Collecting synths when you only use presets.

[MrFigg]

I've got a right good load of synths covering pretty much everything from the beginning of synth-time to present day. Subractive, FM, Spectral...Moogs, Junos, 303s, you name it. I've got a million gigs of refills with samples from another right good number of synths. I generally browse presets. I do minimal tweaking. But still I look at getting new synths whenever a new one comes out. I can kerb the GAS most often and my VST Anon Sponsor usually keeps me strong. New Cherry Audio Elka came out yesterday. I'm trialing it and saying to myself that I don't already have a vintage Italian synth but I'm going through the presets and thinking how many other presets I've got on all my other syths and refills. You can probably see where I'm going with this.
If you're a preseter and a minimal tweaker and already have a million presets is there any point? (GAS aside).

[PhillipOrdonez]

Sounds like a R+ subscription would serve you well with all the sound packs

[MrFigg]

Sounds like a R+ subscription would serve you well with all the sound packs

I’m trying to get away from buying more stuff Phill. You are in no way helping.

[dan_g]

not tested elka but probably its not a good idea to buy it

maybe try to use something that you haven't used in ages, maybe it feels "new" again and you find some intressting sounds that inspire you.

i have pretty much the same problem like you but with samples. i collect everything i can find (mostly drum samples) but probably use 5% of all of my collection.

[MrFigg]

not tested elka but probably its not a good idea to buy it

maybe try to use something that you haven't used in ages, maybe it feels "new" again and you find some intressting sounds that inspire you.

i have pretty much the same problem like you but with samples. i collect everything i can find (mostly drum samples) but probably use 5% of all of my collection.

Dug out ABL3 yesterday . Magic.

[Tinnitus]

I've got a right good load of synths covering pretty much everything from the beginning of synth-time to present day. Subractive, FM, Spectral...Moogs, Junos, 303s, you name it. I've got a million gigs of refills with samples from another right good number of synths. I generally browse presets. I do minimal tweaking. But still I look at getting new synths whenever a new one comes out. I can kerb the GAS most often and my VST Anon Sponsor usually keeps me strong. New Cherry Audio Elka came out yesterday. I'm trialing it and saying to myself that I don't already have a vintage Italian synth but I'm going through the presets and thinking how many other presets I've got on all my other syths and refills. You can probably see where I'm going with this.
If you're a preseter and a minimal tweaker and already have a million presets is there any point? (GAS aside).

So I'm in a similar boat, I love presets and do minimal tweaking to taste. I know I'm mostly covered with the REs and VSTs I have, however I do wish you could browse refills easily and search across all of them, for example all bass sounds in refills either for a specific RE synth or all synths. As a result I don't revisit my refills often, so it might be worth refill digging.
I've never ever created a list of favourite refill patches either, so they may be value in doing this if you haven't yet to define your palette.
Also trying one or two synth projects forces you to dig deep.
I'm in the same boat, and trying hard to resist Revival before it goes. Often GAS is much easier than finishing tracks, so be brutal and perhaps hold off until the sales hit. There will always be something else, so I now resist unless there is a small developer I'm keen to support that has a lovely sounding synth.
YMMV

[motuscott]

If ReasonTalk could Reasontalk

[Neo]

Indeed. But that intro price*? lol..

[motuscott]

B still, my beating heart

[Jac459]

Dug out ABL3 yesterday . Magic.

Oh my, I totally forgot I got this one too...

I am affraid I can't help, I totally have the same issue. My new hobbie is to get melodies done with raw synth presets into a granular engine (novum, pigments or my beloved reason grain) to get new sounds.

Oh, by the way, I just bought the pro version of vital in order to get the additional presets (and also because this synth is way to awesome to be free).
I am doomed too...

[QVprod]

Honestly there’s so much crossover with a lot of presets or they sound so different that it ends up not being worth it. Trying to find a sound you hear in your head is hard to do on synths you’re not too familiar with.

It’s a bit more manageable with a preset tagging system like Komplete Kontrol has, but I still end up using certain synths as my go tos. I own V collection 7, Komplete 12 as well as most of the RS stuff amongst a few other REs (and some VSTs that aren’t installed) I’ve resigned to myself that I’ll never really get through all of it.

[Jac459]

Honestly there’s so much crossover with a lot of presets or they sound so different that it ends up not being worth it. Trying to find a sound you hear in your head is hard to do on synths you’re not too familiar with.

It’s a bit more manageable with a preset tagging system like Komplete Kontrol has, but I still end up using certain synths as my go tos. I own V collection 7, Komplete 12 as well as most of the RS stuff amongst a few other REs (and some VSTs that aren’t installed) I’ve resigned to myself that I’ll never really get through all of it.

I only partly agree, in the cases where I am searching to reproduce a sound I have in mind, the sounds are generally simple or vanilla enough that I am indeed able to build them anyway even with my more than mediocre sound designer skills.

But in many other cases, I am lacking inspiration and browsing sounds just help me find new ways. And each (good) synths will have his own speciality. Serum if I am looking for a growling bass idea, novum or grain for crazy pads, Europa or pigments for pretty plucks, predator if I have no idea where to go, spire or antidote for aggressive leads, obsession, legend or Vk2 for old school vibe, and so on...

[QVprod]

Honestly there’s so much crossover with a lot of presets or they sound so different that it ends up not being worth it. Trying to find a sound you hear in your head is hard to do on synths you’re not too familiar with.

It’s a bit more manageable with a preset tagging system like Komplete Kontrol has, but I still end up using certain synths as my go tos. I own V collection 7, Komplete 12 as well as most of the RS stuff amongst a few other REs (and some VSTs that aren’t installed) I’ve resigned to myself that I’ll never really get through all of it.

I only partly agree, in the cases where I am searching to reproduce a sound I have in mind, the sounds are generally simple or vanilla enough that I am indeed able to build them anyway even with my more than mediocre sound designer skills.

But in many other cases, I am lacking inspiration and browsing sounds just help me find new ways. And each (good) synths will have his own speciality. Serum if I am looking for a growling bass idea, novum or grain for crazy pads, Europa or pigments for pretty plucks, predator if I have no idea where to go, spire or antidote for aggressive leads, obsession, legend or Vk2 for old school vibe, and so on...

I think we agree more than you think. To go to a specific synth for a sound you have in mind is to be familiar with it in my eyes. However, buying another synth just for presets, I’d have to ask whether that synth truly offers something different to what you currently have. Sometimes that answer is yes, but a lot of my stuff definitely covers a lot of the same ground. Even in V collection to some degree. I think patch designers are often creatures of habit and tend to create similar presets across different synths.

[Jac459]

I think we agree more than you think. To go to a specific synth for a sound you have in mind is to be familiar with it in my eyes. However, buying another synth just for presets, I’d have to ask whether that synth truly offers something different to what you currently have. Sometimes that answer is yes, but a lot of my stuff definitely covers a lot of the same ground. Even in V collection to some degree. I think patch designers are often creatures of habit and tend to create similar presets across different synths.

Yeah, ha ha, I think we agree 100% in fact.

[crimsonwarlock]

I basically don't buy synths anymore. I'm pretty sure I have everything available to make any sound I will ever need. When a new synth plugin comes out, I look at videos where they demo the presets and if I hear something interesting, I try to make that sound with what I have available. Like that new Elka-X, I used to drool over the hardware version when it came out. But now listening to the emulation, and videos of the real thing for that matter, I don't hear anything I can't do with what I already have. Something like Antidote runs rings around an Elka Syntex, tmo of course, ymmv and all that

[SebAudio]

Even in V collection to some degree. I think patch designers are often creatures of habit and tend to create similar presets across different synths.

It’s obvious when you use Analog Lab : synths are not what differ from one sound to the other, it’s all determined by the kind of preset (some say that Arturia synths sound the same, there aren’t great emulations)

[MuttReason]

FWIW… over the years I’ve gradually been going in the opposite direction. Found I was drowning in presets… bazillions of the things in 20+ years’ worth of Refills plus (in Ableton Live) the equivalent in Packs. Scrolling through presets was becoming a creativity drag.

My solution has been to zero in on a small number of devices (in Reason and also in hardware) that are massively versatile and that I know inside out and can program something from scratch (ie device reset/init state) that gets to the sound in my head in far less time than it would take to scroll through presets.

In Reason (for me) that means Thor, Subtractor (still my first love going back to Reason v1) and more recently The Legend (best 3rd party RE instrument I’ve ever bought, adore it). It also means NN19 for one-hit sample mangling (yes I am old school) although I’m loving Mimic and can see how this will take over from NN19 for turning a simple 1-hit sample into something massive. And in hardware it means my ASM Hydrasynth which is super fast to program from scratch. I am also a sucker for any RE or plugin that emulates a Fender Rhodes (Suitcase73 RE is my latest, and it’s fab).

That said my GAS is still there except it’s now mostly focused on effects REs.

[motuscott]

I make noise with wires and skins

[jlgrimes]

I've got a right good load of synths covering pretty much everything from the beginning of synth-time to present day. Subractive, FM, Spectral...Moogs, Junos, 303s, you name it. I've got a million gigs of refills with samples from another right good number of synths. I generally browse presets. I do minimal tweaking. But still I look at getting new synths whenever a new one comes out. I can kerb the GAS most often and my VST Anon Sponsor usually keeps me strong. New Cherry Audio Elka came out yesterday. I'm trialing it and saying to myself that I don't already have a vintage Italian synth but I'm going through the presets and thinking how many other presets I've got on all my other syths and refills. You can probably see where I'm going with this.
If you're a preseter and a minimal tweaker and already have a million presets is there any point? (GAS aside).

To be fair many producers collect alot of synths and are mainly preset users who focus more on "finding" the right sound and playing/programming the right part.

Others build/modify the right lines. I think genre more matters here.

I think your wallet is the biggest decision maker as well as your workspace area.

I think others buy hardware from a collectors, investment, repair, perspective. Its the same with guitars as I know electric guitar collectors who really don't play but enjoy repairing/selling them.

I think once you buy enough synths and presets start sounding the same is your answer as too many redundancies could be counterproductive.

[Jac459]

To be fair many producers collect alot of synths and are mainly preset users who focus more on "finding" the right sound and playing/programming the right part.

Others build/modify the right lines. I think genre more matters here.

I think your wallet is the biggest decision maker as well as your workspace area.

I think others buy hardware from a collectors, investment, repair, perspective. Its the same with guitars as I know electric guitar collectors who really don't play but enjoy repairing/selling them.

I think once you buy enough synths and presets start sounding the same is your answer as too many redundancies could be counterproductive.

Agreed and I think time also matters. I am absolutely passionate about making music but I have a day job which is taking a looot of my time (and of course family time to manage also). So basically even if I would like to take the time to create presets because let's face it, it's fun, I am ending up using modified presets because it is a time saver and I find my music sessions more productive like that.

[Jac459]

I basically don't buy synths anymore. I'm pretty sure I have everything available to make any sound I will ever need. When a new synth plugin comes out, I look at videos where they demo the presets and if I hear something interesting, I try to make that sound with what I have available. Like that new Elka-X, I used to drool over the hardware version when it came out. But now listening to the emulation, and videos of the real thing for that matter, I don't hear anything I can't do with what I already have. Something like Antidote runs rings around an Elka Syntex, tmo of course, ymmv and all that

That is not fair haha. Antidote is running circles around a lot of synths... It even hold very well its ground against star synths like serum, vital or spire... Only the UI is a bit aged now.

For that matter, Zero is also crazy powerful in my view, one of the gem of the reason universe, along antidote, grain and many others...

[Mataya]

If you only use presets, just pull out Nostromo and hit that random button.

M

[bxbrkrz]

Your problem is you are collecting soft synths. The best cure is to start a hardware collection

[avasopht]

Your problem is you are collecting soft synths. The best cure is to start a hardware collection

Straight knowledge

[avasopht]

Sometimes I like to switch gears and commit to an approach for at least a couple of months.

It helps make decisions because I'm treating the decision as an experiment.

On the other hand, I've often gone for batteries-included solutions. Libraries with everything. When you have enough of everything, it becomes much easier to appreciate the things you'd easily overlook because you can see they're all equally capable of giving you what you want.

And sometimes GAS is good.

And sometimes we're trying to solve a problem that only exists in our heads.

If you only use presets, do you even need a synth when sampled instruments might work just as well?

And then you have the problem of presets. If you're the person who won't be satisfied with a patch that doesn't suit your style and timbre exactly, you're going to miss out on a lot of sounds that are EXACTLY what you want/need, but need a teeny tiny bit of tweaking.

That's where switching gears for a while helps.

I've committed to many things over the years:
- Triton LE/MPC3000 combo for a year.
- Sonic Reality Gold Bundle + Miroslav (for many many years) + some other Refills (like a Korg Triton Refill ... where I was able to import MIDI from the MPC and match what I'd made with the Triton LE/MPC combo).
- Steinberg Absolute Collection
- BitleyTM Refills
- Ableton Live + Push 1/2 + Novation Launchpad (this was more brief but I had it long enough to enjoy and understand the workflow)
- Logic Pro X for a year (and then I opened some old Reason projects and realized ... Reason is where I make my sound)
- Computer Muzys (discontinued, but lives on in MuTools)
- EWQL Cloud for a year
- Roland Cloud (had it for quite a while but just wasn't using it)

Lots of experiments. And lots of stuff that made it hard ... and impossible to conclude I needed more.

Sometimes I used to load up an old version of Reason, or just Reason without Record and work with my older Refills.

Or make tracks using only synths.

Or making complex NNXT patches (man I forgot about those days) ...

Actually, that could be an experiment for you. Make your own NNXT patches by sampling your synths, but process the synth before recording it so that you get your own sound. If you don't have BitleyTM Refills, I'd highly recommend getting any of his free or cheap content to have a look at how he makes his sampler patches. It might give you some ideas.

You should, in theory, be able to make terrific sample libraries with less than 50 MB of samples. Especially with the stuff we have in Reason now.

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