Presets....

Do you use presets? Do you not? Do you pretend you don’t use presets but actually do, just slightly tweaked and then go all high and mighty on forums about it?

It's a funny argument isn't it.

There are people who will physically balk at the concept of using a preset but will happily use 909 drum samples from a sample pack and not see the hypocrisy in that.

There are also people out there who only use presets, possibly with the odd filter tweak. Don’t genuinely believe that anyone else knows how this stuff works and subsequently they don't know how to program a synth properly even though they've been musicians for years.

There’s probably more positions on the preset issue than there are actually presets out there.

So where is the right place to be?

IS there a right place to be?

The short answer

The short answer of course is that there IS no right and wrong. All approaches to music are valid.

But that's a boring answer isn't it! And if I left it there then this wouldn’t reach TL;DR levels.

Ok, lets look at this in more detail..

The arguments FOR using presets:

Have you ever noticed this argument only ever comes up in electronic music? If a guitarist plugs a fender strat into a marshall amp nobody ever grumbles at him for not being arsed to build his own guitar or circuit bending his amp and why is that?

Well, it’s because it's all about the songwriting and dynamics. And it still is, and should be, in electronic music. I think a lot of people forget that and concentrate on the sound design side of things. You don't have to be a sound designer to be a musician and you don't have to be a musician to be a sound designer. The two are in fact separate disciplines.

Some people make awesome sounds, some people write awesome tunes. They’re not necessarily the same person and if you’re a great songwriter then why should you be stopped from being creative just because “some guy” doesn’t like the fact that you use presets?

Also, presets speed up the process of creation. If you spin the dial and find the "right sound" then why change it? Just make your track.

Besides, if you take the “presets are cheating” argument to it's logical conclusion, then surely using a premade synthesizer is cheating, you should make your own synths in Reaktor. In fact, you should make your own modules for Reaktor in C++.

In fact you should make your own synth creation studio. Then program your own DAW. And once you've done all that you can ask yourself why you haven't made any music in 5 years.

The argument AGAINST using presets.

No matter how close a preset is, it's not the right sound, designed just for your track. When you learn your trade you can get exactly what you need quickly, and here’s where I contradict my previous statement. You see,I used the "presets are quicker" argument FOR presets, but that's the thing. once you know what you’re doing, presets are slower.  You can make the exact sound you want in a couple of minutes rather than spend 10 minutes auditioning presets until something right comes along. And then it's YOUR sound. YOU made it and it does exactly what YOU want it to.

And that's the thing. If you don't use presets, you are responsible for every bit of sound coming out of the speakers. You made it all. Which means when you make an amazing track the responsibility is 100% yours! And that's a great feeling.

Also the sheer experimentation can be incredibly inspiring. Even if you don't know what you're doing, play with it. You can accidentally wire something into the wrong place in a modular and BAM! An amazing sound.

So where do you stand Keef?

Ok, it is very rare I'll use presets. I prefer to make my own sounds and genuinely don’t understand buying expansion packs for synths. I have learned a number of forms of synthesis quite well and love using those skills so using presets for anything except a learning tool I find pointless, except in the case of samples.

A couple of exceptions to the preset rule for me:

1)      The default sounds in QuadraSID and SIDizer and that's because that kind of PWM lead is exactly what I want a SID lead to sound like anyway.

2)      Sampled stuff. Like a piano. I'm not going to sit there for hours with FM/Physical Modelling/Additive synthesis trying to create an approximation of a piano when I have a sampled grand sat around.

The truth of the matter is most people wouldn't even notice if you used presets unless it's something obvious like the default D-50, FM-7 or M1 sound and some people will accuse you of using presets even if you haven't.

For example, in a track I wrote called "Getting Older" off “Pen Fiteen” I was accused of using a default fruityloops sound when I don't (and haven't ever) used fruityloops and the sound was in fact made using ES-1 in Logic.

So even if you don't use presets there are those who will think you do, so the truth is you're doing this for yourself.

So the question you have to ask yourself is what am *I* happy with using?

You see I'd prefer it if people DIDN'T use presets because then everyone is adding to the world sound pool and every track has the potential to surprise you in tonally but I accept that presets will continue to be used and even that presets will be used to make great tracks.

There is however one thing I'm sad about and it's a specific music software company so I'm going to have a mini-rant now....

reFX

To be honest, this is what started me writing this article in the first place. I received a newsletter from reFX and as always I hoped beyond hope that there was going to be a new interesting product from them. only to find there wasn’t. There was yet another flaming expansion pack for Nexus2.

reFX used to be a fantastic company that made some creative synths like QuadraSID (a c64 SID emulator) PlasiCZ (CZ style synth) Slayer (A false guitar synth) and Vanguard (like an Access Virus nearly).

But over the last few years they've concentrated on their Nexus/Nexus2 ROMpler synth (advertised as "all you need to create the next hit") and continually releasing preset packs for it.

Minimally editable, this synth seems, in fact not even seems... Is definitely designed to be specifically targeted at people who want to write a track by scanning through hundreds and hundreds of presets till they find the right sound. And there's nothing wrong with creating a workhorse for people who aren't that interested in making their own sounds, it's a niche that this fills nicely. And had reFX not had a past of creating much more interesting synths, this wouldn't make me so sad.

Because it looks like this synth is the only one this company are interested in continuing with and that makes me slightly forlorn because they have made some great products in the past, some of which I still use to this day.

There are, however, a number of other great plugin manufacturers out there and having re-examined my stance on presets, the existence of this product no longer offends me the way it used to. I understand now that there are people for whom synth programming holds no interest but they love writing music and those people need workhorses like Nexus for their sonic palette.

So in conclusion

Use what you like, just try not to make sucky music ok?