A Synth is only as good as its presets

[vurt]

and a preset is only as good as its sound designer.

Case closed.

a sound designer is only as good as the mix of his parents genetics and diet and lifestyle choices...

[cytospur]

When I demo a synth, I start with INIT (if the synth has one as not all do) and then start programming. If I don't like what I'm hearing, I don't get the synth. It's that simple.

Thats it in a nutshell.

Only i even make the INIT myself because no synth ever has one that i would consider a real INIT.

(Everything, and i mean everything, has to be zeroed/off/neutral except for 1 osc and the sustain of the amp EG so you hear something when you press a key.)

I've never understood the snobbery of people who won't use patches made by other people.

Perhaps it's because I've actually been in bands where the free exchange of musical ideas and inspiration is quite common.

Cant speak for others, but here its not 'snobbery', just part of the whole creative process and one of the most fun parts.

(I always loved to syntheticize.)

Is this what you mean? One oscillator on, filter cutoff fully open, no filter envelope, amp sustain fully up, no FX, no arp:

[ENV1]

No, thats not it.

The filter EG doesnt have decay and release on zero, the amp EG doesnt have attack and decay on zero, detune seems to be at 50%, etc., thats far from what i would call a real INIT where everything thats not used has to be zero/off/neutral. (Keeps presets clean because only used parameters wont be in their initial state.)

[AnX]

No, thats not it.

The filter EG doesnt have decay and release on zero, the amp EG doesnt have attack and decay on zero, detune seems to be at 50%, etc., thats far from what i would call a real INIT where everything thats not used has to be zero/off/neutral. (Keeps presets clean because only used parameters wont be in their initial state.)

the filter env amount is at zero, so it doesnt matter, but yes, i usually have sus at 100 and adr at zero for init patch.

one annoying thing in D2 is that unison detune is at 50% by default.

[anttimaatteri]

I don't think the title is true.

i think so too.
preset are showcases whats possible and nowadays even a genre of its own in music production. its almost like having a craftsmen for an instrument.


i rarely have the patience to do sounddesign on a particular synth. it would absolutely massacre my time for anything else. i appreciate cool presets and the possibility to tweak it for my needs, sometimes it ends with a new preset. i dont understand people telling other people that using presets is a no go for THE REAL musician...
yeah, sure?..so next time build your own guitar, brass instrument or code your own software and dont use other ones ideas, how about that?

if u think a synths available preset banks fitting your interests and needs, well fine. has nothing to do with the base quality of the software itself, good or bad.

a "presets are only as good as its synth" makes more sense

[ENV1]

My DuneBE INIT

(EDIT: Forum altered image size, now it looks horribly blurred. Rightclick->View Image for actual size.)

DuneBE - INIT.png

[cytospur]

No, thats not it.

The filter EG doesnt have decay and release on zero, the amp EG doesnt have attack and decay on zero, detune seems to be at 50%, etc., thats far from what i would call a real INIT where everything thats not used has to be zero/off/neutral. (Keeps presets clean because only used parameters wont be in their initial state.)

The filter EG is meaningless with the filter fully open. The amp attack is partially up to reduce clicks, I'll give you that. That was done in response to someone that didn't understand why fast envelopes with free running oscillators create clicks. The amp decay as is with sustain fully up is also meaningless in this context. The detune setting is also meaningless with one voice - nothing to detune against. The settings that are there enable you to get to making some noises as quickly as possible without having to change too much, but at the same time what you get from those settings is a true clean init sound.

I appreciate, and mostly agree with, what you are saying, but the settings that aren't doing anything in that Init patch are supposed to be close to what the average person might want.

It is one of the better Init patches that I've had to work with and I generally change things quite considerably including oscillator model, mod matrix etc. etc.

[cytospur]

My DuneBE INIT

(EDIT: Forum altered image size, now it looks horribly blurred. Rightclick->View Image for actual size.)

DuneBE - INIT.png

That's a lovely skin. Where's that from?

[ENV1]

I appreciate, and mostly agree with, what you are saying, but the settings that aren't doing anything in that Init patch are supposed to be close to what the average person might want.

It is one of the better Init patches that I've had to work with and I generally change things quite considerably including oscillator model, mod matrix etc. etc.

Sure, different people, different preferences.

I need to have all unused stuff on neutral because its just irks me when its not.


Skin is available here on KVR, check Dune product page.

Theres a white variant too.

[cytospur]

Different people, different preferences indeed

And thanks for pointing out that skin for D1!

[fluffy_little_something]

D1 looks much more inviting than D2, and that skin is really nice.

[cytospur]

D1 looks much more inviting than D2, and that skin is really nice.

Comparing those two skins then I would agree, but I never use DUNE1 anymore. DUNE2 is much more powerful IMO.

I'd love to see that skin for DUNE2 and especially DUNE3 when it comes out.

[anomandaris1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDd4p6eJgQQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQfzF2LvSs

Simple sounds, but sounds excellent. I have yet to hear a vst that sounds as fat as real Oberheimer synth.

[foosnark]

i rarely have the patience to do sounddesign on a particular synth.

For the kind of music I make, sound design is 100% a part of the composition process -- it's as important to me as choices of frequency and rhythm.

Also the more sounds you build yourself, the easier it gets. To me, it's faster than auditioning dozens or hundreds of presets.

When I build sounds myself, I feel like I can commit to them. If I choose a preset, even if I tweak it, I'm going to second-guess that and go try other presets, or even other plugins.

Sometimes I do like flipping through presets and inspiration-hunting. Usually all I do is jam though. I'll find a funk bass sound, play a couple of basslines, grin and move on because I don't have any use for that sound in my recordings. I will zip past a hundred wobble basses and whatever. I'll find a DX7-like piano, jam on that for 10 minutes and move on. I'll find some spacey pad and play with it for a while and my spouse will say "that sounds nice" and I'll say "yep" and move on. I'll load up drumkits in Maschine and do some finger drumming, and it's a lot of fun, but I know it is not relevant to the kind of music I write anymore. But in a sense, this is a kind of practice -- working on live playing and improvisation skills -- and it doesn't feel like a waste of time.

Part of my bias away from presets is simply using modular (and Microbrute) a lot. Maybe 10% of my synth usage is software now, and it tends to be LuSH-101 or Aalto or Buchla Easel V, which I feel are relatively simple to work with from a blank slate. (I do stick to one, monotimbral voice in LuSH-101 though; I've never really liked the idea of multitimbral plugins when I could just load multiple instances instead.)

[ENV1]

I'd love to see that skin for DUNE2 and especially DUNE3 when it comes out.

This was made in 2015. (The white one too.) Looking at it today i wouldnt make it like that anymore. The section label font for instance sucks, (Amplifier Envelope almost reads like Ampufier Envelope because the spacing is too narrow), and the more i look at it the more stuff i see that ought to be done differently. Maybe i will do a Mark II of these because they seemed relatively popular.