I wish to share. This is not so much me wanting to open another topic for debate, but just me projecting an emotion I have to unload.
I hate patches. I mean, I love them for being there and helping me create something that already sounds decent. But a synth with hundreds of pre-installed patches stresses me out. I flip between them, searching for something, modifing what’s there to get to a point to which this patch can never reach, moving on to the next patch, repeating this pattern hundreds of times.
But since they’re there, I can’t help myself.
One of the things I loved about the Sub Phatty, was that it had sixteen patches. That’s it.
One of the things that put me off buying an AKeys or an A4, was the inherent patches. Great sounding and all, but flipping through them, they’re just not for me. Thereby lead me to think this synth was not for me.
Today, I spent two hours in the store, initing patches on their AKeys and building my own.
Same over here - but I haven’t found the time nor the courage yet to empty the + Drive.
I rarely store my own paches as I prefer to create from scrach.
So I gotta have some discipline and empty it. I don’t like scrolling tru the paches - didn’t install any of the soundpacks. But I think it can be fun to scroll tru self-made paches. but then I have to go tru all the stuff I’ve made to save them - ahhhh … discipline again …
I just can’t stop making music with these machines - mutch to addictive …
Just create a new project “INIT NEW” = initializes an empty file slot with a clean project.
You can format the +drive
FORMAT +DRIVE Offers the possibility to erase all content of +Drive. When selecting this command, a prompt will appear asking if the formatting procedure should be executed. Press [YES/SAVE] to proceed with the formatting
and easily revert back if needed
FACTORY RESET When performing a factory reset on the Analog Four it will overwrite and re-initialize the active project (including all pattern, kit, sound pool and global data). The +Drive project slot 1 will be overwritten and re-initialized. Sound bank A and B will be overwritten with the factory Sounds. Factory pre-set patterns, kits, Sounds and settings will be re-initialized. If you wish to keep the active project, remember to save it to a +Drive project slot higher than 1 before you perform a factory reset. To perform a factory reset, press [TRIG] key 3 (EARLY STARTUP MENU )
I find patches distracting, and prefer to work from the ground up with the rawness. Not in a purist “I created it” way, but it just appeals and helps me get to know the possibilities of the machines in my own way.
I don’t save my own tracks or patches either.
I love such “in the moment” immediacy, though it wasn’t always so.
This means that if I make a track then I record it there and then and subsequently delete it out of existence, which prevents me from going back to tweak or improve. When it’s done it’s done.
Hardcore! I like it.
The other day, I happened to save over one of my coolest Tempest projects I’ve ever made.
I was upset for about a minute. Then I figured, probably for the better. I’ve always tried to replicate what I did there, going back and study it, reverse engineer something that just came about through deep and serious tweaking.
Now, I just have to do something else, it’s no my choice anymore. I kind of like it.
Hardcore! I like it.
The other day, I happened to save over one of my coolest Tempest projects I’ve ever made.
I was upset for about a minute. Then I figured, probably for the better. I’ve always tried to replicate what I did there, going back and study it, reverse engineer something that just came about through deep and serious tweaking.
Now, I just have to do something else, it’s no my choice anymore. I kind of like it.[/quote]
Yes, and at the end of the day, such a coveted track came from that space of creativity which will inevitably throw up more such gems, and without which it would never have come into existence in the first place.
For over a decade now I’ve been doing the same thing whenever I get a new piece of gear, be it a complex guitar fx pedal (strymon anyone?), a drum machine (AR!) or a synth (micron, microkorg, blofeld… many others): Power on, flick through the patches once to get a feel for what the unit does, toy around with the presets to get to know all the filters, knobs and wheels, then get familiar with the manual, then wipe it clean completely and start building my own stuff from scratch. Patches, to me, are useful demos – not something I’d ever actually use.
patches are great if you don’t know a lot about synthesis, you can load up a patch, check all the settings, listen to it, and begin to get an idea about how it all works
beyond that, personally i am not that interested in other people’s patches too often, maybe like 5~10% of the time, even then i end up tweaking it and changing it to suit my needs almost all the time
to me i feel like they can be a bit of a crutch, at the same time i need to remind myself that not everyone cares very much about sound design! some folks, a lot of folks, just want to get to the song writing aspect of it and not have to trip on timbre and making sounds fit nicely together, that’s they’re choice, more power to them, i wish them the best
I go back and forth.
A4’s patch system makes it very easy to just load an existing patch, and mold it to your purpose.
Sometimes I wish MM had the same easy patch system, but the fact that it forces me to start from scratch (without copying things around from other kits/patterns) is refreshing.
In the end, the moment I sit down to write, if I choose the A4 it is because I want some quick immediacy. If I choose the MM, it’s because I want to start from the foundation and really jump into low level sound design. But using patches is still great for sound design. There are some A4 drum sounds that I’ve made from modifying existing patches that are my absolute favorites. It would have taken me far more time to build those from scratch.
I can see the benefit of patches, absolutely.
I can’t see the benefit of hundreds and hundreds of patches.
No one needs that many. Choices aren’t interesting if there are hundreds of them, they’re frustrating and confusing. Offer just a few, all of them brilliant, and it has real value.
Whenever a synth markets itself with having a huge amount of patches, there’s bound to be hundreds of patches in there which no one will ever use.
You give me the Sub Phatty’s sixteen patches and I’m telling you. you do not need more, no matter your purpose. If you wanna wipe’em, do so and work with those sixteen slots. If you wanna work with what’s already there, if those sixteen patches are killer, you can make an album with that. Doesn’t matter if you’re a preset pro or a designer wizard, you don’t need quantity, only quality.
I like having lots of patches on my A4. Sometimes when I’m not in the mood for making music I listen to patches and examine interesting ones to see how they are made.
But when making music I rarely use them. Then I’m in a hurry and most of the time it is simply faster (and more fun) to just make what I want than to wade through large amounts of presets to find something that sounds “almost” like what I was looking for. And with all the p-locking and performance macro features it is also useful to know exactly how your sounds are made.
But I don’t see anything wrong with using presets. My reasons for (mostly) avoiding them are strictly pragmatic.
I usually don’t use patches on the A4 at all, I always start with an empty kit. That way you’ll get very familiar with the engine, the interface, etc. in a very short time.
There are only about 2-3 patches I once stored as a starting point but usually copy/pasting sounds from kit to kit does the same…
Sometimes I’ll try out free patch collections and I’m rarely impressed with them with the exception of the druma-pack from darenager and a couple of patches that the floppy disc pirates came up here with. But I never used one of those in any of my tracks.
I just got a used A4 and I did both the Factory reset and Init New for the Preset Project. Despite the latter, in my New Project (aka CLEAN) Banks A-D are fully loaded with Kits and Patterns. Is there are way to wipe all these out with one stroke vs manually deleting every one? I’d like to keep the general sound presets but I don’t need the Kits and patterns.
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