I start blank, I feel like having a set template kind of limits my creativity. Also, since I'm still pretty new to this, there are still a lot of different ways I can approach things. My goal is not to pump out tracks every day/week, so having a template doesn't really do much for me.
I'm still fairly new to producing too, but you'd be surprised how much a template can do for you, especially when it comes to creativity when you're new (and I presume vets do also).
What I mean by that is, if you have all of the basic stuff routed to where you want it to be beforehand, you can just open the DAW and start getting shit down quickly without having to spend 15 minutes at the beginning doing something that you're most likely going to edit later on anyway. I can understand your point about creativity, but mixing is something you're going to have to do no matter what the genre so if you can eradicate some of that stuff at the first hurdle, you'll most likely see the benefits. Also, you don't have to use all of your template settings, they're just there if you do and can always be changed on-the-fly.
My default mixer template for example which I created myself consists of 6 buses (Kick/Snare, Percussion, Bass, Leads, Pads and Vocals). The vocals one almost never gets used but it's there just in case for the future. Routed to these I have individual mixer channels (Hi-Hats Open, Hi-Hats Closed etc. on Percussion, Mid Bass, Sub Bass etc. on the Bass channel. and so on). On every one of these channels I have a blank EQ and a limiter for sidechaining and I have a silent sidechain channel containing a kick drum on every beat routed to every single one of the channels with the input level down so you can't hear the kick itself, it just acts as a sidechain trigger which I can edit as I please. I'm in FL so it's just a 4/4 loop that I can paste wherever it's needed on the playlist. The final touch is
EVERYTHING IS COLOUR CODED. I can't stress enough how much that helps me. Tidy space, tidy mind and all that, the DAW as well as the studio is our work space.
It's a very simple template and I always add to it as the track goes on, but it's extremely productive to be able to open a pad synth and a pluck synth for example and quickly route them to channels that already have side chains, EQs and whatever else on them. If you don't want to create an entire template from scratch, at least have one with a sidechain channel as that's the one I can almost guarantee you will use in your tracks if you make electronic music.
TL;DR Version:
1. Eliminate boring setup stuff
2. Crack on with actually creating music
3. ? ? ? ?
4. PROFIT
As I said, I'm still a noob too and I'm not a fantastic producer (in fact, I feel as if I don't know shit) so take what I say with a barrel of salt but I've found this to be helpful to me, hope it helps you too
