yea Danja used vanguard preset in taking over , said that in an interview it was a preset, it was the DRIVING FORCE to the song (excluding drums). He made a ton of money off the song too...

 

Presets are great starting point, when making a song... as a producer you make from time to time your presets.

Presets are great learning start point, to figure out how things work, how sound synthesis work etc...

In production world, presets are generaly always something bad and lot of producers don't like even to speak about them ?!??? I don't know why, if it fit to song it fit and thats all. There is a many overused presets, but when it used on some different way sounds great.

 

It depends....
on the expectations and claimings towards ourselves and in regard to the end result. It differs from one to the other.
It also differs within the single individual to different times and in different stages/phases of his creative process.
Everybody has to find out for himself again and again, what makes him happy in the exercise of his art.
It is a continuous individual process of growth and change.

First two answers have a separating effect: One loves it, the other hates it.
Only the third answer is in result unifying, but without to unify or standardize.

I can state for myself: Subjectively, I feel a higher degree of satisfaction when I do not work just with predefined settings,
but even if i would do that, it would sound different from what another guy does with same presettings.

It's neither just about black and white including the shades of grey.
White color contains a rich complete color palette, which meeets all preferences. *yes*

 

I'm sorry, m9cao. I've read and reread your posts, both as individual statements and also side by side and in reference to the original post. I don't understand what you mean at all; my deepest apologies for my lackluster understanding of the English language. As for my own posts, I agree, nobody cares or should care about MY creativity, arrangement or synth combinations, as you put it. I will say this though, I make music to express my soul and my creative inspirations, and that's enough for me. I do think you should reread my posts though, if you take an interest, because seemingly you've completely missed the main point I was trying to make. Apologies again if I've not made myself clear.

Let me give an example of what I'm trying to get at for clarity's sake:

Take guitar based music. The guitar can be acoustic, nylon or steel strung, 12 string acoustic, electric, clean & distorted, 6, 7 or 8 string, etc., etc., etc. With all of these combinations, and even with effects such as whammy pedals, there is a finite pitch range to the instrument with respect to neck length and string tension/tuning. There is also a finite spectrum of tones and timbres available, even using the amazingly varied assortment of effects and processors out there. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that the guitar, in whatever genre of music it is being used within, is more of a compositional and performance tool for standard arrangement ideas. From the early 1900's blues of Robert Johnson, to modern Prog Metal a la Dream Theater et al., people can tell the instrument is a guitar and people can identify with the patterns, techniques, progressions, etc., inherent in the instrument. As an instrument it can be used quickly and easily to compose music.

A synthesiser is very different. Not only can synthesis be used to model acoustic and other electronic instruments, it is capable of producing sounds that people can't automatically identify with, and this breaks nominal boundaries within music. I think one of the main problems people seem to have is viewing a synth as a keyboard instrument, again with a finite range and to be used as a compositional tool. While this is certainly one of its functions, its a very limited function. There is far more scope!

I know this thread isn't specifically talking about synth presets, but presets in general. Personally, I'm against them all. I didn't used to be, but then my music used to sound like shit. However, I used to produce music a lot faster - it just sounded generic and not like me!

Another example:

I really like the sound of metallic and glass instruments: Glockenspiels, waterphones, dulcimers, etc. I really like the sound of Rickenbacker basses, but then I also like Reese basses with very deep sub elements. I love Latin percussion, and also Indian percussion. I'm also fond of phasers and flangers, and there is just something about the Fairchild 670 I absolutely adore. So, I find presets for these in all my favourite synths, FX and processors, slap them all together, and realize that the well worked out composition and arrangement I've just spent weeks working on now sounds like a 6 year old let loose in a music shop with the worst mixing and mastering I've ever heard.

There is far more scope to this artform, far, far, far more scope. Sadly, to my ears, it seems like for the last three years ITB EDM has produced 1,000,000 radio friendly variations of a single "Dubstep" tune. I see the next three years of radio being 1,000,000 variations on a single "EDM Trap" tune. The three years after that will be the same but with whatever newer and sillier genre title comes along, and then maybe the three years after that will see a reprise of Progressive House and DnB. ...That's presets! ...That's sample packs! ...That's a tune per day, no creativity, nothing musical about it, must replicate! Shit!

These toys we have in front of us now can fill up the entire frequency spectrum, and that can be carved and shaped into whatever we hear in our minds. We can make the sounds we hear, and we can use the techniques and compositional tools left to us through time to make original music full of inspired creativity. ....Or, we can just opt for presets (lethargy, apathy, impotence), and be the next Skrillmau5 for about five minutes until we realise we've forgot why we started making music in the first place.

I guess, as has already been pointed out, presets can be used to "see" how some sounds are made in complex synths. I don't really agree with this though. First and foremost, if you're going to use synths and effects as a main source for your music, learn to use your tools! That's a must! Other than that, I can only see presets as a cop out, a rush job, to sound like somebody else. Everytime I hear a track which uses presets, samples from vengeance packs or replicated sounds, I literally feel nauseous; far too many tunes like that out there, and they all suck, and none of them are creative. But hey, you might make a living off that shit!!! For me music comes first before money...

Anyway, I've wasted enough time here... Have to finish off my new neo-EDM tune; a 12/8 harpsichord groove at 123 bpm, and it's pumping heavy already!

 

Good music comes from a lot of places, even presets, mate.

 

You're right, of course. I don't mean to sound aggro, I just get worked up.

I will say this though, music and sound design are two different things, completely different. They can, and should if at all possible, be blended though, and that's my preference. For me it's the only way, and I always end up far more satisfied with the results. I wouldn't be satisfied at all if I used presets for any element of a production. It's taking a bit more of me away from my music.

A composition is a composition regardless of the sounds used, and if composition if your thing, all well and good. A synth's main duty if to synthesise though, to just use it as a static sound source kinda defeats its purpose and function. For me, I have an idea of what kinda sound my melodies should use, etc., and I try to create those sounds from scratch. Always ends up sounding better to my ears than scrolling through presets and picking the nicest one. It's like the best of a bad job for me. There are no time constaints for electronic music, it's not like the old days of paying for limited time in a studio with only so much tape to record and tracks to play with.

I would also say this though... Maybe the original question should have been, 'can a professional sounding mix be accomplished through presets?' ...In my view the answer is a straight "no." ...Presets have to be tweaked, more often than not heavily, for everything to sit together nicely.

Anyway... I guess each to their own. I'm just sick of everything sounding the same these days, and I have a pretty good idea of one of the main culprits.

 

Nailed it

Basically this

https://soundcloud.com/daleri/epic-mashleg

That's it *yes*

 

I used to have two very evil presets, but I have a program that can morph/breed/randomize between two presets (synth/FX parameters genetics). Now I have thousands of "my own" presets...and they are all good.

 

Presets are bad mmmkay!

 

What if you make your own presets, and make money off of the music you make with them. Are presets still bad?

This is like "discussing" what religion is the best. Hah. They are all equally fucking bad.

 

Though I agree about the religion comment if you make your own presets then you are well versed in sound design and that is one of the things people avoid learning when using them. Plus most people said that it doesn't matter to them so long as the music is good, some just gave some extra reasons why becoming dependent on them might not be a good idea if you're serious about improving as an artist.

m9cao
And pretty much every Industrial artist I have ever heard has done their own sound design. That's part of the reason I respect this genre beyond it actually being about something rather than more cookie cutter braindead bullshit for the masses. Eat it up kids.

 

If presets are evil then AudioZ is hell

 

And SAiNT is the devil.

 

Presets are good for reverse engineering to see how they have been made and its a good way to learn the synth