, Win10) the ability to treat my orchestra as a pre-defined rompler. Everything I might want to use is there, waiting to obey my command (well, such as it is!) My load times are blindingly fast - much better than I expected, and I am still working with a single machine. It probably helps that I don't have a lot to choose from - I use Cinesample core winds and brass, or Chris Hein Horns, depending on the project, seldom do I use both. I use Cinematic Strings (original and studio) and 8Dio Adagio/Agitato for strings. I have a handful (ok, a large hand) of synths I often turn to. I have some percussion libraries I use a lot.

Since I am used to using these it makes sense, for me, to have them at the ready.

Then there are all the other libraries - a ton of specialty libraries, found sounds, odd percussion, harps, keyboards, etc. For now I use Quickload to find and load them. As I discover I'm always using a particular library I'll add it to the template.

Probably the biggest benefit of this approach, for me, is that it lets me keep Quickload pretty sparse (relatively speaking.)

When I finally retire the current DAW to slave status things might change. One never knows!

I can tell you that, for me, for my current system, using a template saves me a ton of time, absolutely worth it, even though I don't make a lot of money from my composition efforts (yet). My time is still valuable to me. Although - don't laugh - I do sometimes miss the obvious opportunity to grab a cup of coffee while a project loads<G>!


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## Garry (Feb 19, 2018)

lucor said:


> I like having a modular template and tried the quickload approach for a while as well, but found it too annoying to work with. The main reason was the fact that quickload always resets if you close the Kontakt window. So if I, for example, wanted to load in all 5 Cinematic Studio Strings patches I had to wade through the folder structures in quickload to find Violins I, duplicate the current Kontakt instance, open the new one and wade through the folder structures _again, _and so on. I thought this was way to time consuming and infuriating. Apart from that, a filled quickload menu also seemed to make Kontakt slower, especially when opening and closing windows.
> I settled with another approach, which is making every Kontakt patch I have into a Track Preset in Cubase, which works like a charm (if only it would also remember routings... ).



Yes, that’s definitely a pain with QuickLoad resetting - I wish there was a way around that.


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## maestro2be (Feb 19, 2018)

I have my slave up and running with my entire orchestra ready to go. I connect using VE Pro and it's instant between songs. I have almost 1000 tracks and it loads in about 3-4 seconds. I then as Jonathan said, "Hide" all my tracks except my very few core tracks that get used in basically 100% of anything I will do. After that, I have saved sets for bringing in more if I needed. I can bring in entire sections that way, or do a simple find and bring in just one track.

I find this way of working the best for me after trying so many different ways over the years.

**Prior to the ability to hide tracks, it was a very intimidating and draining experiencing doing enormous templates for me **


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## MatFluor (Feb 19, 2018)

Garry said:


> Since it takes <5 secs to load an instrument through QuickLoad, and Kontakt database allows the same searching, and it doesn’t require routing, the remaining advantages you list would be naming and colouring! 3 days and around $2k for naming & colouring!



Well, you still need to set up your routing afterwards (depending on your workflow). Meaning if you wan tto send out every instrument to it0s own audio out from Kontakt (you can default that, granted). But still, when you want to create buses and stems, you would still need to route your midi tracks and buses accordingly, therefore not saving any time on that department. The default would just be "route it to Standard output" - but if you regularly need to make two separate full mixes (e.g. I have one mix with room correction for my studio, and one mix without that for the general-purpose wav/mp3 export) and stems (e.g. every single instrument grouping, families or a defined number of stems or submixes) - you would do that after you have composed the track(s). Needless to say when you need to apply EQ, tube sat or whatever to the tracks each time - sure you can work with presets, but still:


Quickload your Cello
Route Kontakt output X to a seperate mixer track

Apply FX Chain "Cello" to it
Route the midi track to the correct Kontakt MIDI-input
Route the mixer track to the mixes/stems you need
And after that, since you can ignore "not optimal sound" during composing:


Balance the Cello with the other instrument to give a realistic sense of space
Apply master FX like glue-Verb
In my three days, I tuned every articulation track to it's proper volume, experimented with mic positions to get the sound "just right", applied all needed FX to "make it mine", set up all the routing I need for delivery and balanced by mocking up 1-2 reference tracks. This is work that I put *before* the composing, instead of *behind* it. Sure, the Insturment specific stuff (mic positions, Kontakt's loudness) can be saved for Quickloading, but all the rest still needs time. With my VEP template, Everything is done to my liking and ready to export. If I need to adjust some levels, I can just go into VEP on the server and adjust there, and all my future pieces will have the adjustment. That means, As long as I like my template's sound, I don't need to touch it at all. And if e.g. I need the Cello more frontal (in the sense of a little louder), I can just push the fader in my DAW (I mean that as example of track mixing). But apart form that, I can confidently "just write music" and don't need to think about "if it will sound properly". I know what I don't like about the sound, and instead of "doing the same stuff everytime I use the instrument", I just do it once and never again.

Considering spending: my setup cost me the $250 from VEP - not one cent more, since VEP is ideal for repurposing otherwise "thrown away" hardware - in my case one of my homeservers. I could also plug my laptop as VEP server in, just to have more - without any additional cost.


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## Garry (Feb 19, 2018)

These are great insights, thanks guys. I totally agree, if composing is your living, a template is clearly the way to go. As a hobbyist, I don’t need stems, I don’t need separate mixes for my room, vs other sound environments - I play only with the intention of producing something that I will enjoy sat at the same desk! For the rest, in terms of mixing/mastering, I’m too ignorant at this point to even know what I don’t know! So it’s helpful for me to understand how others work, and gives me an idea of what I should be growing towards. 

At this point though, it’s QuickLoad for my needs. 

Thanks for all the feedback - incredibly helpful.


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## MatFluor (Feb 19, 2018)

Garry said:


> These are great insights, thanks guys. I totally agree, if composing is your living, a template is clearly the way to go. As a hobbyist, I don’t need stems, I don’t need separate mixes for my room, vs other sound environments - I play only with the intention of producing something that I will enjoy sat at the same desk! For the rest, in terms of mixing/mastering, I’m too ignorant at this point to even know what I don’t know! So it’s helpful for me to understand how others work, and gives me an idea of what I should be growing towards.
> 
> At this point though, it’s QuickLoad for my needs.
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback - incredibly helpful.



Glad we can be of help 

Yes, when you are a hobbyist, apart from the convenience in a way, you don't need to go "full out VEP". It's like buying a guitar and small amp for playing at home vs. a rack with FX, footpedal, cabinet and whatnot for live gigs with a band (Yes, I am one of those freaks who had a damn 35kg Rack to haul around - but all templated xD Speak-On cables for power, everything plugged in and ready to go. Thinking about that - I was always such an "optimizer" xD)


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## Grizzlymv (Feb 20, 2018)

Garry said:


> Since it takes <5 secs to load an instrument through QuickLoad, and Kontakt database allows the same searching, and it doesn’t require routing, the remaining advantages you list would be naming and colouring! 3 days and around $2k for naming & colouring!


On my side, I ditched slaves and VEP as it introduced unstability and it took way much longer to load the VEP environment than the way I'm doing my projects now. The routing in Cubase was also more complex and less convenient than it is now with instrument tracks (instead of rack tracks). Over the years, I tried pretty much all scenarios, except the one you propose with the quickload. What worry me with your solution is that I'd need to do the routing, balance and mixing of my instrument each time I load it...not so convenient. 

I'm using Cubase, so my current template have hundred of tracks, all disabled, but properly routed, balanced and mixed, so I don't have to focus on that when I'm writing, I just need to focus on the writing. Now, I wasn't able to work with hundred of tracks in my face permanently (too much scrolling and killed the inspiration) so I hide all tracks by default. Then I use the search within Cubase to find the instrument I'm looking for, which makes it visible, then with a hotkey I enable the track which takes a second and I'm good to go. 

I find this workflow much more efficient. Running on only 1 machine, clean view, no messing with routing/mixing/balancing. The only downside is that large projects with dozens of enabled tracks could takes a little longer to load, but it still manageable and a little downside compared to the rest of the gains I make. However, this probably could only works if you use Cubase as I'm not sure other DAW supports for disabled tracks.


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## evilantal (Feb 20, 2018)

I'm also a fan of using QuickLoad (plus track templates for Kontakt in Reaper that load Kontakt with 16 MIDI tracks and 16 output tracks pre-configured)

But I find that a populated Quickoad takes a long time to load up when you start up Kontakt before the nki's become accessable.
Anyone know of a way to speed that up? I'm running off SSD's and already xcluded my Kontakt folders from my Virus protection software.


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## Garry (Feb 20, 2018)

Grizzlymv said:


> On my side, I ditched slaves and VEP as it introduced unstability and it took way much longer to load the VEP environment than the way I'm doing my projects now. The routing in Cubase was also more complex and less convenient than it is now with instrument tracks (instead of rack tracks). Over the years, I tried pretty much all scenarios, except the one you propose with the quickload. What worry me with your solution is that I'd need to do the routing, balance and mixing of my instrument each time I load it...not so convenient.
> 
> I'm using Cubase, so my current template have hundred of tracks, all disabled, but properly routed, balanced and mixed, so I don't have to focus on that when I'm writing, I just need to focus on the writing. Now, I wasn't able to work with hundred of tracks in my face permanently (too much scrolling and killed the inspiration) so I hide all tracks by default. Then I use the search within Cubase to find the instrument I'm looking for, which makes it visible, then with a hotkey I enable the track which takes a second and I'm good to go.
> 
> I find this workflow much more efficient. Running on only 1 machine, clean view, no messing with routing/mixing/balancing. The only downside is that large projects with dozens of enabled tracks could takes a little longer to load, but it still manageable and a little downside compared to the rest of the gains I make. However, this probably could only works if you use Cubase as I'm not sure other DAW supports for disabled tracks.



My confusion here indicates my ignorance, so I’d be grateful for feedback: a number of times, people have talked about the problem with just using QuickLoad is that you’ll need to do the routing, balancing and mixing each time; the value of the template being that you can have a mix that is 80% there before even recording a note. I don’t understand this (out of ignorance, not that I don’t agree): when I’ve produced a piece, I then start looking at the levels, the EQ, adding effects, and all of that is dependent on the other elements in the piece. On one piece, the level for a given instrument may need to be higher, if for example it has the lead, compared to another. I don’t see how this could be done before writing the piece, and any pre-work I did being redundant? I know I’m wrong here, I just don’t know why I’m wrong!!

As for routing, I don’t think I’ve come across this term, perhaps due to my single machine setup? I don’t need to route from e.g. Ableton to ProTools, or VEPro to Logic. I have 1 machine on which I use Logic - is this why I haven’t come across the need to consider routing the mix, or am I misunderstanding something here too?

Thanks for any help understanding this.


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## Garry (Feb 20, 2018)

evilantal said:


> I'm also a fan of using QuickLoad (plus track templates for Kontakt in Reaper that load Kontakt with 16 MIDI tracks and 16 output tracks pre-configured)
> 
> But I find that a populated Quickoad takes a long time to load up when you start up Kontakt before the nki's become accessable.
> Anyone know of a way to speed that up? I'm running off SSD's and already xcluded my Kontakt folders from my Virus protection software.



Hmm... I’m not sure why QuickLoad takes a long time to load - in fact, wouldn’t a slow QuickLoad be an oxymoron?!! For me, the almost instantaneous loading of instruments in QuickLoad is the key feature as to why I’m using it instead of templates - it’s like the advantage of a template, where you can move to a track and have it instantly available, but better, you don’t need to spend processing power on tracks that you haven’t yet used/loaded. If your setup with QuickLoad is not immediately available, I wonder if there’s some problem?


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## MatFluor (Feb 20, 2018)

Garry said:


> when I’ve produced a piece, I then start looking at the levels, the EQ, adding effects, and all of that is dependent on the other elements in the piece. On one piece, the level for a given instrument may need to be higher, if for example it has the lead, compared to another. I don’t see how this could be done before writing the piece, and any pre-work I did being redundant? I know I’m wrong here, I just don’t know why I’m wrong!!



You're not wrong - it's just another way to do it. So to speak - when an orchestra is balanced, everything sounds right, htere is no need for fader pushing anymore- E.g. if I can't hear the flute (knowing it's balanced), my orchestration must be bad, so it gets covered up.

Or, another context, some rock song. Let's say you pre-mix a template with all the essentials you need (Audio-in for Guitars, Virtual drums, maybe virtual bass). You mix and FX the drums the way you like it, constructing e.g. the Kick out of two or three layers to give it the sound you want. You route that to a single fader for convenience. The whole kit, nicely mixed and FX'd. There is really no need to "make the Hi-Hat louder", since you have tested your template and know that "it sounds just like that when a real drummer would play it". That's my thinking of the template. Obviously, with orchestral it's a more direct approach - th eOrchestra sound natural the way you balanced it - if you have to push faders, you're doing something wrong in your composition/orchestration process. That's the way I see it.



Garry said:


> As for routing, I don’t think I’ve come across this term, perhaps due to my single machine setup? I don’t know to route from Ableton to ProTools, or VEPro to Logic. I have 1 machine on which I use Logic - is this why I haven’t come across the need to considering routing the mix, or am I misunderstanding something here too?



I don't route (or layback) stuff to other machines - which naturally complicates the setup, yeah. I made a video a short while back when I constructed my DP template - maybe have a look, I explain what I set up and my philosophy of the template. Maybe it helps  (It's 20 Minutes long I explain my template in slight detail, concerning VEP etc., I quickly screencapped my two cheap pics I made to explain my setup, after the video embed)


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## Garry (Feb 20, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> You're not wrong - it's just another way to do it. So to speak - when an orchestra is balanced, everything sounds right, htere is no need for fader pushing anymore- E.g. if I can't hear the flute (knowing it's balanced), my orchestration must be bad, so it gets covered up.
> 
> Or, another context, some rock song. Let's say you pre-mix a template with all the essentials you need (Audio-in for Guitars, Virtual drums, maybe virtual bass). You mix and FX the drums the way you like it, constructing e.g. the Kick out of two or three layers to give it the sound you want. You route that to a single fader for convenience. The whole kit, nicely mixed and FX'd. There is really no need to "make the Hi-Hat louder", since you have tested your template and know that "it sounds just like that when a real drummer would play it". That's my thinking of the template. Obviously, with orchestral it's a more direct approach - th eOrchestra sound natural the way you balanced it - if you have to push faders, you're doing something wrong in your composition/orchestration process. That's the way I see it.
> 
> ...




Perfect, incredibly helpful - thank you. I have a much better understanding of this now. It still leads me to the same conclusion: that for 
- my requirements ((i) don’t need to produce Stems, (ii) I don’t have such enormous amount of libraries that I need the ability to navigate them, (iii) I don’t output pieces with such regularity that mixing/balancing as a post-processing step is too repetitive; (iv) I’m not too worried about how the piece sounds in different audio systems other than my own) 
- my ability/experience level (I don’t think I’m confident enough that any generic pre-mixing would be worthwhile, and not be redundant for a specific piece for which I would probably change up most things on a case-by-case basis), 
then avoiding using templates feels right for now... 

But that’s at least a much more informed position than it was before, and I’m very grateful for your help with that. Hopefully the discussion helps others in the same position decide if templates works for them.

By the way, hello from a fellow Swiss (though I’m not native, just an Ausslander, enjoying living in your beautiful country!).


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## Syneast (Feb 21, 2018)

Used to be obsessed with templates to the point of planning them in Notepad when I was away from my studio for long periods of time. In practice I have found that I can't work with them, because:

1. I am constantly learning new things that I want to incorporate

2. different tracks need different samples

Templates are too static for me. Quick load is awesome, yes. I also use the track template feature in Reaper a lot. It lets me save individual tracks with instruments, effects and everything so that I can call them up later. I find it's a perfect balance between "heat of the moment" composing and the convenience of having things pre-mixed.


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## jasonfernandez (Feb 21, 2018)

I was a huge template fan in Logic for a long time with VE Pro using internal instruments for synths etc and VE for orchestra. Then I saw a youtube clip that changed the whole way I worked (I'll try to find it to post it) and I moved to Cubase to implement it. Disabled tracks.

You can have hundreds of instruments setup routed panned with fx preloaded - all disabled in your template. When you need one hit the key command for enable and away you go. 

I prefer this to a traditional slave system for a lot of reasons.

When I run out of RAM or CPU I render a few regions in place and disable the tracks and keep working. Including if I want to take a session home to work on my laptop.
When I have a director coming for review I select all and render the regions in place, disable the tracks and now the cue loads very quickly. If the director wants to rework a section I can mute rendered regions and turn on instruments as required. Super quick.
With everything rendered in place I can do a quick export for a mix or consider that my cue is archived in a way that will always play back even if I don't have the same plugins in the future.
Lastly and most importantly for me I can mess with any of my sounds without if messing with them on the rest of my cues like I used to have with a slave setup. If I want to put decapitator on my spiccatos on this cue but not the rest it's not an issue this way.
Anyway - I hope this is useful to someone


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## X-Bassist (Feb 21, 2018)

Garry said:


> Perfect, incredibly helpful - thank you. I have a much better understanding of this now. It still leads me to the same conclusion: that for
> - my requirements ((i) don’t need to produce Stems, (ii) I don’t have such enormous amount of libraries that I need the ability to navigate them, (iii) I don’t output pieces with such regularity that mixing/balancing as a post-processing step is too repetitive; (iv) I’m not too worried about how the piece sounds in different audio systems other than my own)
> - my ability/experience level (I don’t think I’m confident enough that any generic pre-mixing would be worthwhile, and not be redundant for a specific piece for which I would probably change up most things on a case-by-case basis),
> then avoiding using templates feels right for now...
> ...



Just one story of warning though. I set up quickload with all my favorite instruments. Hundrends of nki’s organized just how I like it. Then bought SSD’s to help the system work smoother, only to find out after moving all the samples that all the quickload data was gone. Come to find out there is no way of getting it back once the links are broken. You have to start over. No way to edit your quickload links either, move the samples and your out of luck. So be aware. Made me so mad I never used quickload again. It’s a little silly that they made no provision for this, or that NI doesn’t explain this fact up front. Evil Dragon had to clue me in.

Other than that fiasco, yeah, quickload is fine.


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## williemyers (Feb 21, 2018)

guys, a huge question on "Quick Load" here....
are you all saying that Instruments/Multis/Banks that you've put in to Quick Load are actually loading in to RAM faster than if you were loading them from, say, the Browser? my experience has been that some Instruements actually take *longer* to load, if loaded from Quick Load. Now, I've always loved Quick Load because it made things for easy to "find"....and I always thought they should ahve named it "Quick Find"!

But "Quick LOAD"? nope - please take a look at my post on NI/Kontakt and Evil Dragon's response:
https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/quick-load.325170/


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## jtnyc (Feb 21, 2018)

Another approach could be to import tracks from a template into your new project as needed. This way you get the advantage of cherry picking only what you need like quickload, but also the advantage having "set up" tracks ie coloring, track name, level, panning etc, even bus routing and associated aux's or track stacks. I do this in Logic. I have a few different templates that I use to import tracks from. To set up for quick access open the file browser in the template that you start every project with and navigate to the other templates that you will be importing tracks from. Once there save that view as a screenset. This way it's always 1 click away. Once it's set up and your used to it, I think you'll find it much quicker than creating new instrument tracks, loading Kontakt, then waiting for quickload to update, then finding and loading what you want. I do use quickload sometimes as well, but having those already set up template projects one click away is so convenient.

Here is a screenshot showing how it looks. You just select the track you want and import it. You can also use the up down keys on your computer keyboard to navigate to the track you want to import, option right to select, and command down to import. It's fast -)


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## stonzthro (Feb 21, 2018)

Any more I just use Logic's Patches - I save them and have them meticulously organized. I know exactly what sounds I have and can load them up quite fast. I have local versions of everything, and VEP versions of the most commonly used things so I can make a template very fast of exactly what I need. I used Quickload for a while and then had to switch computers and LOST IT ALL; I could find to way to export the QUickload directory - complete deal killer! Logic's Patches can of course be saved and loaded on different computers. I used to run a 1400 track template, but now I just add what I need, when I need it - mucho better!

Cubase has the ability to save patches but in its current state, it is quite clunky, and I think everything is done alphabetically - and not in folders (could be wrong - just what I remember last time I researched it).


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## jtnyc (Feb 21, 2018)

stonzthro said:


> Any more I just use Logic's Patches - I save them and have them meticulously organized. I know exactly what sounds I have and can load them up quite fast. I have local versions of everything, and VEP versions of the most commonly used things so I can make a template very fast of exactly what I need. I used Quickload for a while and then had to switch computers and LOST IT ALL; I could find to way to export the QUickload directory - complete deal killer! Logic's Patches can of course be saved and loaded on different computers. I used to run a 1400 track template, but now I just add what I need, when I need it - mucho better!
> 
> Cubase has the ability to save patches but in its current state, it is quite clunky, and I think everything is done alphabetically - and not in folders (could be wrong - just what I remember last time I researched it).



This is an excellent solution for Logic users as well. I didn't discover it until after I was using templates to import tracks from and since I had already done all that work setting those up, I was reluctant to start a whole new organizing process, plus I'm quite happy importing.


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## lucor (Feb 21, 2018)

stonzthro said:


> Cubase has the ability to save patches but in its current state, it is quite clunky, and I think everything is done alphabetically - and not in folders (could be wrong - just what I remember last time I researched it).


In Cubase it's even more powerful if you use track presets with the Mediabay, since you can give every preset different tags and then search very specifically. This is how I have it set up at the moment, for example:




I just wish you could have more than 6 columns shown at the same time (that's why I have all those Woodwinds, Brass, Strings etc. folders, they serve as a kind of improvised 7th column).


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## Garry (Feb 21, 2018)

X-Bassist said:


> Just one story of warning though. I set up quickload with all my favorite instruments. Hundrends of nki’s organized just how I like it. Then bought SSD’s to help the system work smoother, only to find out after moving all the samples that all the quickload data was gone. Come to find out there is no way of getting it back once the links are broken. You have to start over. No way to edit your quickload links either, move the samples and your out of luck. So be aware. Made me so mad I never used quickload again. It’s a little silly that they made no provision for this, or that NI doesn’t explain this fact up front. Evil Dragon had to clue me in.
> 
> Other than that fiasco, yeah, quickload is fine.



QuickLoad is simply a collection of aliases, so yes, if you move the location of the file, the alias will no longer work. That’s not a failure of QuickLoad, it’s a fact about the nature of aliases. You can back up your QuickLoad structure, and the value of it being alias-based is that you don’t need to reorganise the actual files they refer to, which makes it very quick to setup. But yes, you’re committing to your file structure if you use aliases.


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## Garry (Feb 21, 2018)

williemyers said:


> guys, a huge question on "Quick Load" here....
> are you all saying that Instruments/Multis/Banks that you've put in to Quick Load are actually loading in to RAM faster than if you were loading them from, say, the Browser? my experience has been that some Instruements actually take *longer* to load, if loaded from Quick Load. Now, I've always loved Quick Load because it made things for easy to "find"....and I always thought they should ahve named it "Quick Find"!
> 
> But "Quick LOAD"? nope - please take a look at my post on NI/Kontakt and Evil Dragon's response:
> https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/quick-load.325170/



I don’t know if they would load faster or slower - I can’t see why it would be either: it’s just an alias, so whether you access from the Browser or QuickLoad, it’s loading the same file. QuickLoad simply allows you to structure your files easily - one instrument can be in multiple locations (eg structured by instrument type, genre or producer). That’s all there is to it - I don’t think it’s intended to imply anything more.


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## Garry (Feb 21, 2018)

jtnyc said:


> Another approach could be to import tracks from a template into your new project as needed. This way you get the advantage of cherry picking only what you need like quickload, but also the advantage having "set up" tracks ie coloring, track name, level, panning etc, even bus routing and associated aux's or track stacks. I do this in Logic. I have a few different templates that I use to import tracks from. To set up for quick access open the file browser in the template that you start every project with and navigate to the other templates that you will be importing tracks from. Once there save that view as a screenset. This way it's always 1 click away. Once it's set up and your used to it, I think you'll find it much quicker than creating new instrument tracks, loading Kontakt, then waiting for quickload to update, then finding and loading what you want. I do use quickload sometimes as well, but having those already set up template projects one click away is so convenient.
> 
> Here is a screenshot showing how it looks. You just select the track you want and import it. You can also use the up down keys on your computer keyboard to navigate to the track you want to import, option right to select, and command down to import. It's fast -)



I use User Patches in Logic for this. I like it, but I don’t find I that often need to load in multiple files: if I need a cello, I find it easier to open open my Cello folder in QuickLoad, and then load each as I need it. With a User Patch, I load all, whether I want them or not. Sometimes that’s preferable, sometimes not, but personally, I’m tending to find it’s not. I imagine others will prefer other ways of working - flexibility is the key to keeping all of us happy all of the time!


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## jtnyc (Feb 22, 2018)

Garry said:


> I use User Patches in Logic for this. I like it, but I don’t find I that often need to load in multiple files: if I need a cello, I find it easier to open open my Cello folder in QuickLoad, and then load each as I need it. With a User Patch, I load all, whether I want them or not. Sometimes that’s preferable, sometimes not, but personally, I’m tending to find it’s not. I imagine others will prefer other ways of working - flexibility is the key to keeping all of us happy all of the time!



The method that I described (importing tracks from another project/template) allows you to import only 1 track/instrument if that's all you want or as many as you like. Same with user patches, 1 or as many as you like. I don't understand what you mean about having to load all wether you want them or not? Anyway, I find importing tracks to be a very quick method in general and in cases where I have multiple output VI's routed to aux tracks with eq's, compressors set up on them, it's a huge time saver. Also, having the tracks import (or load if your using user patches) already named and colored with inserts etc is another time saver.


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