Using plugin presets

[mcnoone]

Again: It's completely OK when someone uses presets, but sound design is 99.9989869% of the fun for me so it would be complete nonsense *for me* to use presets
Cheers
Dennis

Well of course it's different for those of us who spend most of our time making sounds over making music.
I do like to spend time listening to other peoples sound design work though.
It helps to do so, to learn and for comparison, and new ideas which can emerge from doing that. I buy as many banks as I can afford too, and hope it helps to support those that make sounds, besides the other reasons above.

Nowadays there are more synths like Zebra, and Alchemy which allow the user to change the tone enough using XY vector type knobs, which can help users more quickly get something original, and something that sits in the better.
Korg Wavestation does pretty good with that as well.
Hopefully more synths follow that path in the future as well.
I like moving the vector knobs around to quickly see if I can hear something better than the original sound. Sometimes it happens too.

Sound design just like everything else, doesn't take talent imo.
It simply takes effort, time, energy, dedication, attention to detail, etc... just like everything else.
If you consider that talent, then so be it, but I don't believe in some kinda voodoo magic talent thing...it's just hard work really.

[osiris]

THere's a lot of synths I can't get my head around, like Massive and Blade. I hate manuals because they are either too vague, or so dense they make my eyes cross. Some like Z3ta and DUNE, Predator and Albino, no problem. Can make a patch from scratch. But then, I pull up Blade.....
Presets are good because when you are doing a song, maybe you have a certain sound in mind and you can either find one like what you're imagining, or one close enough that you can tweak to sound like what you want. I think it saves on the rythym of workflow.

[phazedown]

delete-me

[kritikon]

Another way of looking at it is this: Any accoustic instrument is already preset by definition. A drumkit is preset with kick, snares, hats. It hasn't stopped drummers making rhythms and accoustic players making music. In fact, the music you play with your synths is likely to be way more important than the patches you use. A 303 is a 303, a hoover's a hoover and straight sine wave patches haven't stopped many a trance hit in the past. Pianos have made incredible music with the same boring preset for centuries.

Of course electronic music has more emphasis on the sounds, but ultimately you can sell decent tunes on a xylophone, but you'll struggle to sell shite tunes on a $10,000 mega modular with unique patches. There are hits with presets all over them out there and always have been. The M1 piano was on almost every tune for a couple of years in the early 90s. The Alpha Juno hoovers are still basically the same years later. I've lost count the number of times I've heard the Korg M1 Universe patch or JX8p strings on records.

I don't personally use presets, but that's because sounds creation is more my thing than making tracks. I don't care if my own music is shite but has good patches. However, if I were still releasing anything, I'd rather have presets and good music than vice versa.

[filter303]

Excellent post!

[GruvSyco]

I do like to spend time listening to other peoples sound design work though.
It helps to do so, to learn and for comparison, and new ideas which can emerge from doing that. I buy as many banks as I can afford too, and hope it helps to support those that make sounds, besides the other reasons above.

I approve of this. I'm trying to learn more and more about the synths that I have and it seems one of the best ways is seeing how others do it. I understand basic Osc > Filter > Amp and using LFO to modulate those but easily get lost/confused when it comes to more complex mod routings, weird FM tricks, MSEGs... shit like that. But I f'ing love twisting knobs.

I'm curious at what point is a patch no longer a preset. Do I have to tweak every parameter? On something like ACE if I turn every knob but left all the cables in place, can I call that mine?

[1-2-Many]

I use presets everytime-everywhere. I eat presets breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Can't get enough presets! I like to rub them all over my body and feel the caress of their tingley fingers. When I clean my ears presets come out. I married my girl cause she reminded me of one of my favorite preset - ExprsvTouch Lead. Even my jizz is full of presets (about 300 million of em). I love presets so much I named my kids Power Solo, SyncPad, and PWM Lead. So you preset snobs and haters can kiss my preset!!!

[JimmiG]

IMO, there are different types of presets. My problem is with presets that are essentially a complete production triggered by a single key on your keyboard, and especially with those who use such sounds with barely any tweaking. A lot of presets for modern synths are like that. They contain a complete effects chain and sometimes even a pre-programmed melody or chord progression if the synth has a built-in sequencer. There are a couple of issues with that:

1. Some would consider it "cheating". You aren't creating original sounds, you're just using someone else's work.
2. If you combine several such "mini-productions" they will make your mix sound messy - you might have three or four different reverbs, ping-pong delays with various timing values, overdrive units adding different overtones etc.
3. This also makes your song very CPU-hungry. It's more efficient to have a single reverb and send everything to that
4. It's going to be easy for people who use the same plug-ins and synths to recognize the presets

Then there are simple leads, basses etc. If you find something you like and it fits in your mix without tweaking, go ahead and use it Add your own effects and tweaks to make it yours.

The thing with the latter category is that it's not entirely easy to sound unique, especially with basic subtractive synths. It's likely that in the decades that subtractive synthesis has existed, someone has already done something similar to what you're trying to do. There's only so much you can do with 3 or 4 waveforms, a filter or two and a bunch of envelope generators and LFO's.... It's also pretty easy to come up with basic analog synth presets. With some practice, it might be quicker to just dial something in rather than audition hundred of presets to find one that sounds "just right".

[DWB2]

1. Some would consider it "cheating". You aren't creating original sounds, you're just using someone else's work.

I actually don't see that as much of a problem in itself, provided you're honest about it and you aren't pretending to yourself or anyone else that the tune is a unique expression of your artistic genius. If you just want or to then wanging some drums under a preset seems fairly reasonable provided you come up with something good out of it (and FWIW neither of those tunes sounded much like anything else that was going on in their scene at the time, and the first one pretty much turned the genre on its head...)

In general, I think different people express themselves through different aspects of music making - so some people write lyrics and some don't, some people are interested in sound design and some aren't, some people are interested in writing new tunes and some aren't, some people are interested in playing around with rhythms and some aren't, and, in the case of someone playing a classical harpsichord piece, some people can play the same notes in the same order at the same volume on the same instrument with the only unique part of their performance being very subtle changes of timing and have it considered a masterpiece. So I'd say use presets if you're happy that it's helping you to express yourself and make the music you're interested in rather than restricting you and holding you back.

It's also pretty easy to come up with basic analog synth presets. With some practice, it might be quicker to just dial something in rather than audition hundred of presets to find one that sounds "just right".

Yeah, that's definitely true, though.

[Nielzie]

If it sounds good, I'm using it. Simple as that.

Init-wielding synth elitists be damned.

Amen!

[osiris]

well said.