How much do you use presets? [Poll]

[Tricky-Loops]

Even with presets, making music can still be a chore. Studio work is really just endless mouse clicking. I have often thought, there has got to be a better way.

Now there is! Introducing Preset Songs - royalty free complete songs that you can release on your albums.

Just choose 12 Preset Songs that you like, think of a band name, and upload them to Beatport. Our expert musicians have written thousands of Preset Songs in every imaginable style.

Now you finally have time to concentrate on the important things: living the rock 'n roll lifestyle, posing on stage, and attracting groupies!

What are you waiting for. Go to www.presetsongs.com today!

Wrong link...

Now I was so happy that I can finally live my Big Producer life lying on the beach with some girls and drinking some cocktails while your preset song writers are producing my songs...

[Wormhelmet]

Do those guys do preset songs in my genre though? I'm looking for IPM styles (intelligent polka music).

I gotta stop posting on this thread. It's interrupting me. I'm almost finished with my completely original Supersaw preset. It uses a 7.5 oscillator unison sawtooth waveform instead of 8.

[Frantz]

Do those guys do preset songs in my genre though? I'm looking for IPM styles (intelligent polka music).

Absolutely. Our musicians, who are locked in a factory in Bangladesh, will cheerfully produce songs in any style. (Or else we don't feed them.)

[Tricky-Loops]

Do those guys do preset songs in my genre though? I'm looking for IPM styles (intelligent polka music).

Absolutely. Our musicians, who are locked in a factory in Bangladesh, will cheerfully produce songs in any style. (Or else we don't feed them.)

Now I know why the whole factory has crashed...did they try out some new punk preset songs?

[Frantz]

Now I know why the whole factory has crashed...did they try out some new punk preset songs?

Too much wobble....

[Ingonator]

i just noticed that the last post of the OP was at the 3rd post on the first page. He seemed to have lost interest in this very fast...


Ingo

[Tricky-Loops]

i just noticed that the last post of the OP was at the 3rd post on the first page. He seemed to have lost interest in this very fast...


Ingo

Maybe he is occupied in making presets?

[Ingonator]

i just noticed that the last post of the OP was at the 3rd post on the first page. He seemed to have lost interest in this very fast...

Ingo

Maybe he is occupied with making presets?

Maybe time for some more serious words after all that joking here.

I have done hundreds of factory presets during different Beta tests (not all patches created included in the final selection) and will do some more for a new synth soon. Based on that and the fact i also created several free and commercial soundbanks it would sound very strange if i would criticize people using presets.
Same applies to any sound designer that is creating commercial and/or free soundbanks. It would sound strange if those would criticize preset users.

Some people at this forum seem to see sound designers as "bad guys" that only want to earn money or are just "presets spammers" while my opinion is that they add important contributions to the community (no matter if they do free or commercial sounds).

At the end not every musician is able or has the time to create his own sounds (it's not as simple as some are maybe claiming here, especially for more complex sounds...). This is why using presets or 3rd party soundsets is totally legitimate in my opinion.
The fact that the same sound is used by different people in different music styles and songs is nothing that should be worried about as long as not all of them are doing exactly the same songs which is very much unlikely.

Also people like me (and Lotuzia as he already mentioned) who are able to do their own patches (which for me are much more than 1000 for different synths at the moment) enjoy the work of other sound designers from time to time, also to get some new ideas e.g. about a feature you missed in a certain synth so far.

Another example: What is the best way to learn new synthesis techniques like e.g. FM or Additive? IMO the best is to analyze how existing patches/presets are done. Those could be then used as starting point or "templates" for your own new sounds.
With additive resynthesis you could also import another instrument (which is a preset too..) and create your own sound from it by changing partials etc.


What i posted here is my personal opinion and of course i could be wrong with all that...



Ingo

[tanabarbier]

Thank you Ingo for helping this thread come back to life!

Any criticism towards using presets also implies criticism of the sound designers which made those.

Well I don't think so, I believe that what some people have said is more of a critic of the idea of using presets to make your own music that a critic of the people making them.
I better speak only for myself: I really have no problem with people making thousands of presets, and as you and others said it is a great way to learn, by imitation. The same way that instrument practice works by imitating, and then freeing yourself from imitation by finding your "own" thing.

I believe too that something that introduced a lot of tension in this thread is that behind the idea of preset, we may see coming closer what has been mentioned later on: pre-made music. I am not saying that it is the same, of course, but anyone can see why it is a short leap from there, I think.

If you have to choose between "I buy presets, I buy loops, I buy MIDI files, I hire a guy to mix and an other to master" and on the other hand "I code my own VSTs, make my presets, make evrything myself" of course it is a false question, extremes really are never the solution I believe.

[BBFG#]

I do feel it has something to do with how we choose to spend our time also. Whether we devote more of our time to playing or more to programming.
Or worse, waste time on forum boards discussing it.

Balance.

[tanabarbier]

I think you are right about time!
I do more "sound design" when I feel nothing good is going to come compositionaly, and it make me feel like I did something, and so helps me feeling less bad about loosing time here. Very usefull activity indeed.

[Saukar30]

I'm a troller. I've only learned from presets how to work most of these synths coming from not having any knowledge of them at all 12 years ago. During that time I've made about a 1000 pieces of music.. most preset based. No shame in my game. I got out what I needed to get out. Thank you preset guys!!

At the end of the day it comes down to what do you want to do? If you're an artist and want to RELEASE as much music as you can because you feel the need... it doesn't matter if it's a preset you use or not. You can always change it or make it sound different within the context of a song. If you're a synth guy (like most people here are I guess), you're either making presets because you enjoy doing it or exploring synths or you're pretty good so you sell it to help other people sound just as good.

Nowadays... I'm more into working with 1 or 2 synths and manipulating the presets to see if I can come up with something on my own because I know what I'm looking for now & I generally can find my way around these synths when before I couldn't tell you the difference between an LFO & an envelope. It's all about what you want to accomplish for yourself as an artist so there really is no wrong or correct way.

But I will NEVER visit www.presetsongs.com !! They all probably come with just 1 knob that controls volume LOL

[Wormhelmet]

Man, this thread really got to me hearing some people's opinions on using presets. I had no idea that some believed those that don't make their own are cheating or just a step away from preset songs.

I just can't grasp this concept. Particularly when I listen to those that roll their own exclusively and I spot sounds that are so similar to 1000 others making similar genre music.

In a day I might wake up and design a few patches on my software modular, then go on to pick a preset from one of the thousands I have available made by very creative sound designers, and just plop a synth line I make up or setup a nice arp on to add a track in a song I'm working on, add some sampled loop drum then design a drum break sequence by programming a midi break sequence and making it a loop, etc

I have a versatile tool set by including preset and sample use along with stuff I feel inspired to make myself.

As far as anyone else's use of presets or even songs entirely made with samples bought or presets bought, I can sit back and recognize easily someone with superior song composition skills using only that compared to my tinkering.

I too am of the group that listens to the complete song as a whole with no interest to deconstruct it to try and pick out stuff I've heard before.

It's a thrill to me to listen to a really well made song I love and find out I have some of the very same samples or even recognize a preset. I think at the time I recognize it "hey, that's a clever way to use that sample. I didn't think of that" and my end result ith the same samples or presets will sound very different usually.

I finally have some sound design stuff I gave to a synth dev, showing up in their demo. That feels cool, but I would most likely match the other preset offerings easily with my own for a composition and not look back and ever question whether I was lazy, cheating, unoriginal, or anything of the sort.

I also like to setup live jam sessions with only presets and samples and just play them for some ultra quick fun.

All the different ways to make music that I have heard in this thread are all ok to me. Whatever helps you make it the way you like to make it, but keep the mind and ears open to listening to a full piece before deciding its junk because someone came in and arranged a lot of pre-made stuff in a specially clever way that rubs right on the eardrum.

Just lose the superior dance attitude because you operate on a principal that someone else doesn't agree with and before you allude to the untruth that those that make music using stock presets are somehow less than those that nake all their own presets, take a look at what artists are actually selling music successfully. Did they all roll their own too, or is it a mix of those that do that and those that use presets.

I see a lot of negativity on KVR against those that make music that is popular (tarnce insults or dumbstep insults) and always wonder why all the hate. If you don't like that, just don't listen to it or let that commercial you see on tv with the genre popular track, roll off you without getting peeved.

I do that all the time with top 40 type music. Not my cup o tea, but not gonna let it rent space in my head that its the popular style to do.

Just make the music you like in the way you like to make it and forget about the rest of it.

[Lotuzia]

I think the time has come ......

I always feared this time would come btw .....

But now .....

Its time, indeed.

I MUST confess to KVR, publicly, what a shame :

I've made a ........... a ........ a ........ a track with presets

The whole story is that a friend of mine will release at some point in the future a ..... a .......well .... a soundbank ( Sorry for that ), and I made a track with his presets. ( I KNOW I should not have ).

So the link will lead you in another KVR thread.( to not derail this thread too much )

But please keep in mind that I'm NOT a real musician, even less what is commonly called an artist. I'm only a Sound Designer and I only sell dreams, while pretending to offer usefull and beautiful musical instruments to musicians. Furthermore I used the PleaseWrite4MeAChartBuster site to do it. Its not even my music. Btw its barely music at all.

In the future I plan to react though, and leave behind the miserable me that I was, and to code a new web language to create a forum where I can share with my neighbours the photos of all my groupies, ( because you know it worked I really made a lot of hits in every genre under the sun -, and also some cooking recipes, because eventually this will give me -even- more money. But first I have to invent the new DHTML 8.0. I think you're not a real man if you dont create your own tools to communicate with other your emotions.

Really sorry KVR, but sometimes, truth is the better way


Note : No worries for all those who think, like me, that writing your own presets can be rewarding for your music, but not necessary at all, and that if you dont, nobody cares, except very few guys on KVR. Enjoy music and life. Use presets, or not, and be happy

[ariston]

Oh, my giddy aunt... seems to me that the only ones who keep flogging this dead horse are the ones who are defensive about using presets. I didn't read that much "hate" or even ridicule in this thread at all. I think the fairly common consensus is that you do what you gotta do to and use what you gotta use.

Aw gee, we don't all have the same opinion. Call CNN.