Who uses presets?

[UncleAge]

how many of you start your writing process with a really awesome sound you've made yourself which you then write a riff or melody with, and how many of you have the riff first which you then find or design a sound to match? I'm pretty obviously the latter, despite it's drawbacks.

I'd say only about 10-20% of my stuff goes the route of riff/sound inspiration. Kinda of like jamming on my guitar or bass and then a little tune comes out. However, that process usually doesn't yield finished songs for me. Nowadays, I generally sketch out the whole song away from the computer. I'll use my iphone to hum/talk/sing/beatbox or whatever the parts into and then I write everything down on paper. By the time I'm back in front of my computer I have a decent set of guidelines to start working with. If I don't do it like this then I end up with a bunch of little unfinished projects taking up space on my hard drive.

[alex.the.forge]

with the NI stuff I have no problem using the presets

the Ableton stuff on the other hand is I think more intended for making your own

so if I want to just flick through presets and find a good one then I'll load up an NI synth, but if I know the sound I want in my head then I'll create it with an Ableton synth, probably Operator or Analog

[3phase]

A lot depends on what your in it for. If you want commercial success then as long as it sells then everything you do is ok. If you are after the respect of other musicians and no money then you should be designing your own synths with a soldering iron and pieces of old boards rescued from the skip.

At the end of the day joe public listens and either likes or hates it, no thought process went into how much time you spent producing it, Duck Sauce Barbara Streisand being a prime example. It is so close to the original Boney M hit and it's predecessor (from Germany) that I personally would be embarrassed to release it. I wouldn't be embarrassed though when that first royalty cheque came in.

http://www.whosampled.com/sample/view/5 ... Go%20Home/

Do you want a career or prestige?

This post anwers the question Who uses presets the best...

so when you want to be a b**** go for it...

all others do their own tweaks...

the use of presets is lame...thats a fact.. and i also doubt that you really can build a carrer with a no profile agenda.

However ...when you are not into electronic music you dont need to bother much. Just keep in mind that bands like the doors or jazzers like herby hancock had indeed theier own organ and rhodes sounds...and that on instruments you cant really tweak that much...

so how lame is it in a world of billions of possible tweaks dont even try one own one?

[alex.the.forge]

the use of presets is lame...thats a fact..

anything 3phase says is a fact.

[leedsquietman]

The record buying public don't buy records based on any of the following points

whether presets were used or made from scratch
which instruments were used
which DAW software was used
whether it was analogue or digital
who produced, engineered or mastered a record
(in most cases excepting some geeks) which label it was released on

Is an acoustic guitar boring because it is all 'preset' sound ? No, because it can be made to be expressive by the player.
Presets can also be made to sound expressive.

Some of the biggest wankers are these artsy-fartsy 'sound design' type people, most of whom use presets or tweak presets anyway and claim it to be original, with the odd bit of wankery with cabling and modular racks and think they're fucking Einstein - you're not. Almost all the sounds you THINK are original are not, or can be very closely approximated by any number of others and probably already have been. Quit being a 'superior' fucking sound snob and just make some music. INstead of jerking off in your studio (which you probably call a LAB), get some real work done. Or at least shut your mouth criticizing other people, before you get a mouthful of teeth.

[Khazul]

Use whatever works for the track - hell even use about the most recenty raped vengence/loopmatsres etc loop in the electro house scenes if thats waht works - who f****** cares apart from you and a bunch of chin stroking producer/dj type buddies perhaps?

I tend to only focus on knowing deep programming of one or two favourite synths and fx and mostly use tweaked presets on others - just becasue sometimes there is a sound in my head and by the time you have ploughed through 000s of presets to find it, you end up loosing the plot

To my mind the biggest failing of using presets, samples and loops as-is is that unprocessed you can up with with a bunch of sounds on them that just dont gel very well in a mix - often down to hugely different reverbs in the original sounds, so I often need to envelop/gate the samples, or process them in some wya to clear off unwanted character and often remove or at least reduce reverb on synth presets it as the very least. Else if you can make them gel - then do whatever works.

The only people who will think you cheesy lame bastard are other when you have obviously throw something together from loops thatt other producers recognise and the end result goes to number #1 in the dance charts and *IS* some lame bit of cheesy shit hacked together in about as much time as the track lasts :p


Leedsquietman - +1

[sporkles]

leeds: There's no point in continuing to litter this debate with personal opinions when the FACTS are already on the table. It was, after all, FACTS I was looking for.

3phase has already spoken, and this thread is closed.

[leedsquietman]

[3phase]

do i hear the lamos barfing?

use as many presets as you like..but please try to avoid releases to dont crowd the rubish flooded market even more..
please be so kind and keep your enviroment tidy..
nobody needs another generic track build with generic sounds..And we are actually close to a point where this even applys to original and well produced tracks.
making some music is a nice hobby... releasing records with preset sounds actually not.. that is considred as enviromental polution and a waste of bandwidth...

[leedsquietman]

No 'sound designer' has released a record which wasn't some long winded piece of self-masturbatory garbage since the 1990s either. And this pretty much just echoed the Wendy Carlos's and Vangelis's of the world but with digital sounds as well as analogue. This has been made worse by people jerking off with controllers, thinking that people give a damn about their 30 minute improvised 'cutting edge' APC40 jams, most listeners tune out after 45 seconds ...

What is a waste of bandwidth is your endless whining about the quality of Ableton Live ... change the record dude.

*edited for grammatical errors*

[dazzer]

a waste of bandwidth...

[3phase]

No 'sound designer' has released a record which wasn't some long winded piece of self-masturbatory garbage since the 1990s either. And this pretty much just echoed the Wendy Carlos's and Vangelis's of the world but with digital sounds as well as analogue. This has been made worse by people jerking off with controllers, thinking that people give a damn about their 30 minute improvised 'cutting edge' APC40 jams, most listeners tune out after 45 seconds ...

What is a waste of bandwidth are your endless whining about the quality of Ableton Live ... change the record dude.

self masturbatory? is ther something more selfmasturbatory than playing electronic music producer with presetsoinds and grooves? pffff

[leedsquietman]

The listener cannot tell in most cases whether you used a preset, tweaked one, or put on a freaking lab coat and wired up a bank of modular synths with oscilloscopes and spent 2 weeks crafting something you think is original but in essence has been done before many times (or to a very close approximation).

Is someone playing a 3 minute piano piece masturbating compared to someone getting modular synths to drone on for 25 minutes tweaking filter knobs (and deluding themselves into thinking they are some kind of fresh pioneer)? I don't think so ...

and in case you're wondering, I rarely use presets myself, except if I want to jam with a hardware synth - I just cannot abide snobbery by people who think they're the shiznit because they didn't use a preset *and most of the time just tweak them and then lie about being some sound boffin*

[3phase]

The listener cannot tell in most cases whether you used a preset, tweaked one, or put on a freaking lab coat and wired up a bank of modular synths with oscilloscopes and spent 2 weeks crafting something you think is original but in essence has been done before many times (or to a very close approximation).

Is someone playing a 3 minute piano piece masturbating compared to someone getting modular synths to drone on for 25 minutes tweaking filter knobs (and deluding themselves into thinking they are some kind of fresh pioneer)? I don't think so ...

and in case you're wondering, I rarely use presets myself, except if I want to jam with a hardware synth - I just cannot abide snobbery by people who think they're the shiznit because they didn't use a preset *and most of the time just tweak them and then lie about being some sound boffin*

sure.. the typical anti preset guy that barfs extra loud..

and listeners can tell when certain presets are overused.. like some famous reaktor dub techno devices..
i had a few cases where people asked me in a club why this or that track sounds so similar to the one before...
And i assure them that this has nothing to do with telepathie...

but even without that.. a lamers attitude stays a lamers attitude..regardless wether others can tell or not...

[leedsquietman]

You would know a thing or two about a lamer's attitude ...

Look - I agree with you in part - if I never heard a trance super saw epic lead or a frigging 'hoover' sound again or a T-Pain autotune vocal, it would be too soon - but this is generalizing.