Should I be ashamed of using presets?

[Acoustic Interloper]

It's not the frequency of the preset, it's the size of the patch

[ark]

Not only should you not use presets, but you should also build your own synthesizers from scratch. Also develop a totally novel theory of music.

[blue hell]

[ark]

Don't you have to extract the silicon from sand first?

[blue hell]

But of course!

[DrJustice]

Are you guys suggesting using preset sand
I suggest you start with eroding a mountain yourself!

[blue hell]

I'm not God

[elektro80]

[blue hell]

Ah, an easy way out



http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/10/arturia-teases-a-new-analog-mini-keyboard-microbrute/

[Antimon]

[gustavojobim]

Answering to your original question: no.

(Klaus Schulze, Roedelius, Jean-Michel Jarre, everyone does it. What matters is how you use them.)

[brainvoyager]

There are thousands and thousands of people that play the piano. There are thousands and thousands of people that write music for the piano. They all have one thing in common: all the music they write and play on the piano sounds like a piano. The reason is obvious, it's because it's a piano.

Does this say anything about the quality of that music despite the fact that all these people use the sound of a piano? Of course not.

A preset is a preset. The advantage of a synth above a piano is that one can create his or her own sounds with it. That's something one can't do on a piano. So what?

What matters is one's creative mind, one's composition, his or her performance. No matter what the nature of the instrument and the sound is, it's all about the things just mentioned. An instrument is merely a means through which music can be made audible. And the fact if one likes the chosen instrument, more specific: the chosen sound, or not, is purely subjective.

I consider a preset just as a sound. I consider the sound of a piano as just a sound, I consider the sound of whatever acoustic instrument just as a sound. The choice what sound to use is a subjective one. Every choice is ok. But if one likes to create his or her sounds, then that's very much ok as well.

So that's why I consider the question as to whether to be ashamed to use presets or not, as a completely 'ridiculous' question.

[filboid]

:BLOAT: I see not much changes over the years when it comes to opinions about music creation and the :BLOAT: proper technique.

Presets are someone elses idea true, and if you use them to create a new idea isn't that tantamount to picking up a Startocaster and sounding similar to Hendrix? I mean hell its only a preset and if you can use it to create art in a way that the author of the preset never imagined that is cool in my :BLOAT: opinion.

In the early 70's I was in a prog rock band called Not Yet. I used to take apart old walkie talkies and transistor radios use a wire probe to find cool sounds. I had an old surveyors wooden box that was over 5 feet tall and really cool looking. I put a few of these PC boards in it after soldering a bunch of switch's and potentiometers so I could create ridiculous sounds on stage. Lots of fun and now its in vogue as circuit bending. Yawn...........

I don't even know where I am going with this.................ok back to writing music! Oh and I do still use presets a lot including my own.

PS. Never assume that what you are doing has never been done before until....................someone tells you so. Even then I would be very skeptical.

[robsol]

Indeed... Aren't we but complex processors, having a vast amount of input which we filter and process, creating art and expression as a result. Seen in this light, there is nothing original, but just re-processed signals with no ownership or claims to being the generator of something genuinely new. After all, you do not live in a vacuum. Who cares if you use a particular tool in one way or another, or a specific system of ideas already thought up, like equal temperament or FM synthesis. Use what you can in any way that you can, and don't stop the flow.

[glow worm]

Why should anyone be ashamed of using presets? There are several, million-selling bands who haven't exactly been shy about doing so - or about raeping the free demo synths they get six months ahead of Joe Public for all the best presets, which means YOU can't use them because it'll sound like you've copied someone famous

IMO: many, if not most presets are like wheels that don't need reinventing. If I need - say - a squelchy brass, some warm strings or a soaring lead, then there are already plenty I can choose from. By the time they've been tweaked and shoved through some FX they'll be "my" sounds

And that's how I mainly use presets: as pre-formed, rough templates. I have a sound in my head, so I trawl through the presets in search of one which has *something* in common with it - tone, envelopes, LFOs or whatever. Then I'll start playing with it...

[StephenKilgour]

In reply to the original topic statement, I say that it doesn't matter if you use presets or not, as long as you get the desired sound that you want and it sounds cool, who cares?

[Nacho]

No, you learn with presets.

[mapperboy]

Its a very old debate. Sorry for the reply to this old post but I just joined!. This discussion has being going on since electro music was possible, (Cage-Stockhausen, Tudor etc. even Hammond and Fender) After 45 years in music I now need to say consider the song first. If you have time (and I've spent literally hundreds of hours on Korg machines) to sample and create truely 'original' patch then go for it. However many electro artists' talents and time are better put to refine their actual pieces; melody/noise lines, riffs, progressions, dynamics etc. and just use something already out there. Minor tweaks can usually be done once you know the sound engines and will give just as 'original' flavour if you are seeking to be mostly identified the artist who of whom it's said 'wow, never heard that sound before!' IMHO

[TripMX]

Hmmm, regarding presets, I personally RARELY EVER use them. I can onlly remember one or two songs out 80+ that I used presets on. I always try to keep my work as original as possible.

Not saying that using presets is a bad thing, but I'd have a more self-gratifying feeling if I made everything myself, and that's how I work.

[mode]