Thoughts on Soft Synth Presets.

The subject of factory presets and soft synths was broached in this thread but I thought it would be worth extending the discussion. I still feeling I am cheating when I use an unedited preset. (yet if it work in the track, why not?)
 
I started my experience with hardware synthesizers with an EMS synthi A when the idea of a preset was a distant dream. Now a software emulation of that synth is subject to scathing criticism for not having many good presets.
 
Several years later I owned a Roland SH101 and MC202, again no presets, but like the Synthi A there was a patch book showing settings for various sounds, a consensus was this was for the salesman so he could demonstrate the product rather than for the serious user.
 
When I got a Yamaha DX100 and a Korg Poly 800 (I am not sure in which order) I entered the preset world. The Korg followed a familiar architecture so I was pretty happy tweaking it, but the Yamaha took a lot of getting used to, and once you had mastered what was going on the mechanics of programming on the tiny LCD was a pain, so a lot of the time I tended to stick with the presets, while at the same time thinking of it as a bit of a cop-out.
 
So with software synths I have few problems setting up sounds I am thinking of on my favourite analogue emulations, Minimonsta, Korg Monopoly, XILS4 or the Arturia Oberheim SEM V.
 
I was put off more modern synths like Z3Ta by the predominantly EDM style presets. It took me a while to get under the hood and work out how to roll my own patches. I think I know my way around reasonably well now but the wave shaping is still a process of trial and error. It is a very versatile synth once you take the time to learn about it.
 
I did buy a couple of Nori Ubukata Historic Synth Giants preset packs for Synthmaster. These are nothing short of excellent sounding exactly like the synth voices on the track he is emulating. And therein lies the rub, they are so close that without tweaking they are of little use unless you are doing cover.
 
I think the most useful types of presets would be basic ones, devoid of effects, that provide a good starting point from which to customise your own sounds.

I have the best excuse - I'm a guitar player. :P
 
 
Songwriting, arranging and engineering/mixing are the skills I really work on - and all that goes w/ it, like basic studio acoustics and such. I'm really pushing to try and get certified for Logic AND if all goes extraordinarily well, Pro Tools.  I have more than enough on my plate.
 
So presets are an essential part of my workflow, and I say it w/o any shame. I try my best to make them my own by customizing a tiny bit, but that's no always an option.
 
I do spend time learning a bit more about my synths semi-regularly. I can create my own patches on certain simpler synths, like Korg Poly Six and Steinberg's Retrologue, which I really love to mess with. But in all frankness, I don't really master that art - I just got better at creating happy accidents.
 
One synth which really helps me improving is Logic's Retro Synth - that one allows me to switch back and forth between subtractive, FM and wavetable type of synthesis while maintaining the same basic type of interface and the same layout.
 
The time I spend tweaking pays off when I have to modify a patch, because I at least have a vague idea of what to tweak.
 
Some synths like Z3ta I really dig but I'll not master in this lifetime. But that's okay - I'll be happy to focus on Mini Moog type of synths.
 
As for presets themselves - it's surprising how drenched in effect most of them are. In fact, many patches in Z3ta are clipping. Another thing you have to be very careful with is stereo imaging. Sometimes you don't immediately notice it because the preset sounds relatively simple, but when you pay attention a bit, you notice how wide it sounds.
 
All of my old Sonar demos suffer from that same problem - because I was working fast AND didn't really know what I was doing as far as mixing - neither did I have the set up to really hear it. Effects and stereo imaging issues all over the place.
 
Some of those patches I really liked but had to give up on and replace because they just wouldn't sit in a mix, and once cleaned up, they sounded pretty weak.
 
A lot of people badmouth the synths included in Logic and say they sound sterile - imho, that's precisely because they sound dry for the biggest part. Not always the most inspiring, but as the tracks pile up, you still maintain a solid and coherent mix - and then you can put on the icing on the cake.

Rain
 
Some of those patches I really liked but had to give up on and replace because they just wouldn't sit in a mix, and once cleaned up, they sounded pretty weak.
 
A lot of people badmouth the synths included in Logic and say they sound sterile - imho, that's precisely because they sound dry for the biggest part. Not always the most inspiring, but as the tracks pile up, you still maintain a solid and coherent mix - and then you can put on the icing on the cake.

That explains better one of the points I was trying to make when I said "I think the most useful types of presets would be basic ones, devoid of effects, that provide a good starting point from which to customise your own sounds."
 
Presets can be a good starting point, usually the first thing I do with a preset is turn off any effects, then work on the wave forms, filter and envelope settings to get where I want it to be, and then add effects at later stage.
 
Perhaps illogically, I look at soft synths differently from ROMpliers and sampled instruments. Maybe because I learnt to program analogue synths long before I could pick out a few chords on a keyboard.

I love presets. Like the OP, I grew up with synthesizers that had no memory beyond wherever you left the knobs yesterday. My presets were handwritten entries in a spiral notebook. 
 
Factory presets are important because they let you know what the instrument is capable of. The best presets provide you with a set of templates from which to start programming. I keep a folder for Zebra called "Templates" that consists of generic basses, pads and plucks with minimal effects or fancy techniques. Whenever I create a new patch, I start with one of those. Half are original, half have been adapted from commercial presets.
 
Presets are also a training manual. Much of what I know about programming Zebra I learned from Jospeph Hollo, by picking apart his great PadsHeaven 1 and 2 patches. And of course, Howard Scarr's great factory presets.
 

Plugging a Les Paul into an Orange amp is a "preset." Of course it's what happens next which defines your music. No different with synths. I don't see anything wrong with using most presets, but you'd be mad not to tweak a little it if tweaking it makes it fit the track better. The exception being presets that contain some kind of melodic or rhythmic sequence - then you're getting into sample territory. 

i used to store "presets" on a sheet of paper, photocopied with my sh-101 controls layout, buggered if i can find them now tho... but seriously, i'm happy to use presets usually as a starting point but hey, if the shoe fits...

In attempting to discover what advantages any given synth offers I'll always check the presets, but I also play and tweak ...this is what I like, no rules. I got some very interesting things from Z3Ta+2 in this way. Sometimes the names of presets help to get me close to a sound I might like, but sometimes the opposite it true. "Violin" is usually pretty descriptive, but something like " Planetary Wonk"  throws me for a loop....I can see a bored programmer working overtime to come up with 500 patches and names for all of them. OTOH if none of the synths had patches wouldn't it be a more bland world? This is the kind of thing I could see some Scandanavian designer doing. It would be touted as simplistic, sleek and sell a million copies :). I mean...some of those synth  patches are sometimes really good. The difference I suppose, in a good namer/programmer and a not so good one.
 
The Korg M-1 is a good example of a synth that had way too many etherial atmosphereic patches IMO. If you want background stuff those presets have them... angels, bells, water sounds...sleepy string patches. But the M-1 can also excel at in your face sound....I think Korg wanted to bring out their effects section and what better way than to use a lot in their presets. And to me this is the problem which others have already mentioned...effects added to synths. One of the worst offenders in a mix if you want it clean and clear. I wish these synth makers would have one button on their interface...FX off.
 
I love the idea of creating and storing presets myself to recall later on..and I can name them anything I want :)

Not much to add, Dave, other than a big old "+1".   So may cool synths, so many presets, so little time.   Which is a big reason why I can barely remember half the time which one had what sound.  And then a new one comes along...
 
Having started with a MS-10 and a Polysix, I loves me some presets.  As long as they're good/inspirational/usable, and not necessarily in that order.
 

Some presets are just fine to use and other than maybe killing some reverb or delay or something, I may use them as is. Others are a starting point and require more in depth tweeking. And sometimes I'll just start from scratch and make entirely new ones.
 
If you're using any type of modern day rompler, having tons of presets is a good thing. With all the hundreds of different wavs to start with that something like a Motif would include, plus using up to 4 of them to create a patch, (not to mention all the fx, multiple LFO's and controllers) the choices are large, and a great deal of time can/will be wasted. Programming a patch on a basic analog synth is a heck of a lot easier.

Glyn Barnes

sharke
Plugging a Les Paul into an Orange amp is a "preset."

To play the devil's advocate, Would you leave the knobs on the amp and guitar exactly as they were when you unpacked it?

No, but adjusting the gain, bass, treble etc could quite reasonably be described as "tweaking a preset." My point was that there seems to be a certain amount of snobbery in some quarters about the use of synth presets, with some people who think that you're "cheating" unless you build your sounds from scratch. But picking up a guitar that's been pre-built to have a certain sound and plugging it into an amp that's been pre-built to have a certain sound is totally accepted. Nobody complains that guitar player X uses the same guitar/amp combination as player Y, and nobody expects you to build a guitar and amp from scratch. What's important is the music which comes from their fingers. 

I don't think I've heard anyone on this forum say that using presets is a cop out, but I've definitely heard it said quite a bit on Gearslutz among the electro crowd. 

Isn't a synth by it's very nature a preset?

mike_mccue

bapu
Isn't a synth by it's very nature a preset?

????????????????????????

You obviously have not given this statement the proper analysis.

sharke
I don't think I've heard anyone on this forum say that using presets is a cop out, but I've definitely heard it said quite a bit on Gearslutz among the electro crowd.

I've gotten this exact answer from a lot of people on forums and chatrooms I'm in because more often than not, I use presets when I'm working.
 
I love sound design as much as the next guy but the bottom line is that I have far too much going on to sit there for 5 days designing a new sound in a synth when someone else can come up with something similar to what I wanted to work with in the first place which would require me to do no or very little modifying which simply makes my workflow much more streamlined. If that makes what I do "cheating", well, call me a cheater. I'm more concerned with the end result sounding amazing than whether or not I made a sound myself, especially when I know there are people who can design some incredible presets out there which are far better than I could do.
 
A great example of this: I recently bought a preset pack for Serum made by none other than John Lehmkuhl and will also be buying his new Omnisphere pack when it comes out. If you don't know who he is, he spent about 20 years working for Korg designing factory voices for everything from the Triton to OASYS. He's also done factory voices for Spectrasonics and appears on Camel Audio Alchemy. When I saw his release video for Serum and saw what he could do with the presets he made plus the wavetables that he included in the package, I knew I'd be much better off using something made by someone with that kind of experience than to fiddle around with it myself wasting time when I could be making products.
 
At the end of the day, if people have the time and desire to design their own presets, go for it but they shouldn't hate on others who would much rather spend their time composing music.

Thanks for all the comments. It was therapeutic to see my guilt (which I always found illogical) at using presets on synths, but not rompliers and sample libraries probably stems from being a "sound designer" before I had mastered much more that a scale or two on a keyboard.
 
I do like Bitflipper's idea of templates, as opposed to full blown effect heavy presets as starting points. I will be making templates for some of my more complex synths. Not much point on a Minimoog emulation, but on Modular V, XILS4 and Z3ta they will be a big time saver.