Soft synth presets- Differences in volume

[Aryaroman]

As without doubt, anyone who has used multiple soft synths, or even one soft synth with soundbanks and presets by different producers has noticed, the volume levels vary drastically from producer to producer.
I haven't noticed such a major difference between sample libraries, although usually they tend to be of lower volume than synths in general?

A simple example, in Tal Uno LX, the Factory Bank is lowest, (probably because they were based on the original factory bank configurations?) TAL's presets are slightly louder, while the others', like TwoLegs' are much louder. My own presets tend to be about the same level as TAL's.
In Omnisphere I tend to mix my presets much quieter than the factory ones, except Unfinished's ones. Not so much in Dune though.

Different people mix differently. Still, it always feels strange when a preset sounds downright rubbish and too in-you-ear to your own ears, but to think that someone might have considered it a nice sounding preset. Would be nice to have some kind of a standardizer volume knob/utility that mastered the volume levels accordingly.

[blortblort]

true... there is no hard and fast standard...which in some ways IS a nuisance.

I know its disappointing to purchase a set and have to adjust the volume PER SOUND as you scroll thru them...fortunately, I have not experienced that very much.
If a set is louder *consistently* OR softer *consistently* ...that, I don't really mind too much.

That said- having been at this preset business for a while (only recently, on a pay basis though...) I have adopted a couple of general rules for finalizing and leveling...the most important being my own ears (FWIW )

- when creating sounds, I set the channel mixer to unity gain (0.0db) and the meter should mostly peak around -3 when hitting 4 or 5 note chords and -6 for single notes...
obviously, this won't work for everything, but it puts things in a certain neighborhood in terms of output level consistency...YMMV

[Perimeter Sound]

There's just no way to normalize synth patches, every single sound is different, and with modulations set up and/or X/Y pads, each patch becomes a -synth- all by itself....or practically can, given enough stuff going on.

It's not a bad question, it's just not one that everyone will or even can agree on, not to mention the simple fact of how sounds and filters and fx interact makes it doubly impossible. Your best bet, is simply to turn down that channel by 25% when you pull up a synth or patch bank, and use a limiter of course.

[Aryaroman]

There's just no way to normalize synth patches, every single sound is different, and with modulations set up and/or X/Y pads, each patch becomes a -synth- all by itself....or practically can, given enough stuff going on.

It's not a bad question, it's just not one that everyone will or even can agree on, not to mention the simple fact of how sounds and filters and fx interact makes it doubly impossible. Your best bet, is simply to turn down that channel by 25% when you pull up a synth or patch bank, and use a limiter of course.

Of course, but as someone coming from a rompler-backround to working with sample libraries and mostly making my own patches, consistency is something of a rule that I've been keeping to (I haven't got many), and it bothers me a great deal when consistency is disregarded, no matter whose fault it is.

I've been running into the issue more and more lately, because I've been auditioning MIDI-parts more and more on different synths and presets. There are surprisingly a lot of inconsistencies in many banks, even synth factory ones. Just not used to it.

[VELLISLAV]

Good topic - i can say why some of mine probably are not equal to others :
1.When u create presets inside the mix ,the volume is appropriate to the mix - then you have to adjust them to other presets in the sound bank , made in a different mix...BUT SOMETIMES YOU FORGET,SOMETHIMES U HURRY,SOMETHIMES IT SEEMS OK BUT... :):) and the result is different volume levels
2.Sometimes the structure can cause it - osc,filters,ADSR and so on gives you TOO DIFFERENT Sound,character or presence u can never be sure what is right volume level ...
3.Distorting the sound by volume can be bug in the synth,daw or operating system...
So there is hundreds of reasons ,but i think that this is mistake, to expect presets to fit perfectly in u mix without adjusting volume levels -it's part of mixing process...
You better find best preset that will make u mix more original,interesting,vital and so on - volume sliders are part of the fine tuning process

[fluffy_little_something]

I think it's better to make patches too quiet than too loud. There is nothing more irritating than playing a pad chord resulting in distortion. A single note of a pad patch should obviously be much more quiet than the same note on a bass or lead.

[thecontrolcentre]

Its lazy programming. Its easy enough to go through presets and adjust volumes before releasing them. Clearly not everyone can be bothered.

[Lotuzia]

It's common sense that presets should have a hot volume when played according to what the patch means : A lead patch should have max volume when played mono, while a poly patch ( Keys, Pads etc) should have max volume when played with a 4 notes chord + a chord at max velocity.

The preset should also be balanced so that ti doesnt distort at least on the 4 middle octaves, whatever notes you play. Also if the preset have 'violent' modulations assigned to the mw for example, the global volume should be lowered so that it doesnt clip with max mod. External effects and all fx external inserts -if any- should be off when saving patches etc etc . Again all this is simply common sense.

Then, some VSTI dont have mono modes that you can assign to the preset, so it you play a six notes chord with what is intended to be a mono powerbass patch, dont be surprised if it might clip a little.

Quieter patches are ok, but at the price that you'll might have to raise the volume of the VSTI itself so that the presets can be heard in an already mix. That why mine hit the -0.5db mark when played full vel. My 0.002

[fluffy_little_something]

I don't know any poly synths without mono mode

[Aryaroman]

So there is hundreds of reasons ,but i think that this is mistake, to expect presets to fit perfectly in u mix without adjusting volume levels -it's part of mixing process...
You better find best preset that will make u mix more original,interesting,vital and so on - volume sliders are part of the fine tuning process

It's not a mistake to expect solid and high quality presets. Of course you have to some times tweak around with them to make them fit in a mix, but I find that the better the presets, the easier they glue. It's about professionalism.

External effects and all fx external inserts -if any- should be off when saving patches etc etc . Again all this is simply common sense.

I don't expect a pad to fill the entire frequency spectrum or a a bass to be louder than everything else. Still, I keep running into presets, where I feel like the developer just thought, "Well, you're going to use heavy external EQ anyway and fix the mess I made. Du'h?"

I'm not pretending that I would be perfect or professional by any means in this regard. I've always had a habit of making my patches a bit too quiet, but I've improved over time. I regularly browse through my patches and fix any inconsistencies I find and yes, there are some from time-to-time.

One reason I really like Unfinished's presets is because they are very well made and the levels are consistent throughout, but never too loud or too quiet There is a degree of professionalism. And when I compare the bulk of my own patches to Matt's patches and their volume/frequency levels, they've turned out to be quite consistent. Not in quality of course.
To emphasise, these are NOT patches I would've made/compared side-by-side with Matt's, in the process of making them. Yet, my patches' volume levels are consistent with one of the most popular preset maker's ones, even when I made no conscious effort to match them. So, there must be some sort of a standard to the levels.

But when I switch to another library, some sounds are too quiet, while others are in-you-face loud and fill out the entire frequency spectrum, as if there wasn't any mixing, despite the fact that some have extensive effects-chains and EQ applied, while I haven't used pretty much anything, other than some basic tone color-FX like Chorus or Phasers or delays. I barely use EQ myself, other than in the bottom end if it's not bass.

I've tried/had many romplers and hardware synths and never encountered this problem in the scale of soft synths. Except for a custom soundset I once found that had edited presets for a rompler and the presets were way too loud and managed to fill the entire frequency spectrum. Immediate factory reset followed.

Now someone is going to tell me I should stop whining and switch back to hardware.

[VELLISLAV]

It's not a mistake to expect solid and high quality presets. Of course you have to some times tweak around with them to make them fit in a mix, but I find that the better the presets, the easier they glue. It's about professionalism.

OK don't know what synths and presets u r talking about ,but obviously we are talking different thing - all presets that go above 0 db are probably amateur work ,result of missing basic knowledge ...what i'm saying is that sometimes some preset can reach -3 or -2db cuz its spesific ,noizi,bright or anything - mine reach mostly -9-6db but sometimes it's possible to forget something and then u do revision,apology and so on - your comment is funny ,especially in professionalism part,cuz 'PRO' is very relative term when it come to define other people work - but i get u point and even agree with some part :)Peace out :)By the way did u try new Synapse Legend synth - its very impressive