@pompeyjazz @Skub @shadowfax @Boydie - Yeah very interesting indeed, I have a couple of workflows, one to speed up production, where I use Templates, I have a range of Templates say EDM, Acoustic etc. taking the EDM as an example,
Master Buss is empty of plugins, I like to decide on those right at the end, although I have a good idea of what I might use.
When I get a fx chain that I like I'll save it so I can bring it back at any time, this helps a lot, I put as much detail as I can in for example "rpsSlowGlideStratSlide"
Don't go for internal bouncing, lie in good old days, one just has to pay for it with latency, so I get any live drums done early on with low buffer settings.
Instrument tracks...
Vocals - Violet - Lead Vocal has it's own track, BVox have their own Group which usually has a VCA controlled by it's own submixBuss
Drums - Red - Has it's own folder track.
Perc - Pink - Very important and often under used - guiro, cabasa, triangles etc...(saving up for BFD3 Percussion expansion pack)
Guitars - Green - Also are usually VCA controlled
Synths - Cyan
Bass - Blue - Beginning to start with Amplitude Ampeg SVX and work from there.
How to deal with those pesky hooky one offs? Well I group those together so they are easy to find.
I am now beginning to experiment with Samples, so I have a dark blue Samples track, I can see this growing into a subBuss.
If the song requires it I'll split some of the groups into more subBusses to process them separately. Very often I use many drum sources in a song, and especially for EDM I'll process them differently, in my DAW I can apply any plugin and route to aux busses at
object level, which is just brilliant, I'm pretty sure that most other DAWs can do that too. Also synths usually get separated into more than one group, my rabbit hole is synths, they can take over if I'm not careful, so many, with 1000's of presets, I now know roughly what each one is good for.
I have to mention the stunning good electric piano plugin called lounge lizard, better than anything Ive heard. PluginBoutique had it for a song some while ago but boy it's good enough for me not to go for the Arturia V6 Stage73 or Wurlie most times.
Templates just take the work out of setting up instrument routing etc. especially for some drum and multi timbral synths software like MAGIX Independence or Xpand!2...
If the song has a really prominent Vocal then I might route all the subBusses to an subAllInstr which carries all of the instruments, then to make the LVox stand out I'll use Trackspacer 2.5 as the only plugin on that buss, sidechaining the LVox. Makes it a breeze to control.
The other way is totally free, but much more time intensive, it's my favourite way of working and is used really for "Oh I have this idea...."
For Remixes I use a genre specific template and hoik all the stems in above the existing template tracks/busses, and the template is based on the genre that I'm aiming for not what the stems come from, and usually get rid of most stuff.
So that's it. The idea is to make it quick to start, easy to find stuff, especially when actually mixing! (on my faders holding shift slows down the movement, use that a lot on Vocals and Bass)
Hope it helps, many ways to skin a cat, no right way, we all admire each others work, but we can always spot one that's been carefully produced...