Too much patches, how do you handle them?

[jam-s]

I've also got more sounds and patches than I could realistically all listen too and remember. So if I browse around and find interesting sounds I put them into different favourites lists (organised by style/genre/sound). Then when feeling inspired to do some new track I just grab an inspiring sound from any of those and start to arrange from whatever comes to mind using blocks to quickly create the basic song structure and then extend it with more additional sounds/instruments.

I just don't care if the sounds I use are the best possible, as long as they somehow work together. Later on during finishing the track and after a rough mix is done you can then start to look into tweaking the sounds/patches to better fit in the mix. The biggest show stopper imho is to get overly obsessed with trying to find the best possible sound/patch for any instrument, as that is a very subjective and my even change depending on your mood. Just finding something that works well is enough imho or you'll never be done with any project.

[Bloma]

I just make my own these days, and have a big folder of all my custom ones, which I should organise into more folders when I remember to. There's something about presets that I can't really get along with anymore.

[Proboscis]

Nice necro topic to resurface.

A couple of years ago, when upgrading computers, I spend a month (yes, a MONTH) on organizing my patches, presets, ReFills and samples into some kind of usable depository.

I deleted as many GB as I saved, making some hard decisions on how attached I might be to a 'sound'.

Still... I rarely use most of it all, perhaps one day soon I'll delete everything, in the interests of digital liberation.


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[dvdrtldg]

I find the whole preset patch thing ridiculous. "Check out this new Rob Papen synth!" Yeah it's awesome, but 5000 patches? get outta here with that shit. And too many of them are designed primarily to demonstrate the awesome power of the instrument, so they come slathered in 6 inches of hi gloss cinematic FX goo

I use a tiny number of patches for getting things started - an Antidote pluck bass, a Legend sine bass, a Thor saw etc - then spend a lot of time tweaking & swapping instruments around once the basic compositional elements are in place. Giant patch menus just give me a headache

[Rising Night Wave]

there are not too much of presets. since there are a lot of users using mainly presets. but they are not sorted well. like by genres or styles. it would be avesome if they would be sorted.

i am one of them who use mainly presets. i am not a sound engineer. so i use only presets. and modify them sometimes. so i am glad there are a lot of presets.

but as said: they should be sorted well. or at least they would have some sort of tags. and search persets by these tags.

[BigPictureSound]

Spend some hours foldering them. After a certain point the layout of synths get really small though man.

This is what i thought of too.

BTW: my default song starter file has just some ID8s, one echo and one reverb... This is what i need for song layouts/song writing.
But when it comes to sound design, there is a little devil on my shoulder who says: use those presets, you PAID for them you idiot!!
And the angel on the other shoulder says: throw away those patches. they are evil!!!

You can flip patches into new ones or use them as is but tweak a few things to get something different. Embrace them

[illlumen]

I had times where I sat down and went through ALL of my synth patches. Literally. Being very critical is important. I prefer asking questions like Do I really have a use for that sound in my musical style? against Will I ever make use of it?.
And we are talking synth patches here. Effect patches (except really complex stuff like Unfiltered Audio Byome for example).
I did the same thing with my samples, one shots and loops. I am happy that I took my time and that I threw away so many stuff. Now, I still have way too much. But I know where to find it. What I learned the hard way: You have to know your way around. In your DAW, in your hard drive - in your perspectives as an artist. It makes life easier. Getting lost can be nice, too. But I always know where the exit doors are.