KVR Audio

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:10 pm

Today's solution to sales and everything else is to throw more presets at the problem.

So I now own 5,000 plus presets. What a joke.

I feel that offering more presets is a mistaken view.

What's required, and always has been required, is to empower musicians to use plugs in a way they can better control and understand.

Certainly, grazing a zillion presets isn't the solution to finding that kiiler sound.

How many presets can one user absorb? How many presets really are any good? How quickly does the ear beomes exhausted and unable to tell good from bad?

These are the real issues for computer musicians in 2005.

Yet dumping presets on the market is seen by devs as the fast track to winding up user interest and sales.

Not so.

Better tutorials are the way forward because a trained user is priceless.

And video/multimedia is the training medium of choice bar none.

The information retention gained from combining sight and sound (eg, using video), is double what it is for using just sight or sound alone. This is classic BBC research.

In plain terms, video works - and it works best.

Since I've been beating this drum, more devs have seen the value of video - Angus at FXP with GURU for one, and he's not often wrong. And look at Eric from Spectrasonics.

Devs need to consider that a properly trained and empowered user is far less likely to dump a plug and move on.

Empowered users are less fickle.

Empowered users make the best customers for future products.

Empowered users sing your praises.

Empowered users are priceless.

So if any dev wants to break out of the vicious circle of throwing ever more presets at an increasingly bewildered user base, then EMPOWER them instead.

As for now, I don't find the "here's some presets - now go tweak" solution as acceptable any more.

cptgone · Post by **cptgone** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:17 pm

Good point I guess. But I don't think vids are enough to get to know a synth - only practice can get you there.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:30 pm

M'kay; presets are baaad. The solution? Use new Babya Ultra OnePingOnly Pro; new "Empowered OnePresetOnly" edition.

HelgeG · Post by **HelgeG** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:33 pm

Horses for courses. If you don't want presets, don't buy them. Some users want the fast track to sounds, and for them, presets might very well be the way to go.

I totally agree the videos are a the best way of presenting tutorial material, and it is good that more developers are exploring this approach. NI has published a great video tutorial for Absynth, and MusicLab also have video tutorials for RealGuitar.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:37 pm

Everybody's different. Video tutorials are of little or no use to me. I much prefer (a) to use high-quality presets as is, and (b) to dissect interesting presets to see what makes them tick. Or whirr, or parp, or hoov, or zizz, or bloit, or whatever.

Another issue: Many video tuts are not provided gratis, but sold as an added-cost option. No thank you. :-)

burkek · Post by **burkek** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:37 pm

So we're now supposed to suspend our creativity and watch videos which show us how to come to terms with the innards of a multitude of todays VSTi's so that we can then spend further time getting our heads around creating the perfect patch? No thanks. Gimme presets. Lot's of 'em ...

I would hazard to guess most people here do not make a career out of their love of creating music. Time spent with our DAW's is already precious and too little.

KEv

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:44 pm

I sometimes like presets, sometimes I don't (probably also because I'm getting jealous of not being able to come up with something similar by my own).

But, no matter how they are presented (for me a good PDF or DOC or TXT would do), proper tutorials are a nice thing to have.
Could start with a very basic explanation of how to do a certain sound and proceed in getting that particular sound more and more specialized, preferably in more than one direction. Of course it should have an example patch feed coming along with it.
This is what Emagic has done with the ES2 and it's been a pleasure to read through the tutorial, listen to the appropriate presets and modify them by myself to suit my taste.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:58 pm

*nodnod* I'd rather read than watch a video. Diagrams are nice too.

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:58 pm

personally, i vote for both.

well done video tutorials could be a really big help for some synths. but i see nothing wrong with having access to lots of patches too. even though i'll never use the vast majority of them, the ones i like i'll use for years. also, it can be educational/inspirational to check out other people's patches...both from musical and patch programming stand points.

-ugo

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:02 pm

Meffy wrote:*nodnod* I'd rather read than watch a video. Diagrams are nice too.

here's another instance of where i vote for both. a normal text manual is always helpful, especially when you just want to quickly find the answer to a specific question. but i think video's would be at their most usefull when it comes to showing how certain combinations of settings work together.

-ugo

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:12 pm

by the way...while i agree that better instructional material would be a great help for lots of people, i dont think that offering lots of presets makes users more fickle. (eg: more prone to not using the current preset laiden synth for another, and another, and...)

sure, tutorials could help people learn to program their own sounds better, and help them "bond" better with certain synths...but if they arent programming much on their own (and most musicians would rather write a song than program a patch), then having new patches to pick from can help maintain/rejuvinate their interest in a synth.

-ugo

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:30 pm

i've got to say that i find this whole argument pretty pointless and unnecessary.

video tutorials for sure are the way forward. new synths are brilliant. while it's slightly underwhelming to check the news, hoping for word of something new and exciting and discovering that the latest release is a preset bundle, i can't see any kind of problem. it doesn't make it seem that the devs are concentrating on making presets over other things; usually the presets are made by dedicated people with skills who enjoy making presets. it would be great for sure if those with the skills made more videos too, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to release preset packages.

everyone feels differently about presets, but at the end of the day they're a good thing to have around, and our lives aren't made any worse by there being more of them released. i really struggle to see how you get to the belief that their releasing more presets is in any way a method of 'solving the problem', or what any 'problem' may be.

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:39 pm

haydxn wrote:i've got to say that i find this whole argument pretty pointless and unnecessary.

look, if you deleted every thread at kvr that is pointless and unnecessary, well..you can image the vast wasteland.
and this post was pointless and unnecessary,sorry

haydxn · Post by **haydxn** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:41 pm

that's true indeed

i'm not trying to ban such opinions or anything! crumbs, that would be unruly. just pointing out that i can't see any kind of reason for such a viewpoint to have developed!

opiadream · Post by **opiadream** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:48 pm

burkek wrote:So we're now supposed to suspend our creativity and watch videos which show us how to come to terms with the innards of a multitude of todays VSTi's so that we can then spend further time getting our heads around creating the perfect patch? No thanks. Gimme presets. Lot's of 'em ...

I would hazard to guess most people here do not make a career out of their love of creating music. Time spent with our DAW's is already precious and too little.

KEv

hallelujah,amen,pass the presets
and have a nice tweakend

To all devs: Stop plugin fickleness