Those "huge" synth presets (little rant)

[No_Use]

I'm a preset tweaker, because I'm not that good at sound design to program my own patches from scratch.

When I look for a sound, I step through the presets of a synth until I roughly find the sound I want and start tweaking from there.

I so often encounter presets on synths that are "pimped" (lack of a better word...) which huge amount of delay, reverb, chorus and whatnot.
Sure, it's sounds huge on it's own, but it never seems to fit in a mix whithout everything else getting buried. Apart from this, I use my own effects anyway.

So I have to turn off those synth effects first for almost any sound to check out if it fits into my song. It's getting on my nerves...

PS:
To make a suggestion, I'd find it cool if patch programmers would do soundbanks twice, with and without FX. Yeah, I know more work...

PPS:
I don't relate to any synth in particular, it seems to me that it's a common habit to make patches sound huge to show what a synth is capable of. I see this also as a valid approach of course, but I simply doubt the practical use of it a bit.

\little rant over

[Chopper]

although I usually don't use presets, I'm with you on this one...

[aquar]

I understand why sound designers often pimp up their sounds but I know where you are coming from.
Maybe synth designers could include a global fx switch like Gladiator ... that more or less solves the problem at the root.

[No_Use]

include a global fx switch like Gladiator ... that more or less solves the problem at the root.

Didn't know that Gladiator has this. Actually I don't know any other synth that has this. Cool idea. More devs should do...

[dsp music]

Actually, I can't count how many times I saw users complaining about a synth saying it sounds shit and their main argument being : listen to the presets .... So yes presets better sound huge when browsing, giving the user that 'wow' factor.

It's funny because I personnally always considered (factory) presets as just that, a demo of what the synth is capable of...

[mcnoone]

Zebra has a switch too. It turns all effects off/on for the entire session, not just one patch at a time either.
When I design sounds, I keep them as dry as possible, but have other effects like delay and reverb, already preset, turned off by default in the fx section, so a user can then just click them on if they need to.

[Lotuzia]

To the OP

I can see at least two or three directions in this post :

1/ The orchestral Mass and arrangement : Certain musical genre heavily rely on this kind of all-in-one Huge presets : Dance, Tarnce can be good examples of this. ( Not saying here that every track is in genre are build like that, but in most cases you will barely hear more than 3 instruments playing simultaneously, -excluding drums-percs- and I've heard many preset demos where a single instrument would do almost all the job alone ). In this context, instruments are usually drenched in reverb, delay, more than compressed, and cover the complete range of frequencies.

Some other genres will also require this kind of presets in Ambient, DNB, or some other pure electronic genres. This time the focus will be put on evolution, expressivness, playability, but one instrument can also take a central place in the composition.

In common : These instruments will usually cover a very wide range of frequencies

Then if you now take a simple Rock band or Blues Orchestra (ie one with a brass sect for example), the number of instruments playing together will increase, and the frequencies "allowed" for each instrument will be reduced in a very significant way : Too much powerfull instruments in the same track usually just kill each other. So guitars will be EQed, the bass wont be drenched in delay and peak at 2,5 Khz, and some room will be left for singers.

In this context instruments will have to "sit well in the mix", and their frequenciy range will be much more controlled and precise.

Now if you take a kind of symphonic works, or very complex suite involving a lot of instruments, whether they are musicians or electronic instruments aso : To glue all of them in a mix, you'll have to be very carefull about the freq range of each instrument make some choices on what is blended, what got to have the focus at a given moment, and this in a dynamic way during all the track. Your instruments will have to be both very expressive AND targeted for a certain use.

Well that's all about instruments, or ... presets when it comes to synths. You should choose the kind of sound design that match your projects. All in one Wow presets are usefull for some projects, and should be rejected for other projects. It mainly depends on the orchestral mass involved.

2/ Then : What is an FX and when does it stop beeing part of the Kore of the instrument ?. On my beloved old Juno 60, Chorus is really part of the instrument. If you're making some controlled Wha-Wha mod on an instrument on the Korg series with the Multi FX, with dynamic real time modulation, then its part of the instrument. If you add a BIG reverb on a String pad, then its probably also part of the instrument, as it aims at recreating an "idea" of the Hall ambiance of such strings in the real world ( ie real orchestra )

Some Fx wil be easy to replace (like reverbs), and some will often need some minor to drastic tweaking ( Like Delays because they're part of the groove of the track ). Some will be very difficult to completely replace because they're "part of the Core" of the instrument, and, depending on their dynamic real time dependancies (ie global routing or "patch" as in the old modular synths) cant be replaced with the exact same expressivness, but different "sound quality", or " enhanced set of parameters".

Anyway, Fx like Verb and Delays are always here to give an "idea" of how the patch is intended to be played, and its place in the orchestra. Other "fx" should probably always be judged according to context, and handled with precautions.

3/ I wouldnt be fair if I didnt mention also the fact that, on some Vstis, if you remove the effects, there's very few left under, whether in term of sound design , or .... in sound quality of the synth itself. Sometimes it will be fully justified, ie when a simple delay is the Key_to_groove, and sometimes well ..... less justified.

When I demo a synth, I always, at one moment or another, turn off all the "Fx" and see what the Osc/Filter section has to offer. I can't recommand this method as it, cos after all, there are probably some very valid alternatives, but well, it can be a good test as well.

My 0.002

LtZ

[Lotuzia]

Btw ImpOSCar also has an On/Off switch for Fx, as the Korgs Legacy Cell, as Alchemy, as tons of other Vstis.

[Chopper]

True...
TBH, as I still sometimes mix other people's stuff, what actually annoys me is the fact that they don't switch them of when they give me the stems.... there is no way then to remove it to use the reverbs and delays already in your system once it's bounced. AAAAARG!

[mhemnarch]

It's not that much effort to flip off some effects. Easier to pare down a big sound than build up a tiny one.