Is it a sin to use others' patches in the production world?

[Huts]

I pity the fool that limits himself to only using sounds and samples they've made themselves

[leeany]

I pity the fool that limits himself to only using sounds and samples they've made themselves

You might aswell just go Zomby style and not limit yourself by only releasing tunes that you've made yourself, isn't it ?

[slothrop]

Well, i hate to say this, but it applies really well here. Does an artist make his own colors?

I dont understand that ananolgy at all. The colour blue is always the colour blue, but a synth isn't just any synth. Looking at a painting you don't go WOW that colour is really blue, what an amazing colour. But listening to a track you might go FUCK, that synth, that synth is next level.

I dont think its important really. Unless the whole composition is built around a really complex synth that was programmed by someone else. As long as the music is decent, and it doesnt competely ripp-off someone elses work, then its fine. Most established producers use presets, it doesn't detract from their ability to interest the listener.

Yeah, some music is about sound design and some isn't. If you play keys in a jazz band and use the "Rhodes piano #4" preset on your keyboard, noone's going to care very much, if you make droney soundscapey ambient and the only way you can do it is by downloading a "complex evolving drone" preset and holding a key down, you might want to ask yourself why you're bothering.

Dubstep is probably somewhere in the middle, depending on exactly what your style is ie if the main interest in your tune is the upfront wobble then you're probably going to want to start customizing your wobbles at some point if you're interested in pushing things forward...

The other thing is that provided the producer isn't pretending to have done stuff they didn't, then I don't really care if a tune actually is all just a 'press a key get a tune' preset provided it's good - 2d by Skream and Sleng Teng riddim being the obvious cases. Sure they didn't get to showcase their amazing writing talents and express their deepest feelings on those tracks, but they've made tunes that have made a lot of people happy, and that's a worthwhile thing in itself tbh. Although I guess the key thing there is that they kind of took presets that sounded quite unlikely and spotted that they'd actually work as dubstep or reggae tunes, rather than taking a totally generic 'dubstep tune' preset, which would be unlikely to produce anything particularly surprising...

[Lucifa]

Whats the preset on 2D? Ive always thought of that as a beautifully produced track.

[Climax]

i think for things like pads and instruments, there is nothing wrong with using presets, lots of people do it, including big name artists with very popular tracks have presets that are recognizable... in the end, who cares? if it sounds good, use it. But personally, for something like your main basses, id say focus on getting that aspect of sound design down. but spending hours trying to synthesize a flute or horn or keys i think your time would be better spent on arrangement and mixing down especially if you are a beginner.

[slothrop]

Whats the preset on 2D? Ive always thought of that as a beautifully produced track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRC50SIb-Y

I've had a play with that ensemble and yeah, you just hold down the button and that's what comes out. There was, like, a 327 page thread on here about it at the time - some people overreacted a bit.

[samurai]

God knows I've mixed my fair share of colors from pigment... did I feed the Indian cattle that piss soaked the ground that produced the pigment, hells of no, even if I did, the cows are still the product of thousands of years of human genetic meddling. It is unavoidable, we're all connected, draw your lines where you will, but dispel your illusions.

everyone please read and understand this.

[joegrizzly]

I never use massive patches from what I see there all "datsik" ones anyways so I could care less... I think you gotta make everything yourself, some sampling for pads and sound effects are alright with me though but you still gotta do your own processing