I work with several producers, very close friends, who do in fact use presets, just as they are. I know because I have seen their projects, or mixed a few myself. Of course, they may add or remove varying amounts of time based effects (reverb, delay) but that is a given. They may also add EQ that brings focus to the preset or cuts some specific frequency range. But, the actual preset, that which makes the main sound, is very often intact.BONES wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 2:55 amExcept they aren't. As someone else pointed out in another thread yesterday, it can be very hard to fit those sounds into a mix and that's because they are designed to sound good on their own. It's often quite time consuming trying to tame them so they play nicely with the things around them in a mix. Usually the quickest fix is to turn off all the on-board effects, which probably leads a lot of people to discount them entirely.
There is that Computer Music video with Avici showing his workflow. He is seen browsing through a list of presets, auditioning a few, and then settling on one he likes. Another example of 'real world, real people' using presets as they are.
In fact, the prevalence of various 'player' editions of different synths or samplers tells us that people do in fact use presets 'as they are', with perhaps making mix-level decisions in a DAW as to what effects are used.
However, I do understand the larger theme in your post that some presets may not fit a mix easily and may need to be edited, with perhaps the internal effects being heavily edited or removed entirely or in the end the preset may be abandoned because it's so overpowering in a mix. That may happen. However, this can not be treated as a de facto situation, a 'de rigueur', something that is always the case, because it isn't, as I've illustrated above.
Moreover, I know of producers using very complex presets, those presets that some may find overpowering in a mix, where they use them with their full original complexity.
So as always with these topics: anything goes. Some use factory presets with no tweaks, some may edit basic elements in the preset, some other will remove the internal effects, deeply customise it or change it completely, yet some other will get frustrated with the preset not fitting in he mix and abandon it in favour of an own creation.