No Synth For Me, But I'll Take the Presets

[mumpcake]

There are a few developers who offer a free or cheap "player" version of their synths which allow you to purchase presets to be used with the player. In this case I'm not talking about Kontakt, but synths such as Arturia Analog Lab, or AAS synths or SynthMaster.

I am curious as to what percentage of preset sales come from full version users versus player version users. I'm also curious if people are more likely to purchase the full version after buying the presets or not.

And of course I want to know which preset packs are so great that you have to have them, even if you aren't necessarily interested in the synth.

[foosnark]

I want the opposite, a slight discount on price for a synth if it comes with no presets

[glokraw]

The Zebra2 Legacy Synth and bundled sounds collection has thousands of commercial presets for $100, and the Zebra community has thousands more for free at this link:

https://u-he.com/PatchLib/zebra.html

From the U-he-versity institute of video, over 50 Zebra2 tutorial videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoQYV ... 60F7CF76BA

Cheers

[n9research]

I want the opposite, a slight discount on price for a synth if it comes with no presets

Wouldn't that be something! I've never used a preset on a track, ever, in 30+ years. not even as a starting point for a modified sound.

Not that I have any particular animus toward presets (or people who, quite understandably, make use of them)..

..my rage is reserved for synth makers who don't create an appropriate default patch (which, in my book, is an unfiltered single sawtooth wave with no FX, full sustain and 0 release). Having to deconstruct some elaborate default patch to get to the most basic sound in order to save as default has, sometimes in the past, been an onerous task, and I've declined to buy some perfectly good synths for exactly that reason.

[seangm]

I buy the full synths and mostly use presets with some tweaking. I guess I am an idiot but works for me. Also, maybe I'll learn synthesis some day, if I do I have the full synths to use.

[Teksonik]

I buy the full synths and mostly use presets with some tweaking. I guess I am an idiot but works for me. Also, maybe I'll learn synthesis some day, if I do I have the full synths to use.

Don't ever think you're an idiot for using presets. It's the people who refuse to take advantage of the sound design skills of others who are missing out.

I'm so sick of the "ooooooh I don't use presets" snobbery I could hurl.

Unless you are the greatest sound designer on the planet and none of us here are then you can always take advantage of the skills of others.

I love making my own patches and have for decades but I'll use a patch made by someone else in a heartbeat if I find it inspiring.

The argument that "I only use my own presets because they're the sounds I want" is a narrow minded approach in my opinion. How do you know which sounds you want if you can't make them all?

The patches we make are limited by our own skills and imagination and other people may have different or more developed skills.

I say it's good to learn sound design but don't ever be too proud to use a preset made by someone else if it fits your needs.

Unless a person can code all his own synths and DAWs, he's always going to rely on the skills of others in some form or another.

This whole "I have to do it all myself or I'm less of a man" attitude is fairly recent as anyone who has ever been in a band knows it's the melding of the skills and talents of all the band members that makes the music flow.

No one does it all alone so if tweaking presets is what makes your music flow now then hold your head high and don't ever be ashamed to use a preset made by someone else.

[syntonica]

I would never buy a player only, but then again, I rarely buy preset packs. I can think of 2 over the years.

I like presets, but they're usually just jumping off points. I'll find the envelope I want and then tweak the timbre, or vice versa--find the timbre I want and then set the envelope. Modulation is always its own thing. On a particularly inspiring synth, I'll actually sit down and do sound design from scratch. But think of all the hits over the years made with factory presets....

[foosnark]

I'm so sick of the "ooooooh I don't use presets" snobbery I could hurl.

There is no shame in using presets, and there is no snobbery in not using presets, and there's no need for any drama about it. It's just personal preference.

[Boy Wonder]

I must admit, when it comes to presets, I sometimes reach for designers who I know coax interesting sounds from synths such as Richard Devine, Luftrum, Simon Stockhausen, Venus Theory, Marula. Some synths are very complicated and stopping my production to learn their ins and outs ruins my creative flow.

A lot of times, designers can be heavy-handed with effects, especially delay and reverb. I usually remove them anyway and print dry, then add effects later.

[vitocorleone123]

I prefer to learn to make my own sounds.

I use presets as part of the learning process (software and hardware). And I still use presets if I just want something fast as an accompaniment- like if I’m played a pad and want a bassline in Repro 1 I might just load a preset from The Unfinished.

But I can’t personally imagine myself ever just using presets without learning the synth anymore. I did that for many years and consider those mostly wasted years where I could’ve been learning instead of accumulating synths and presets.

[Jafo]

I always find that learning how things work cuts into my browsing presets time...

[zerocrossing]

I sometimes use presets, but I’d never just buy a player version of anything, because I always make some adjustments and it would drive me crazy to not be able to tweak something for my needs.

[BONES]

The thing is, though, that you always get some control over the sound, just not as much as you'd get from the full instrument, In Analog Lab, for example, you get 8 macros that are assigned to useful destinations you can do some limited tweaking. It actually works pretty well.

Having to deconstruct some elaborate default patch to get to the most basic sound in order to save as default has, sometimes in the past, been an onerous task, and I've declined to buy some perfectly good synths for exactly that reason.

Do you understand how completely stupid that sounds? You're happy to make all your own patches from scratch, EXCEPT a default patch to start from, the one patch you will use more than any other.

Unless you are the greatest sound designer on the planet and none of us here are then you can always take advantage of the skills of others.

You make it sound like it's not the easiest thing in the world, when it is. When I use a preset, it's to save time, not to do anything I wouldn't be confident of being able to do myself if I could be bothered.

The argument that "I only use my own presets because they're the sounds I want" is a narrow minded approach in my opinion. How do you know which sounds you want if you can't make them all?

This I definitely agree with. I often use other people's patches to work out how they have made a particular type of sound so that I can learn how to do it myself.

The patches we make are limited by our own skills and imagination and other people may have different or more developed skills.

More than that, trialling a few different patches can be incredibly inspiring in itself. It's something I do quite regularly, when a part isn't quite working the way I want it to, and often the result is something I would never have arrived at all by myself.

Some synths are very complicated and stopping my production to learn their ins and outs ruins my creative flow.

I tend to find the opposite - it's going through presets looking for the right sound that can ruin my creative flow. So I tend to work with something that does the job until I have a finished arrangement/mix, at which point I will go back and do the scut work of trawling through presets or making my own sounds.

A lot of times, designers can be heavy-handed with effects, especially delay and reverb. I usually remove them anyway and print dry, then add effects later.

That's because too many presets exist to show off the capability of the instrument and are anything but production-ready.

[DCrown]

An option to mark presets as fav is a must

[Trancit]

I'm so sick of the "ooooooh I don't use presets" snobbery I could hurl.

There is no shame in using presets, and there is no snobbery in not using presets, and there's no need for any drama about it. It's just personal preference.

He wasn´t talking about it´s snobbery in making your own sounds but having and always showing the attitude: Hey look at me... I am a better artist because I make everything from scratch!

And this attitude you can find sadly more often than less and as Teksonik says: That´s BS and just annoying