I'm a layer guy. I take 2 or 3 presets and layer them. BOOM! Original sound. Tweak a filter, shorten attack, transpose an octave BOOM! Original sound. I used to play the Roland Juno 6 which did not have memory. I used it for either a bass or a string sound which I had to quickly program on stage in front of an audience. Some nights sounded better than others.
I get you. I enjoy designing my own sounds too but sometimes I just want to get on with making the music. I usually end up adjusting the sample or preset to the point where it's "mine" anyway. The most important part is getting the ideas out and having fun.
Presets are super useful. I use them a lot of time in layers/combis for my band, maybe with one special sound that I sound designed added in. The flip side to that is that I got a Korg Arp 2600M recently, and it makes you sound design as part of the performance because it has no presets! I’ve even done a few live gigs with it where I’ll use it as a lead instrument, and the sound design is part of the improv. But for so many applications, especially any realistic or sampled sounds, presets are so helpful.
Thanks, Jeff. It is nice to have an instrument that makes you design. That was one of my favorite things about the Grandmother. I appreciate you stopping by!
Hey Matt. I agree that there should be no shame in using presets. Some of the best sound designers in the world crafted those. I would like to add a couple thoughts. When I am in the writing phase, sometimes I will choose a preset that is approximately what I am looking for, then tweak it to my needs. It’s a “representative” tone. The reason for that is, I am first trying to lay out the overall structure and feel of a song. Once I feel happy with the overall composition, then comes the fun part; sound design! I think that’s my favorite part of writing music. Exploring synthesis is an incredibly rewarding process for me. The notes and structure are already there. At that point it’s just having fun with your gear and exploring where it could go. There’s no shame in using presets, but I’d recommend giving sound design a try. It’s incredibly rewarding. At least to me haha 😊 thanks for your great vids! I hope you and Anna continue to post more!
Thanks for the kind words! With my limited sound design skills I actually employ a similar method with my songs sometimes. I like to work in MIDI when I'm getting the structure of the song laid out, then try to find good sounds (of my own design) on the prologue. Then I'll MIDI out of my DAW into the prologue and record the real audio. Like you, it's one of my favorite parts of the whole process! I will continue to work on design but rely on presets so that I can still get things done. It's one big happy journey! Thanks for stopping by and we'll see you soon!
Hey Matt - Sound advice 👍 Great topic. The idea that you need to create all your own sounds seems to be put about by a few, but peppers forums giving beginners a false impression. Of course, if you can that's great but absolutely not necessary - classical composers used presets 😄 I'm a preset and tweak it guy (the NI keyboardss make this easy 😊) but it's how you put the sounds together that matters.
Also.. it's about how you combine the elements in the music.. all 'classical' composers use/d 'presets' but the layering, the articulation, the melody and harmony are what makes the music. Try layering multiple presets together/adjust the mix to get new hybrid sounds.. this is a quick way to create 'your sound' without starting from scratch.
It's so great to hear someone get it out in the open that there is nothing wrong with presets. While I love designing my own sounds on my synthesizers, there are plenty of times where I'm more than happy to just let it go and have fun with the presets. The MC-101 is a great example. You can definitely build your own sounds on it, but with 4,000+ factory presets, am I really going to make something better than what's already there? The answer is 100% no. Presets are awesome, even the cheesy ones.
Presets are awesome! You have to start somewhere, and if you wanna edit the sound to your own taste you can. Also learning how to return your synth sounds to factory settings if always very important. It’s way too easy to mess up all your patches, so resetting to the default is so important! 🎹🤟
I'm a preset developer (and plugin developer).. When I need to make music (I did a couple of commercial pieces in the past) I use presets - not just my own (maybe with a tweak here and there). When a time limit is involved and somebody is expecting a result, you just get on with it.
@@mwmusic29 im going to build a Studio in my backyard garden btw. Very excited. 15-20 square meters. All from wood. Perhaps you could do a video about that. God Bless.
@@mwmusic29 yeah I also gonna buy my dreamsynth, the Jupiter X finally after two years of hard work. And hopefully end of the summer the studio had been build. I think the Jupiter X and the prologue will compliment eachother nicely. I must admit that a korg wavestate se is still on my mind as well. You do have a nice atmosphere in your studio with the purple lights and stuff.
Preset patches dont really disturbs me...but i saw one day an artist, on live using preset pattern, ‼️i remember asking me where i heard this pattern...2 dayslater, i realised it was a pattern of one of my korg drum machine....
What 's the point of having all these analogs if I can't dial up a few presets on the digitals? Some of my favorite preset machines are the Roland SH-01A and D-05 and the Arturia Microfreak. The Delta Cep A is incredibly difficult synth to master but it also has amazing presets to show you what to work for.
@@mwmusic29The only time it’s detrimental is if you have Omnisphere or V-Collection or somesuch VST collection with 10000 presets and you end up in this preset listening masturbatory hell rather than doing anything remotely creative. It is among a myriad of reasons I quit messing around with software and went back to almost entirely hardware.
