dont lie. do you really never use presets?

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Fri May 22, 2009 12:07 pm

Slothrop wrote:Also, speaking of cult followings, pop quiz: who had more of an influence on the development of dubstep, Wookie or Autechre?

Wookie most definitely. Point taken on the sample front, I personally find it ****** me to put in anything I haven't created in a track, which at the same time does hinder my creativity because I get stuck spending an hour making an Arp from scratch. Maybe in future I'll bodge a few presets in there while getting the basics down and pad them out later with custom sounds.

@MiscreanT: To suggest either Richard D James or Autechre use presets is blasphemy!!

rdubz · Post by **rdubz** » Fri May 22, 2009 12:50 pm

I always start with presets till I get a sound thats similar to what im looking for and change it if need be, to be honest im more likely to gate it, run a phase or echo/reverb over it instead of changing the oscillation, although if I get bored I will sit their and make sounds from scratch, but usually when putting an idea down I like to whack it on a preset, then after listening to the same riff on that voice for a while any other sound is a bit alien, so I keep it.

miscreant · Post by **miscreant** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:09 pm

ASCII wrote:
@MiscreanT: To suggest either Richard D James or Autechre use presets is blasphemy!!

Its not, its being realistic - none of us have ever sat while either of those artists sat and made a tune from scratch, for all we know they are both sitting on some crazy vst full of mental grannyfucker presets that nobody knows about.

Now obviously we all know that theyre not, but to rule out them using any presets is ridiculous - You dont actually know 100% what anybody does when making a tune, thats what makes it so fun, you can do whatever you want. To think that someone using presets in a tune means that the tune will end up a certain style or standard is laughable, there are millions of presets out there lots of which sound amazing and could fit perfectly in songs, all a preset is is a sample and electronic music has been based on stealing samples since day one.

norman swashbuckle · Post by **norman swashbuckle** » Fri May 22, 2009 3:03 pm

only brutal electro

lhd · Post by **lhd** » Fri May 22, 2009 3:29 pm

I can take a preset from one of the synths in reason and tweak to the point of complete unrecognizableness(i made that word up!), and no one knows what I started with. I do that most of the time then add plugin filters and effects etc. in Ableton. When I use Massive though, I almost always start from scratch, because those presets are so played and also because there's just much to do in that synth mod wise etc., it's too much shite to wade through for my tastes. It is mad fun to see what comes out of all the different wave form out there though. What waves come out sounding like strings, pads, etc. So many people out there only want to make some same ol' whompy ass shit for club kids anyway and are only into figuring how to get sounds like other cats that without presets more than half the fuckers who post on this forum would be playing video games instead of makin' tunes anyway! IMHO.

j wilderness · Post by **j wilderness** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:00 pm

I find if I am making reece bass and shit like that I can't get as good or wholesome of a sound if I start off with a preset. I just think it is fun creating presets and saving them for later. Modulation is one of my favorite parts about making electronic music, so naturally I'm gonna make my own shit or at least fiddle with the presets that are made for me. generally I use allot of bussed effects so presets become almost unrecognizable anyways. I never said that using presets is wrong, I just think I wouldn't have as much fun making tunes if I didn't know how to turn a default setting into a scary monster that sounds like it is going to eat you alive... lol

j wilderness · Post by **j wilderness** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:14 pm

The way that Massive's preset library is set up I completely bypassed both of those brutal electro presets(until they were mentioned on here) and a slew of other ones. making your own shit with massive can be really really fun (and hard). I love the performance lfo so much... I'm still fully hooked on Albino though because of the ease of use.

gravity · Post by **gravity** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:47 pm

Slothrop wrote:
J Wilderness wrote:you have to at least fuck around with the preset at little to make it somewhat unrecognizable IMO. Whats the fun in using a straight preset anyways?
WRITING A FUCKING TUNE WITH IT!

Really, are you guys actually so bogged down in synth programming that you've forgotten that there's A LOT more to music than deciding whether your bass sound goes EUURGHHH or WUURGHHH? Listen to UK garage - I'll bet a pretty large fraction of the instrument sounds (except maybe the bass) are presets? Do you care? Do you notice? No. I don't give a shit whether Wookie picked up a generic e-piano preset or spent ages synthesizing his own generic e-piano sound because he's using it to play a bloody tune not show off his synth programming skills.

thats probably partly why most uk garage sounds cheap and shitty

j wilderness · Post by **j wilderness** » Sat May 23, 2009 3:57 pm

gravity wrote:
Slothrop wrote:
J Wilderness wrote:you have to at least fuck around with the preset at little to make it somewhat unrecognizable IMO. Whats the fun in using a straight preset anyways?
WRITING A FUCKING TUNE WITH IT!

Really, are you guys actually so bogged down in synth programming that you've forgotten that there's A LOT more to music than deciding whether your bass sound goes EUURGHHH or WUURGHHH? Listen to UK garage - I'll bet a pretty large fraction of the instrument sounds (except maybe the bass) are presets? Do you care? Do you notice? No. I don't give a shit whether Wookie picked up a generic e-piano preset or spent ages synthesizing his own generic e-piano sound because he's using it to play a bloody tune not show off his synth programming skills.
thats probably partly why most uk garage sounds cheap and shitty

yeah. wouldn't you rather someone who is a good musician and has dope programming skills as well? Anyone can take a bunch of presets and throw them together in the same scale but at the same time if the dude doesn't know how to process it, shit it is still going to sound like crap..

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Sat May 23, 2009 4:04 pm

J Wilderness wrote:
gravity wrote:
Slothrop wrote:
J Wilderness wrote:you have to at least fuck around with the preset at little to make it somewhat unrecognizable IMO. Whats the fun in using a straight preset anyways?
WRITING A FUCKING TUNE WITH IT!

Really, are you guys actually so bogged down in synth programming that you've forgotten that there's A LOT more to music than deciding whether your bass sound goes EUURGHHH or WUURGHHH? Listen to UK garage - I'll bet a pretty large fraction of the instrument sounds (except maybe the bass) are presets? Do you care? Do you notice? No. I don't give a shit whether Wookie picked up a generic e-piano preset or spent ages synthesizing his own generic e-piano sound because he's using it to play a bloody tune not show off his synth programming skills.
thats probably partly why most uk garage sounds cheap and shitty

yeah. wouldn't you rather someone who is a good musician and has dope programming skills as well? Anyone can take a bunch of presets and throw them together in the same scale but at the same time if the dude doesn't know how to process it, shit it is still going to sound like crap..

+1

Using presets is cheap, end of.

j wilderness · Post by **j wilderness** » Sat May 23, 2009 4:11 pm

plus finding a preset that is exactly what im looking at any specific time is like finding a needle in a haystack.

soner one · Post by **soner one** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:02 pm

I use presets sometimes for my synth melodys and then tweaking them

but i never use presets for my bass

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Mon May 25, 2009 8:46 pm

J Wilderness wrote:yeah. wouldn't you rather someone who is a good musician and has dope programming skills as well?

Maybe, but I'd also rather not have people who are brilliant at songwriting, coming up with melodies and arrangements, creating a vibe, have a real feel for rhythm etc but no particular talent for synth programming never get very far with music because they spend all their time laboriously trying to produce sounds from scrtch that 99.99% of music fans won't know aren't presets unless it's because they're not as good sounding as presets.

Anyone can take a bunch of presets and throw them together in the same scale

Right, because the only component of musical composition beyond sound design is 'throwing some stuff together in the same scale'. I guess that if that's how you approach it then working on your sound design is going to be important...

gravity · Post by **gravity** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:46 pm

Slothrop wrote:
J Wilderness wrote:yeah. wouldn't you rather someone who is a good musician and has dope programming skills as well?
Maybe, but I'd also rather not have people who are brilliant at songwriting, coming up with melodies and arrangements, creating a vibe, have a real feel for rhythm etc but no particular talent for synth programming never get very far with music because they spend all their time laboriously trying to produce sounds from scrtch that 99.99% of music fans won't know aren't presets unless it's because they're not as good sounding as presets.
Anyone can take a bunch of presets and throw them together in the same scale
Right, because the only component of musical composition beyond sound design is 'throwing some stuff together in the same scale'. I guess that if that's how you approach it then working on your sound design is going to be important...

the reason i think learning to use your tools properly is important in electronic music because using a computer eliminates the need to get good at an instrument. if you wanted to write a decent piece of music before the whole software studio revolution, you would have to spen years learning to play an instrument proficiently.

now we dont have to do that, so imo the equivalent is learning how to use your synths, samplers, effects and the like properly. i think if you bypass this you are basically being a lazy tnuc. plus if you want to forge your own sound, a large part of that is creating your own sonic palette, and if you're just a preset whore its gonna be a whole lot more difficult to do that.

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:57 pm

You mean it's important to arbitrarily make production difficult because otherwise people with ideas would just be able to make music rather than spending years geeking out over technique?

And now that computers have removed the need for manual skill we need to introduce a random new criteria to judge people on because otherwise we'd have to think about whether their tunes are actually any good and maybe admit that people who haven't spent years 'learning their craft' are actually making better music than us? Maybe we should say that people are cheating if they use VSTs with predefined filters or oscillators and should build their own in SynthMaker or MAX or something, that way we could call anyone without a degree in signal processing a lazy tnuc.

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:21 pm

Slothrop wrote:You mean it's important to arbitrarily make production difficult because otherwise people with ideas would just be able to make music rather than spending years geeking out over technique?

And now that computers have removed the need for manual skill we need to introduce a random new criteria to judge people on because otherwise we'd have to think about whether their tunes are actually any good and maybe admit that people who haven't spent years 'learning their craft' are actually making better music than us? Maybe we should say that people are cheating if they use VSTs with predefined filters or oscillators and should build their own in SynthMaker or MAX or something, that way we could call anyone without a degree in signal processing a lazy tnuc.

You're talking out your arse mate.

He's just stating that making you own sound on a synth is better than using a preset.

I mean your not arguing with that notion, are you?

And who cares if the average music listener can't tell if it's a preset. The average listener buys lady GaGa and Britney spears, i'd rather have the respect of my musical peers than a bunch of drunken sluts and douches.

POND LIFE · Post by **POND LIFE** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:24 pm

whatever way you cut it, if the artist's sole input into a track as far as the bassline (for example) has been picking a preset and writing a few notes, i have no respect for that and neither should any producer.

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:38 pm

ASCII wrote: He's just stating that making you own sound on a synth is better than using a preset.

I mean your not arguing with that notion, are you?

I'm arguing with the notion that it's important to have put "enough work" into a piece of music rather than to have made music that connects emotionally with people, communicates a feeling or makes people dance and with the notion that sound design is the only thing that involves any work, people just naturally fart brilliant melodies, instrumentation, rhythm, vibe and all that sort of stuff out in their sleep.

slothrop · Post by **slothrop** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:40 pm

d1rt1989 wrote:whatever way you cut it, if the artist's sole input into a track as far as the bassline (for example) has been picking a preset and writing a few notes, i have no respect for that and neither should any producer.

So the entire history of music prior to about 1970 gets no props round your ends?

All Charlie Parker ever did was pick up a sax and play a few notes. How lazy can you get? And Beethoven didn't even play his own stuff, he just wrote it down and got other people to play it!

dont lie. do you really never use presets?

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