How many user presets are enough in a hardware synth?

[RABid]

Like many here I started playing synths when there were no presets. Was really happy when I bought my first programmable synth with 16 program saves. SIXTEEN! We had more songs than that but I made it work. How many different subtractive synth patches do you really need for a gig anyway? A couple years later I got a new synth with 64 user preset locations and thought "Wow. That is a patch for every song my cover band plays. Plus a few extra for songs that I need to change sounds for a lead." Never thought I would need more. Watched a keyboard review this morning and the person went on a big rant about only having 256 user patch locations.

 

So how many patch locations do you need? I guess there is a big difference between people who play in a gigging band and want user patch locations for playing the night, and users who are into patch design. 

[Nathanael_I]

My most limited hardware synth is the OB-6. It supports 4 banks of 100 patches. Have never run out. The rest are 1000 or unlimited.

[bill5]

Yeah for a live gig you don't need many unless you're doing some really way-out electronica something or other. Studio may be more variable.... 

 

I think this could apply to soft synths as well. "This has 5 billion presets!" is something that makes me less inclined to want it, not more. IMO anything over about 100 is overkill. I think Omnisphere boasts what like 10,000? That's absurd. What's the point of a ton of presets most of which I'll never hear or use? 

[Moonglow]

I have about 600-700 user spaces occupied in my Kronos 88, most of them being combinations (“Combi”) I developed for specific songs. Probably seems like a lot, but I’ve been using this axe for over ten years in five different bands. Some of them are “reference” programs that are subtly different from each other, which I’ve never gone back to erase after deciding which one I liked best.

[uhoh7]

Somewhere between 0 and 5000. It all depends on the hardware. Synths became a "thing" before presets. 

[Baldwin Funster]

Eight hundred forty seven. That's 846 plus one spare.

[allan_evett]

I have approximately 180 Programs saved on my Stage 3, 76.  And quite a few of those are in use within about 40 Song setups on the instrument.  Each Song allows for quick Program changes between up to five selections,  similar to a Kronos/Nautius Set List choice, or Fantom Switch Groups within a Performance (though simpler than both).  And for the most part  my other instruments have back up presets that cover those essential-to-me sounds.  My Stage 3 was in the shop from mid-August to October, 2021 (entire action replacement),  but I was able to cover several gigs-between two groups at the time-with my Fantom 7. 

[David Emm]

The obvious answer has mostly been addressed: which synth(s), under what circumstances? When I owned two DW8000s, I bought the MEX8000 expanders that had 4 banks of 64, as opposed to only 64 in the synth. That seemed like plenty until I began doing more experimental things. One bank became a near-Klaus-Schulze tribute set. Mmm, smell the hand-written patch lists, taped in bad places! Now, that would all just be another Logic project.

 

Nathaniel's mention of 400 in the OB-6 feels pretty good for a single instrument. That's enough to really explore its character. Workstations call for a lot more, being asked to cover almost Everything. Bread-&-butter sounds are pretty easy to set up. If you are an "ambient" artist, even a mere 100 could be ample if you modulate on the fly a lot. Its a bit Buchla-like in that respect. Its always about picking the instruments that come as close to your ideal as possible.

 

I've been ITB for some time now. I love being able to recall everything with a few clicks. Wrestling with hardware was my training for Logic. If you tried to send me back to the Bronze Age of MIDI splitters and hexidecimal programming, I would hurt some of your soft parts with a blunt object.     

[AnotherScott]

6 hours ago, RABid said:

Like many here I started playing synths when there were no presets. Was really happy when I bought my first programmable synth with 16 program saves. SIXTEEN! We had more songs than that but I made it work. How many different subtractive synth patches do you really need for a gig anyway? A couple years later I got a new synth with 64 user preset locations and thought "Wow. That is a patch for every song my cover band plays. Plus a few extra for songs that I need to change sounds for a lead." Never thought I would need more. Watched a keyboard review this morning and the person went on a big rant about only having 256 user patch locations.

 

I think one thing that has led to the need for more patches than in the old days is that people may try to do more on a single keyboard. The more you try to do on one board, the more you need to configure splits, and every split combination can be another preset. Two boards each with 16 presets would give you 128 (?) sounds and LH/RH combinations. If you tried to duplicate that on one board, and wanted either hand to be able to play either sound, I think you'd need 256 presets just to access the same number of sounds/combinations you would get by stacking two 16-preset boards.

 

And then if you want to preconfigure them with different split points (depending on whether you needed more space for your LH sound or your right), that's more again! Of course, we don't necessarily need all those combinations, though we offset that by taking advantage of the fact that we can now do 3 and 4 sound split/layered combinations as well. 

 

4 hours ago, bill5 said:

"This has 5 billion presets!" is something that makes me less inclined to want it, not more. IMO anything over about 100 is overkill. 

 

This is a problem with the Fantoms. Too many sounds, so many of which are only tiny variations on another. Pointless clutter.

 

On the plus side, Roland has good search facilities to help you drill down to what you want (category, subcategory, and text string search, along with marking Favorites). On the minus side, they have a lot of stupid sound naming. Looking for a bell sound? Search for Bell and you'll see, for example, a sequence of presets labelled Bell 1 through Bell 22. Synth Brass is similar. They should be named with *something* that indicates something of their character. Names that are identical except for number are, again, pointless.

[Mighty Motif Max]

Actual patches/single sounds/programs? 128 - most keyboards have at least enough quality presets that I don't have to roll my own for everything. The most user presets I've made is on my Motif XF that I got in 2016; I had about 75. If the keyboard can be expanded with additional sound libraries, then that number needs to go up significantly - I'd want 384/3 banks of 128 minimum.

 

Now for combis/multis, I would want at least 256, if not 512+. This is because of the high number of songs I need to be set up for, and I don't like to have to make a new combi every time we go back to an old song. So enough space to store years worth of cover and worship tune combis, which is going to be at least 256, but the more the better IMO.

[bill5]

6 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

This is a problem with the Fantoms. Too many sounds, so many of which are only tiny variations on another. Pointless clutter.

Amen.

 

Quote

On the plus side, Roland has good search facilities to help you drill down to what you want (category, subcategory, and text string search, along with marking Favorites). On the minus side, they have a lot of stupid sound naming. Looking for a bell sound? Search for Bell and you'll see, for example, a sequence of presets labelled Bell 1 through Bell 22. Synth Brass is similar. They should be named with *something* that indicates something of their character. Names that are identical except for number are, again, pointless.

I agree that more descriptive names are better, but eventually you get to a point where that's hard if not impossible...and I'd rather Bell 1/etc that goofball names for sounds that give you no indication of what they're about. "Summer Meadow" doesn't tell me squat. At least "Bell 1" tells me it's some kind of bell sound.

 

[AnotherScott]

1 hour ago, bill5 said:

I agree that more descriptive names are better, but eventually you get to a point where that's hard if not impossible...and I'd rather Bell 1/etc that goofball names for sounds that give you no indication of what they're about. "Summer Meadow" doesn't tell me squat. At least "Bell 1" tells me it's some kind of bell sound. I'll *never* remember which of Bell 1 through 22 is which.

 

Yes, but you can have both, like instead of Bell and just a number, it could be things like... Bell 1 - tinkly, Bell 2 - large, Bell 3 - octaves, Bell 4 - arpeggiated, Bell 5 - echo, Bell 6 - bright, Bell 7 - long, etc. There's got to be *some* kind of descriptive adjective that, flawed/incomplete as it may be, is better than just a number. With just a list of Bell 1 through Bell 22, I'll certainly never remember how they differ. 

[bill5]

Yeah......I think it would vary and be subjective. I started up a spreadsheet with preset descriptions, but with synths having so damn many, I realized it became pointless to try if they had more than 50 or so ish. 

 

Really the best answer IMO is that the plugin allows you to rename the patches however you want. There are a few that do this, but they are rare unfortunately...and that also takes time.

 

PS:

Quote

I'll *never* remember which of Bell 1 through 22 is which.

For the record, I never said that. You did.   

[Analogaddict]

Memory is cheap. As many as possible, please..! I’ve maxed my Kronos out, all 2048 setups. 

[Tusker]

7 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

 

Yes, but you can have both, like instead of Bell and just a number, it could be things like... Bell 1 - tinkly, Bell 2 - large, Bell 3 - octaves, Bell 4 - arpeggiated, Bell 5 - echo, Bell 6 - bright, Bell 7 - long, etc. There's got to be *some* kind of descriptive adjective that, flawed/incomplete as it may be, is better than just a number. With just a list of Bell 1 through Bell 22, I'll certainly never remember how they differ. 

 

 

It certainly is an issue for me also. I think you can ..

 

a) try to describe the sound with the name, which was all we had for awhile.

b) add additional fields for descriptors like pads, leads, basses, etc. Or you can go further with a kind of tag (uses distortion, uses leslie, sample based, uses fm, etc.) This seems to be the current best practice.

c) In the future, I'd like to see kind of association system like the way that visual thesaurus works. That way, a user can "navigate" by clicking on similar sounds until they find the specific timbre they wish to use. Here is an example of the visual thesaurus for the word "orchestra."

 

 

It would take some coding (perhaps using AI) to organize patches this way, but for the performer, finding a sound would be a more tactile experience and less a linguistic one. You could "feel" your way around the spectrum by associating a sound with similar sounds.

[Stokely]

I only use hardware keyboards live.  I also don't tend to have a patch per song, especially across two keyboards.  For example, on songs where I use strings I tend to use the same one or two strings patches each time.  I don't care particularly about matching the original song, I care more about patch volume matching and for that, less is more.

I've gotten by with as few as 10 patches on a synth, on my Virus.  I tweaked on the fly.

On my VR700 I had two patches:  one for blue collar man, one for everything else   (the organ was very different for that song).  I chose ensemble sounds as needed on the fly.

The most I'd need would be on a "main keyboard", which tends to be a workstation.  Motif, PC3 and now a Modx.  I have four and half live sets worth of main patches (performances) currently in use (about 60), only about a fourth of those or less being song-specific.  The keyboard itself has tons but again I try to limit options for gigs.   That number is a tad misleading though as I use "scenes" for many performances, so that could be argued to be up to four "patches" per performance depending on how different each scene is.  For example, on Comfortably Numb I have one scene for the verses and one for the chorus and outro, the latter bringing up the strings and turning down the woodwinds.  Only the Lonely (Motels) I have three scenes for different areas of the song, same performance.

Having live sets like the quick access of the Pc3 or these on the Modx is more important than the number of patches.  Having to scroll through tons of them sucks.  I may come up with a patch change system from my ipad or the Modx in any case, depends on whether it makes life easier or more problematic  

 

[AnotherScott]

41 minutes ago, Stokely said:

Having live sets like the quick access of the Pc3 or these on the Modx is more important than the number of patches.  Having to scroll through tons of them sucks.  I may come up with a patch change system from my ipad or the Modx in any case, depends on whether it makes life easier or more problematic  

Yes, I'd rather have quick access to 16 sounds than a knob to scroll through 100+.

 

Using an iPad to get sufficient quick access if a board doesn't give it to you can be a good solution, though you also want to find a way to place that iPad ergonomically, which can be tricky. Ideally you don't want it too far off to the side, and you want it to be solidly held so it doesn't jiggle when you tap it. Some boards come with attachable music stands (standard or optional), which can be great for this. Or a lightweight collapsible floor-standing music stand can work well, too. 

[Canoehead]

I fall into the “as many as possible camp”.  I consider myself a “parts” player (please don’t ask me to play a set of solo piano tunes!). 😀. I like to get as close to the original sounds and parts as possible, for the songs covered in the various bands I’ve been in.  That eats up lots of patchspace.   That’s a word, I said so!  😀

 

cheers,

Gord

[CyberGene]

For two years I’ve made around 50 patches on my Hydrasynth. I’ll be OK with 128 slots. But let’s say 128 for factory presets. So, 256 in total are all that I need 😀

[ProfD]

I don't need presets on a synth. But, for the sake of this thread....

 

2 presets would be convenient.

 

10 presets would be generous.

 

Anything more than 10 is overkill.

 

Otherwise, im inclined to play a synth i.e.  rolling sounds in real-time as the music flows.

 

As I mentioned in a similar thread a while ago, Roland offering 25 variations on a string is ridiculous. Omnisphere offering 10k presets is insane.

 

IMO, the infinite number of presets available today is the leading cause of analysis paralysis among musicians today.

 

Presets allow users to save every iteration of a sound design or setlist. Most of which they hardly ever use.

 

Quincy Jones once said about the mixing process in making records and I'm paraphrasing but it's easy to get so bogged down into the minutia of every sonic detail that eventually the mix becomes the equivalent of painting a 747 with Q-Tips.

 

KB instruments definitely make it easy to dive into that rabbit hole.

 

Composing and playing music doesn't benefit from an infinite number of presets. It only takes the right one to get it done. 😎

[CyberGene]

4 minutes ago, ProfD said:

IMO, the infinite number of presets available today is the leading cause of analysis paralysis among musicians today.

+1

[Stokely]

I definitely find that is a problem when it comes to my softsynths.  Especially when I'm not sure exactly what sound I want and just want to explore.

Heck just Alchemy must have several hundred if not more and it's one of probably a couple dozen plugins I have (not counting tons of reactor or Kontakt instruments)...   What really gets paralyzing is when you scroll through many presets on one plugin but feel compelled to do the same on others "just in case" (you find one EVEN MORE PERFECT)    

Which brings up another handy feature, not sure it exists on hardware:  tagging.  Native Instruments and the afore-mentioned Alchemy have decent tagging systems to help you find presets, and some plugins have ways to favorite or star ones you like.   My Modx has favorites and I probably should make more use of it for stuff I haven't added to a Live Set.

[David Emm]

6 hours ago, Stokely said:

Heck just Alchemy must have several hundred if not more and it's one of probably a couple dozen plugins I have (not counting tons of reactor or Kontakt instruments)...   What really gets paralyzing is when you scroll through many presets on one plugin but feel compelled to do the same on others "just in case" (you find one EVEN MORE PERFECT)    

Which brings up another handy feature, not sure it exists on hardware:  tagging.  Native Instruments and the afore-mentioned Alchemy have decent tagging systems to help you find presets, and some plugins have ways to favorite or star ones you like.   My Modx has favorites and I probably should make more use of it for stuff I haven't added to a Live Set.

 

Yeh, Alchemy is bursting with patches. So is Pigments, migawd! After just fiddling with a new synth for a bit, I go through the presets from A to Z and save a text file of the keepers. Its a bit brute-force, but not every synth has a per-patch slot for comments and it allows me to describe things more fully. Tagging is a welcome plus, although you can still hit that wall of General MIDI non-titles ("Brass 3") or cutesy labels. CthuluFart might be a bass, might be a burbling event sound, might be a brown note, hard to say. Then there's the immortal "AnalChoir."

 

I trust my ears enough to know when a patch is too vanilla and safely dismissed. I get more done with the smaller remaining cross-section of Solo, Poly and Layer. Solo is synth/guitar/woodwind type leads. Poly is pianos, organs, colorful pads and sections, like choir or strings. A Layer is not a candidate for much exposed playing, but its sweet enough to bolster other things well.

[Mighty Motif Max]

16 hours ago, Tusker said:

c) In the future, I'd like to see kind of association system like the way that visual thesaurus works. That way, a user can "navigate" by clicking on similar sounds until they find the specific timbre they wish to use. Here is an example of the visual thesaurus for the word "orchestra."

 

 

It would take some coding (perhaps using AI) to organize patches this way, but for the performer, finding a sound would be a more tactile experience and less a linguistic one. You could "feel" your way around the spectrum by associating a sound with similar sounds.

XLN XO does this almost exactly, for drum/percussion/fx samples. It scans your hard drive folders you choose, auto-assigns samples to groups based on different sound qualities, and presents everything to you as a map of sorts, with color-coded groups and similar sounds within each group nearby. You can increment through what it thinks are the most similar samples to your selected one, or manually choose what you want from the map as well. Extremely useful - it also gives you a preview of each sample.

 

It’s mainly set up for piecing together electronic drum kits, but the underlying tech should be able to translate to other areas I would think.

[o0Ampy0o]

13 hours ago, ProfD said:

IMO, the infinite number of presets available today is the leading cause of analysis paralysis among musicians today.

 

Quincy Jones once said about the mixing process in making records and I'm paraphrasing but it's easy to get so bogged down into the minutia of every sonic detail that eventually the mix becomes the equivalent of painting a 747 with Q-Tips.

Using this as an aside: Someone was bound to show up who could demonstrate what can be done with lots of precision analysis, musicianship, creativity and production.