Because when you see a new preset, your brain does a lot of work - it remembers if it's heard something similar before and where exactly it is in some set and on the disc. This helps the brain fight Alzheimer's, for which it's incredibly grateful, feeding you dopamine and begging you to do it again. It's nice and useful. ))

 

In the beginning, the earth was formless and void!

I started my musical life with an empty hard drive and a computer. In early 2004, I collected and burned everything I could find, because one never knew if the internet would last forever. I had a manageable collection, but then great sounds kept getting added to it; I now needed a list—and plenty of time—to sift through everything, organize it, and label it properly. By then, the internet could have died without it mattering—I had enough material to last three lifetimes.

I think what it cost me most was my time and my money. Eventually, you devise a system for how to label everything and back it up permanently. Unfortunately, there are no heirs in sight to whom I can bequeath all of this; I suppose that, someday, I will simply pack up a box and send it to Africa.

 

A good preset, even if later is tweaked beyond recognition, can inspire a whole track. At least in my case. Rarely a preset fits an already ongoing track just as it is in my workflow, but I've started a lot of tracks just by finding something inspiring in a pack.

Also, there is tons of tricks and tips to extract from good presets that you can use later on your own. You don't know what you don't know a lot of the time with synths and good presets shows you that pronto.

 

The beauty of presets is that it never gets boring; there is always a new surprise—and, consequently, a sense of joy. I have created a dedicated folder for each synthesizer where I save my best-sounding FXP files. The saddest part of the whole affair, however, is actually the storage media—which, unfortunately, do not last forever. I achieved the best quality using Blu-rays!