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. 

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. 

Ain't that the truth!

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

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

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mike_mccue

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

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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. 

It depends.  If you take a "one finger song" preset and use that as a significant part of your "composition", then it is a copout.  I've heard quite a few ambient tracks that bear a surprising resemblance to such presets in Absynth.
 
However, there are so many bread and butter sounds that it seems silly to write a patch when there is something perfectly good already there.  For example, if I have a song, and suddenly realize that it could use a lead that sounds like the one from "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", and my synth just happens to have a patch called "Shiny Diamonds" that fits the bill, why should I be expected to create my own preset?  Do I need to create my own supersaw preset that sounds like every other supersaw ever written?
 
 

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.

If one is a sound designer than using presets is cheating. If however you're not than I see nothing wrong with using what ever works. 

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.
 
 

I guess an analogy would be expecting people to write code from scratch without using any libraries or established algorithms. Back when coding was an interest of mine I never once saw anyone on a coding forum suggest that using libraries and API's was a copout. Maybe it's different among the hardcore demo-sceners and hackers, but among regular programmers nobody is considered as being any less creative or ingenious by using someone else's routines. Ultimately it's what you do with those building blocks that counts as creativity. Same with synths and presets.