I get a bit annoyed sometimes, that every track I make sounds a little bit different to everything else I do.

But this sort of makes sense, because I start every project from scratch, and build all the sounds, synths, FX, processing chains up from sratch, and so the end results end up being fairly different.

Have just made a slightly awkward, painful but exciting move to using ableton, and now have dedicated FX chains and drum kits etc all set up. Which made me ponder - do people recycle templates for tracks?

So lets say I've got a whole track laid out, and its sounds nice. All my compressors are playing nicely together, my EQ balance is tight, the mix sounds good. Technically, I could reuse the template I've got by changing a few of the drums about, playing with the synths, making a few tweaks to EQ to get the mix right and then boom, I've got a new track out of the skeleton of an old track.

Makes sense? Maybe I'm just being epically slow to cotton on to something that everyone else has been doing for donkeys years as a matter of course, but it to me it explains how lots of producers can be so prolific, and have a very defined sound. Am quite excited by the prospect of saving time and getting to write a little bit more, and not waste so much time building everything from scratch every time I start a project. But maybe I'm not considering some of the limitations of this approach.

Thoughts?