The importance of designer presets in libre synths

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Basslint
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The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Basslint »

Hello,

many people I know have a bunch of expensive software synths but rarely ever turned one of their knobs. Why? Because they only use presets.

At the same time, when they try libre synths with much more powerful capabilities, they dislike them because they think the presets sound "dated". Has this ever happened to you?

From this experience, I've formed this opinion: we have pretty much everything on GNU/Linux in terms of synths, except perhaps some specific analog modelling algothms. And if something does not exist as a plugin, the more experienced users can always patch it up in CSound, Pure Data, Supercollider or ChucK,

What we lack sometimes is the "earcandy" to catch the attention of all those producers who don't care at all about synthesis, and there are a lot of them! Some of them are even successful professionals.

How can we achieve this? In my humble opinion, by hiring professional sound designers to do the presets, and by being more careful about what gets shipped by default rather than packing hundreds of so-and-so presets.

What do you think about it?

tl;dr: For first impressions, presets are more important than the synth itself, so they should be picked carefully
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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by nils »

Basslint wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:16 am tl;dr: For first impressions, presets are more important than the synth itself, so they should be picked carefully
This is absolutely correct and you have said it well. There is nothing I can add.
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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by tavasti »

Basslint wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:16 am How can we achieve this? In my humble opinion, by hiring professional sound designers to do the presets, and by being more careful about what gets shipped by default rather than packing hundreds of so-and-so presets.

What do you think about it?

tl;dr: For first impressions, presets are more important than the synth itself, so they should be picked carefully
I think you right in principle. How ever, I don't think it will be possible to hire pro sound designers, but advanced users should more contribute their presets to creators. Projects mostly don't have any budget at all, so paying for someone to make sounds would not be possible.

And I think it is ok to ship all presets, but they should be organized such way that some selected 'best of' presets were visible, and by default synth would be loading one of those, and when selecting next, there would another of those in a row.

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by jonetsu »

Basslint wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:16 am tl;dr: For first impressions, presets are more important than the synth itself, so they should be picked carefully
Absolutely. As a metaphor, I play acoustic guitar although I do not build guitars. Since I like working with wood I might try a few things here and there but the guitars I play I haven't built. If guitars were available only as DIY kits ... nice parts but you have to put them together in a meaningful way before being able to play.

Presets then, and sound set designers, of which some of them are popular for their creations. I don't know what a 'libre' synth is (for instance is u-he's Triple Cheese a 'libre' synth, as opposed to Open Source software ?) altough if some popular sound designers were to make sound sets for say, Zynaddsubfx, then it might give some spotlight to that synth. But then, they might need a very good and clear documentation to start with...
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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Basslint »

tavasti wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:46 pm I think you right in principle. How ever, I don't think it will be possible to hire pro sound designers, but advanced users should more contribute their presets to creators. Projects mostly don't have any budget at all, so paying for someone to make sounds would not be possible.
I think (and I say it often) that there is in general a cultural problem with money and libre software. It's hard to get into some people's heads that those developers need to eat too, and that by not giving them money they are forcing them to find work elsewhere (perhaps on proprietary programs, which are sadly more profitable).

It also keeps everything in an hobbyist perspective, while proprietary programs have no problem hiring people like Deadmau5 or BT or someone else to design sounds.

We need a cultural shift, in other words.

I think an escrow platform would be the best to achieve this - let's try to raise funds to get professional X to do Y, and if we fail, everyone gets their money back.
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. [Acts 4:32]

Please donate time (even bug reports) or money to libre software 🎁

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Basslint »

jonetsu wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:03 pm
Absolutely. As a metaphor, I play acoustic guitar although I do not build guitars. Since I like working with wood I might try a few things here and there but the guitars I play I haven't built. If guitars were available only as DIY kits ... nice parts but you have to put them together in a meaningful way before being able to play.
Good simile! Makes sense: some of us just want to make music!
Presets then, and sound set designers, of which some of them are popular for their creations. I don't know what a 'libre' synth is (for instance is u-he's Triple Cheese a 'libre' synth, as opposed to Open Source software ?) altough if some popular sound designers were to make sound sets for say, Zynaddsubfx, then it might give some spotlight to that synth. But then, they might need a very good and clear documentation to start with...
Libre means "free as in freedom", some of us use it to avoid confusion (since "free" in English also means "free of charge"). So yes, it's roughly the same as "open source", too :D
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. [Acts 4:32]

Please donate time (even bug reports) or money to libre software 🎁

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

Synth dummy here who is doomed from the start without presets

I agree with the premise, but I also agree with @tavasti that too many is as bad as too few unless they are organized and easily browseable in the Synth UI... A bad example is TAL Noisemaker or even Helm has a lot to scroll through...one hugely long list of presets, unfortunately most of my good examples are not Libre but Loomer's Aspect and the Uhe stuff have their presets organized very nicely with some metadata to help you choose..
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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by folderol »

Yoshimi has it's presets (i.e. Instruments) laid out in digestible sized banks, that themselves are in bank roots. The entire structure was designed to be immediately compatible with MIDI bank changes. Also, at a glance you can tell which instrument 'engines' have been used. The user can rearrange these, or create new banks as they like. Each instrument when selected has an information window.

The quality of the instruments is varied, but you can quickly find the ones you like best.
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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by AlkuK »

Good thread.

GMaq wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 3:10 pm

A bad example is ... even Helm has a lot to scroll through...

Yes, truly. Also: the musicality of a lot of them is somewhat lacking.

A musician's synth is a bit different from a sound designer's synth, as this thread makes clear.

In commercial synths my experience is about half are worth their salt, no matter the manufacturer. Opinions vary. Trends shall pass...

In ZynFusion/Yoshimi I'm loving the presets, but the amount of them can be heavy, for newcomers, at least.

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

I've never used a preset in any of the many instruments I've owned. First of all, a great many presets are designed to show off some effect capability of the synth. The effect is typically exaggerated in order to show off the capability in a flashy way. But that makes the preset of dubious musical use. Even if a preset has some musical potential, I'll always tweak it to see if it can be improved (and it almost always can be). So all my instrument sounds are always custom patches.

I think demos (complete musical arrangements using the product) are more useful for generating sales than presets. A demo song shows the potential of the product better than just auditioning individual patches.

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by folderol »

There is something very wrong if changing a preset breaks the plugin!

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Gps »

This is why I like Synth1.

The number of presets available is amazing.
I have over 50 soundbanks.

I also still want to learn though, how to not use presets. Just start with the default sound and experiment.

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Nachei »

Interesting debate. I have the impression that there are two camps among synth users: those who are perfectly happy using presets, and those who feel using presets is almost like "cheating", being lazy...

I myself am perfectly happy when I find out of the box a preset I can use, because for me the fun is in composing. I only make incursions in sound design when I have to, scenarios like "gosh, I like that sound, but I'd need it to go peew instead of peeeeew". Perhaps this has to do with my musical upbringing in the 80s, where you had a synth with a certain number of presets, and buttons for "next" and "previous". I've only learned about the possibilities of sound design (and gotten comfortable with the growing complexity), a lot later.

Then on the other side is people who enjoy the creativity of sound design. I remember an Unfa video where he started saying something like "in this video I'm not going to stop to tweak sounds, because I just want to show..." And then, a few minutes later, he had to laugh as he went "OK, whatever, let me stop and tweak this sound for a moment..." The guy couldn't help himself :P Some people don't have use for the presets, except possibly as a starting point, while others of us are kinda lost without them...

I'm guessing in open source projects it's easier to ask people to donate time rather than money. I'd maybe ask those users who are gifted with sound design talent to donate here and there some preset they are proud of, just like some people donate some piece of code (Isn't a suitable place in this forum where people could contribute that kind stuff? Maybe creating a sticky thread? )

Many Linux musicians are audiovisual professionals who can come up with excellent presets, I think getting the flashy producer of the moment to design them is just a commercial strategy, the Linux community is worldwide and for sure it includes lots of people of equal or superior talent to those celebrated names... Because the point here, I think, is motivating people to use libre synths because of the quality of their sounds, not luring them because the sounds are "designed by the-name-you-know"...

I also have to say that, from my layman perspective, I've always found very rich and usable the banks that ship with Zyn/Yoshimi. Although perhaps it's also true that there's some cheese in there... Maybe it would be a matter of organizing better what already exists, making it more user-friendly, rather than creating new stuff? I don't know, I'm just thinking aloud. In this regard, I think ZynFusion does a great work at organizing, with its text search and its columns-that-lead-to-subcolumns...

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by Gps »

I remember a vid of UNFA were he also made the drums in zasfx.

At first I was like wtf ? But it worked out nice.

About my previous post, mentioning synth1, I too late realized something.
Synth 1 is 100% legally free, but its not a libre synth as far as I know.
The source code is not available. oops.

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Re: The importance of designer presets in libre synths

Post by folderol »

A point I'd like to make about presets/instruments/ bank structures.
Very few of these seem to be MIDI friendly, yet it's easily done.
For a good many years now, Yoshimi's structure has been totally compatible.
A bank root (collection of banks) is MIDI MSB
A bank is MIDI LSB - these two are interchangeable (in the 1980s there were a very few hardware synths that got it wrong).
Instruments/Presets are MIDI program change.
That's just over 2 million possible entries!

At the same time there is a window that lets you see, and select from a simple list of any preset type, such as Piano, Strings, etc. That of course only works where people have actually filled in a type when creating a new one. Sadly there are a lot of 'undefined' ones :(

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