Yes templates save the record mode. If you're just doing Ctrl+N to start a new project, and you haven't set a different template as the default, then CbB will be using the Normal.cwt template. You can either change the record mode and immediately re-save the new project as Normal.cwt, or save it as a another template name and set that as the default for new projects (click the star icon in upper left corner of the template under the New Project section of the Start Screen).
David Baay's post in Recording Mode was marked as the answer