I don’t give a rat’s ass if you use presets or not. If that guitar EQ sounds beautiful on your kazoo, go forth, you have my blessing. But let’s get clear about something.
Patches are not presets. Where a preset is like going into a shoe store and telling them what size your foot is. In synthesis, a patch is an expressive work.
It’s akin to a composition. And in fact, patches are hands down one of the best ways to learn your way around a synthesizer. One technique involves reverse engineering patches by disabling their components one by one so you can hear what they’re doing.
By the time you get your sound back to a default state, you’ll understand a lot more about your synthesizer. But whether or not you decide to use presets, please go out and explore the patches made by some of your fellow creators. They’re wonderful, expressive, and if someone who wants to join our synth incubator and trade patchmaking more stories, share this post.
