You've created the perfect presets for your favorite Pro Tools plug-ins, but you find yourself frequently working on systems at different facilities. There is a quick and easy way to have access to your presets no matter whose system your working on. Pro Tools stores all the presets (both factory and user) in folders under MacintoshHD/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugin Settings on Mac and C:Program FilesDigidesignDAEPlug-In Settings on Windows.

Simply open this folder, find any plug-in that you want to copy a preset from, open that folder, and copy the file that contains your preset. The file will be named the same as your custom preset. You can then email the file to the studio that you're going to or put it on a thumb drive or other portable storage device.

Once you're ready to install the preset into the new system, simply place the copied file into the plug-in folder in the same manner in which you copied it, placing the file in the corresponding folder. The cool thing about the thumb drive method is that the preset files take up an incredibly small amount of space, so you can permanently store a vast number of presets on a single 256MB drive to always have quick access to your favorite presets, no matter where you're working.

The only exception to this method is Waves plug-ins, which stores their presets in a dedicated Waves Preferences folder.