Presets...yes or no?

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:44 pm

decoder wrote:I use notepad to write Ableton Live from scratch. Then I start on a project.

Fuck that. I start DOS and begin with a set of ones and zeros. Then I get a low-level compiler to put together a better version of XP. Once booted, I then write Live v7...it tends to have a few bugs, so I write an email program so that I can email [email protected]. Once they talk me through the code, I then compile Live, and then begin the process of generating the necessary supersaw wave forms needed for making trance.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:29 pm

Good subject.

I seriously need to take a break from preset making.

I'm the kinda person who enjoys making presets. In the last 2 years, I haven't finished many songs.
But I've made thousands of sounds, from scratch..
My quota is nearly reached, to say the least.
But its perfect though, making music is lots of fun again. And I save a lot of time that I otherwised spent looking for a sound in dozens of vst's. I got a good stock of sounds now.

The people who say they don't like presets, have obviously spent more then enough time browsing thru them and figuring out how a sound works.
You cant start from scratch if you dont know your instruments / tools.
You'll probably end up with 20 variations of a tweaked sine wave...
Once you know one synth, the process of mastering another one is a lot more easier.

Anyway, thats my guess of how people end up saying they dont like presets.
If you actually started tweaking a synth without prior knowledge of sound design, found the initialized sounds and immediatly started making killer tracks.. Then I bow down in respect and awe.

The point is, you need to spend a fair amount of time with presets until you can honestly say you dont like using presets.
I can totally relate to that motion.

Presets have another purpose besides their obvious function though.
They are perfect "templates" for figuring out how a sound is made.
Its one of the things that makes racks so much fun in Live 6.
You can learn tricks from other people, learn to pay attention to details like velocity and generally FSU.

Whats wrong with tweaking a preset thats close to the sound you need? In the end its a combination of hundreds of mini-tweaks that you must have made at one point in your tweaking history.
If it isn't... Hazaa, a new trick to figure out!
Presets Rock! Wether you make em, use them, abuse them or just throw them in the trash... They still serve a purpose to everybody.

If you download our free pack called "Espionage!", you'll notice that i'm trying out a new concept for people who dont like presets...
Initialized Presets! ie. "Scratch"
Hundreds of static looping waveforms ready to be loaded / hotswapped within 2 seconds.
Each .ams file sounding just a bit different (check a spectrum analyzer)
There's a drastic change if you compare a C1 with a C6...
These sounds are perfect material to mess with some FM in Sampler or make fat monobasses with Simpler. Its a very specific type of "scratch"... But its scratch nonetheless.
Now imagine having a few thousands of these .ams files

Like I said, I'm pretty close to stop tweaking everything up from scratch. But thats only because I've created a wide pallete of colors to paint with. The mental glitch I used to have with sounds that weren't made by myself is totally gone. At this point I appreciate anything that doesn't sound like something I could have made myself. It means that there still is much to learn and explore.
It also one of the fun things about working with Andreas. Our methods are totally different. And so are the sounds that come out of our combined efforts.
Different tastes, different flavors.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:35 pm

Do you realize how many presets you could have made while writing that damn treatise?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:37 pm

nebulae wrote:Do you realize how many presets you could have made while writing that damn treatise?

I wrote that between presets. Hence the paragraphs

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:42 pm

Yes, I did admire the proper punctuation and the abnormally logical prose of your writing.

Now gimme more presets, byatch!

MattyBoJangles · Post by **MattyBoJangles** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 7:50 pm

decoder wrote:I use notepad to write Ableton Live from scratch. Then I start on a project.

Hahahahahaha

MattyBoJangles · Post by **MattyBoJangles** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 7:59 pm

nebulae wrote:
decoder wrote:I use notepad to write Ableton Live from scratch. Then I start on a project.
Fuck that. I start DOS and begin with a set of ones and zeros. Then I get a low-level compiler to put together a better version of XP. Once booted, I then write Live v7...it tends to have a few bugs, so I write an email program so that I can email [email protected]. Once they talk me through the code, I then compile Live, and then begin the process of generating the necessary supersaw wave forms needed for making trance.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
+HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:01 pm

I find that when I make my own sounds from scratch, the end result is much more 'me' than if I had used a preset - even if I've tweaked the preset. The end result may not be as cleverly synthesized, but in the long run I'll be great at it, and it will all be 'my sound'.

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:03 pm

Each morning I have to re-synthesize myself out of a small bowl of amino acids I have lying around. Gets old.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:27 pm

Either you live in a petri dish, or your wife is an amoeba, or you're all about primordial goo. None of those options sound too appetizing.

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:40 pm

Totally depends on the instrument/effect. Some presets I love, some I hate.

For example, I love absynth/fm8 presets. They're wicked, done by very talented people. Love the sound, so I use 'em, tweak 'em, whatever. It's a complex synth to start from scratch, and I can always find something close to what I'm after. And after all, making music isn't always about sound design. I want to make music to listen to, and I want it to sound good. If that involves presets, then fine. If I find a whole bunch of presets that are just perfect together and make a song, great. It's not like I'm waving a flag around saying "I made this from scratch!".

On the other hand there's the ableton library. Not a fan. I have actually used a couple operator and sampler presets, but that's probably all I've ever use.

Or for example zebra2 and blue. I rarely use one of those presets, but often start with a patch as a starting point just for the sake of the algorithm/wiring being used. The end result usually sounds nothing the same.

And then effects are a whole other story. I'd rarely want to use an eq or compression preset, but I often scroll through some presets to get an idea of how I want to shape that particular sound.

In the end, making music would much less enjoyable without presets. They're often instruments unto themselves. But of course there's nothing better than using your own custom sound and having it be the perfect fit to a song.

rat · Post by **rat** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:36 pm

even with abletons presets, if i throw on afew effect to operator it becomez somethin nice

andrewbrewer · Post by **andrewbrewer** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:45 am

sometimes i play games with presets ... like starting w/ a preset that i don't like and figuring out a way to make it into something i do like while keeping some of the spirit of the original.

it's an odd game. some moves are cheating. extreme redux or autofilter would be cheating in this game.

radib · Post by **radib** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:13 am

both. easy logic: when you start with a preset and really tweak around for a good while, the result is more unique then always starting just from the same scratch.

but i can´t remember any preset that i used in its original state for a very long time.

PDX · Post by **PDX** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:13 am

back in the day, synths came with templates to write your patches on. they were usually just a few pieces of paper that you had to photo copy in order to recall all of the parameter tweaks and what not.

if youre not so good at programing that sound you want, google search for those old templates. they are a great starting point to learning how to program your own sounds. a lot of people have scanned their old copies and put them on the web.