Deleted all presets, and I’m having a blast!

The Lounge General Discussion
#22

Nice work, listening to it now :slight_smile:

I’m currently doing a version of the Sequencer cliche song, Popkorn. Had to do it :). Done the bass sequence on the Generator sequencer using the Treadstone synth and it sounds great as the Treadstone is good for the low bass tones. Been playing the bass sequence and transposing it live and haven’t got anywhere else as that has been so much fun :slight_smile:

No doubt I’ll have a video posted up later as I’m partial to posting a tune :blush:

Though saying that on one of the ones I put up recently some woman commented “That’s three minutes and 21 seconds of my life I’ll never get back”!!! Made me laugh :smile: :smile:

#23

Haha, that’s harsh :smiley: Have to say, if I had all those hands on goodies you’ve got to fiddle with, I think I would be pretty obsessed with “building guitars” too :slight_smile:

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#25

I’m a complete purist on this, probably because I’m not particularly good at arranging and song making. I find making sounds or soundscapes the most rewarding of the whole process, but can totally understand musicians wanting to just get the job done. Some lovely preset sounds in the digitone I’m not even close to figuring out yet, so presets sure can be good for learning a trick or two as well. I never use them in tracks though. :slight_smile:

#26

I probably make more sounds from scratch than I think I actually do. I like startching from the initialized state of the FM8 synth and my Virus. Good stuff. There’s some specific techno sounds I’m after that I haven’t found in a preset.

But I never understood the need to delete all the presets from devices. Is it a hard drive space issue?

From my experience, usually the preset sounds and patterns are done by people who specialize in sound creation. They’re better than me at it and have taken the time to create something for me to use. That’s kind of cool imo.

And like dude said above, a couple of tweaks and now the sound is yours and you can get on with the rest of your production.

#28

Fair enough

#29

I don’t care if I use a preset, or something I programmed for sounds. I just use what suits the song. I do tend to delete most sounds that sound like movie special fx.

#30

I did that on my Moog Sub 37 last night and had so much fun making clap, snare, kick drums and space alien sounds. Been doing that more since I want to master synthesis without need for presets. I still use presets but I’ve been using blank slates more as it is good for crafting unique sounds.

#31

I think it’s about ownership and satisfaction.

It’s a given that there are people out there who create much better sounds than I ever could come close to, but using some-one else’s sounds would take away from any sense of achievement.

It’s like having some-one with a large phallus have a rattle at your wife/girlfriend etc. He might be good at what he does and create noisy music but you as an individual are left unsatisfied and unfufilled as someone else did the donkey work :smile:

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#32

Lol that example… :bowing_man:

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#33

Yes. That’s exactly what it’s like…

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#35

Don’t buy Omnisphere2, there’s over 8000 presets to delete.

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#36

Overall, presets win for me. I’ve spent far less fruitful time browsing presets that I like the sound of Vs creating sounds from scratch. I’m just, to be frank, shit and sound design.

The issue is largely pure laziness on my part and being unwilling to put the time in to really understand the synth in front of me. Planning to make more of an effort when the A4 arrives. Had a lot of joy using OT only for some months and plan to do likewise with the A4. Presets will only take me half way on that journey.

#37

Just Format the +drive…

#38

I like a happy mix… I usually don’t end up reusing my own sounds too much because of how tailored they usually are to the song I had them in so I generally have a few presets I go to sometimes specifically because I need a bit of cheese in there. Love the flute, english horn, bassoon, trumpet type stuff on the A4 and honestly isn’t the type of patch I enjoy making from scratch and would rather tweak a little weirdness in. Then something like the System 1m had nothing for me preset wise so I deleted them all.

#39

I was going to start a thread on this subject and found this. I am getting a Digitone today. For the first time for me with any synth, I am going to wipe this machine clean of presets, and build everything myself. Like a poster above, sound sculpting (for me) is part of the process. By deleting all presets I am going to commit to this.

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#40

FM is a bit of a weird one and honestly I’d say most people can learn a lot from the presets. By all means jump on in if you want to but I’d at least have a skim through if you’re not already experienced with FM, and even then. There are some nice ones on the digitone

#41

It is nice to start from a blank state for sure, but listening to presets can, depending on the machine, seed ideas for your own sounds, albeit this is much less true on a relatively simple synth, but on a synth with lots of mod sources and destinations presets can be a good way to become familiar with the possibilities when you first get the machine.

However, just as watching a boxing match won’t teach you everything about boxing, listening to and examining presets won’t teach you everything about sound design, you need to get in the ring and take a few shots :wink:

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#42

I love building my own sounds but I also love looking for presets and making them my own.
I also really love being able to rely on a bunch of useful sounds created by accomplished sound designers when I have an idea and need to get there fast. I don’t feel the need to reivent the wheel anytime I need to use a kick or whatever other standard sound.

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#43

I’ve been feeling this a bit more lately. Sometimes I just want a nice reliable kick or snare and don’t want to spend a bunch of time tweaking something that will end up just sounding similar to a preset anyway.

That said though, I do love designing sounds from scratch, and will sometimes get lost for hours just making patches and not actually making music.

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#44

I’m finding myself mostly using samples for drums percussion (often with a fair bit of compression/EQ/envelope adjustment). The engines on drum-synths (e.g. Rytm) tend to feel a bit limited to me.

…but I’m not sure that samples really count as presets. :slightly_smiling_face:

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