Easy "5 click song template"

[strawberryfield]

Hello there,
first of all: great site! I've been reading stuff here for a long time and may I say: it's one of the best resources I've ever found

I play various instruments for > 20 years and I like writing songs and recording them. For this reason I got myself cubase and other (mostly amateur) studio stuff 3 years ago. I went through lots of tutorials, spent hours of time mixing, editing, etc.
However, mixing is an ART. And as much effort as I put into this, the results are "ok-ish" but not good enough. Plus, what I really like to do is writing music and create/record the songs - I'm not as much interested into mixing as you guys may are.

The question is: Is there any way, any shortcut, any templates/plugins/etc. that I just can "load, perform 5 clicks to adjust the settings, and have a great sound"?

I know, it would be impossible that way to create "my own sound" or a brand new sound or do whatever fancy stuff is possible. The only thing I want is to concentrate on what I really like: Recording songs - not editing them.
The biggest problem in my case is the EQ distribution of the instruments. So it would be great to have some kind of template or plugin that kind of pre-defines: "Oh you got a background electric guitar? Use one of our 5 presets for background e-guitars and you can be sure that it's frequencys won't mess up with anything else in your song"

My question may sound dumb and naive - but that's on purpose hehe ;-)

• I tried the templates from MIX TEMPLATE - quality online mixing, mastering and production and I wasn't satisfied.
• I tried ezmix2 and I wasn't satisfied (but maybe I used it wrong)
• I tried the CLA Signature Series plugins and they are amazing!!! However, they don't solve my EQ-problem, since every instrument sounds great on its own, but altogether it's not really good. (Again maybe I'm using them wrong)
• I found other sites with templates - but mostly trance / house / electronics. Unfortunately, what I'm looking for is alternative/indie rock stuff.

Do you think or maybe even know if there's such a "magical" thing out there?

Cheers, Steve

 

[mjbphotos]

Hi Steve, relevant question, but I think you've already answered it yourself by trying various 'templates' - they don't work well. Why? Because no 2 recorded tracks are the same.
Take your electric guitar amp example - trying to make it sit well in the mix. here's all the variables:
1) Guitar (Fender, Gibson, PRS, PoS...)
2) Amp/DI-sim - miked, DI'ed amp, DI guitar and sim ...
3) Style of playing (choppy, smooth...)
4) Type of music (metal, folk, indie...)
5) What other instruments (and voices) are in the mix?
6) How do you want this guitar to sound in relation to the other instruments?

Why would you think one template (or 2 or even 3) would work for every possible combination?

But (AHA!) there is a solution that you will have to make for yourself. Do you find that scooping the EQ on your e-guitar in the 200-400Hz range works best for most of your tunes? Then create a track template (or EQ pre-set) that does this. Whatever works for most of your songs can be saved as a template or pre-set to use on other songs.

Because my songs can vary from a 2-acoustic guitar + vocals to 'full band' with 4-6 electric guitars, synths, etc I find it easier to have presets for my plug-ins (vocal EQ, reverbs, guitar EQ, vocal compression, etc) that I can throw on tracks as needed - I find it better to only add what is needed to each track, rather than having a template with everything on it already when it may in fact not be needed.

 

[JMac52]

If you think your recorded tracks sound good (you got it right at the source) but aren't all that interested in learning the art and science of mixing, you can always pay someone else to mix for you.