What are some synths that sound amazing but the factory presets could be better?

[SamDi]

You're right and just turn all knobs/sliders to max there

[vurt]

one ping only.

It is a hell of a ping though, no ?

the only ping that matters.

[LeVzi]

I write a very specific style of music (Terror) and tbh there are so few banks for it, you have to know a bit of sound design to exist. So factory presets in synths are going to be 95% useless to me. But I always check them out.

Ah for Terror it's easy: just take the first preset sound you find, throw it through a limiter and crank it up to +30dB, then EQ some resonances in with highest Q for +20dB, then send it through a delay with feedback knob on highest value, after that send it through a distortion effect with square function curve, and maybe send it again through a limiter with +30 dB. Don't forget to raise Master volume slider, that the red area constantly is shining.

Voila, there you have the perfect Terror sound. Was a pleasure to support you.

Init , doesn't really work though

[Sparky77]

For example... Diva sounds amazing but factory presets are kind of blah and not really inspiring imo. I've purchased some 3rd party presets for it that had a lot more life compared to the sounds it comes with. I'm curious if the community feels this way about other synths.

This is true for most synths but its always a matter of taste.

[Dirtgrain]

I tend not to give presets much of a chance after first impressions. I flip through them so fast, sometimes not in the ideal octave. They are discarded from consideration in an instant. If I were to take some time to see what I could do with a preset I didn't like, maybe I'd see new potential in it. We should have a crappiest preset contest, where we had to make a track with a set of the worst presets from given synths (maybe collectively determined). I wonder.