You could just save a project with your favorite defaults but no audio or midi. and name it "template". then "save as" once the project has content, leaving your "template" untouched.  I've been doing it this way for years.

Anderton
At present, track templates do not recall track colors.

Hey Craig, there seems to be some inconsistency in results with regard to track colors. I commented in a previous thread that for me, track colors DO get saved and recalled with track templates. It's been that way quite a while for me - maybe since or after X3. A couple of days ago when inserting from track template I noticed, though, while the audio and MIDI tracks DID get inserted with the right colors, the track folder containing them did NOT. The folder just came up default gray.

TPayton
You could just save a project with your favorite defaults but no audio or midi. and name it "template". then "save as" once the project has content, leaving your "template" untouched.  I've been doing it this way for years.

I beleive you mean to save the set up content-less project "as a project", and then open and resave under the new project's name. But you can also save the content-less project "as project template", then it will show up in your start screen. And colors get saved correctly in project templates (for everyone I beleive).

PeteL
Hey Craig, there seems to be some inconsistency in results with regard to track colors. I commented in a previous thread that for me, track colors DO get saved and recalled with track templates. It's been that way quite a while for me - maybe since or after X3. A couple of days ago when inserting from track template I noticed, though, while the audio and MIDI tracks DID get inserted with the right colors, the track folder containing them did NOT. The folder just came up default gray.

I stand corrected. So many people in these forums have complained about track templates not saving colors that I just assumed that was the case. But I just tried saving a dozen tracks as track templates using the default colors as well as custom colors, and they all re-loaded with their assigned colors.
 
I can also confirm what you said about folders, but I'm not surprised - these are track templates, not track folder templates - you can't  right-click on a track folder and save it as a track template.

Anderton
Do you assign the outs directly to the hardware ins, not a bus whose outs are assigned to the hardware ins? 
 

Yes

JCody

Anderton
Do you assign the outs directly to the hardware ins, not a bus whose outs are assigned to the hardware ins? 
 

Yes

That's what I thought. I'm not sure track templates can reference things outside the SONAR environment, even if they're referenced in SONAR. As a general rule I recommend assigning tracks to buses, and buses to hardware.