What synths have the most usable presets?

[Bodhisan]

Usable is subjective - I think it’s really going to depend on what someone would create on their own and how well that aligns with a particular plugin

Totally agree with this as I researched this subject. For the past few years, I've been 99% of the time creating my own from init, but I've gotten over the ego and began exploring the talents of those who were thought well enough of by the designer to use to sell their plugins.

Blue2 - without a doubt, gets my personal vote.

[Chrisk-K]

With many synths offering a whizbang set of presets that show off every synth feature, often with limited musical usefulness (a trend that started with the Roland D50s "Digital Native Dance"), users are forced to "dumb down" the presets to fit their music or create their own sounds from scratch. What synths do you think have the most musically useful presets that require very little tweaking to make them fit your music?

Do you think Miles Davis and Keith Emerson were dumb enough to use “Digital Native Dance” in its full glory in their music?

[tony10000]

Dune 3 also has great factory presets. Avenger as well, especially if you are into EDM.

[aMUSEd]

Purely a subjective thing - from my perspective:

Alchemy 1 and 2
All u-he synths have great presets
Pigments
Omnisphere
Plasmonic

[nusound mind]

Both D. Sches synths have imo among the best useful to not so useful presets ratio. I'm a quality over quantity person when it comes to presets, less is more when it comes to not wasting my time flipping through thousands of half baked sounds.

Otoh I do appreciate a wide range of sounds to feature what any given synth is capable of, but I digress.

[Dirtgrain]

I wonder about Szabo's Viper lately. Some have said it has nice presets in the threads I looked at.

[chk071]

Spire, Sylenth1, z3ta+. Need to look past the first soundbank usually though...

[ecasasmusic2]

Hive2, Synthmaster, Omnisphere

[morphex]

Dawesome’s Abyss synth comes with some super lush pads straight out of the box. It’s really good for soundtrack scoring and ambient music. It’s still relatively new so the only preset expansion that I know of is the one by Databroth (which is excellent).

But while the quantity of patches is somewhat limited compared to other synths, the quality is what totally stands out in my opinion. And there’s a lot of potential for more expansions with the addition of FM in the last update.

[SparkySpark]

When it comes to presets, I like synths that don't have much of loading time. I also like synths that don't (!) stand out, for usable, everyday presets. For me, one such synth (or actually rompler) is XPand!2. I love its ability to hold up to four patches, as it can really thicken a sound if needed. I then use other synths (mainly Pigments after its inclusion of granular synthesis, but it would be choice according to style) for things that I want to emphasise. It's kind of weird: over the years, I've been assembling a variety of synths, but most of the time, I stick to this combo (plus the lovely G8tor by 2something).

[morphex]

It's kind of weird: over the years, I've been assembling a variety of synths, but most of the time, I stick to this combo (plus the lovely G8tor by 2something).

At the end of the day, it's what works for us as individuals and our unique preferences. It's so easy to get overwhelmed with options if you have a large collection of plugins. So it takes a certain amount of discipline to find the right tools and then learn how to use them to get the results we're after. I'm glad you found a combo that works for you.

[atya]

I wholeheartedly second Synthmaster for a great selection of useable presets and would also add AAS Ultra Analog 2/3 and not at last Synth 1 ... ~25000?! patches and counting.

[SparkySpark]

It's kind of weird: over the years, I've been assembling a variety of synths, but most of the time, I stick to this combo (plus the lovely G8tor by 2something).

At the end of the day, it's what works for us as individuals and our unique preferences. It's so easy to get overwhelmed with options if you have a large collection of plugins. So it takes a certain amount of discipline to find the right tools and then learn how to use them to get the results we're after. I'm glad you found a combo that works for you.

Thanks! And well put!

[e@rs]

I really dig the presets in Tone2 synths, especially those by Markus.

[Gadget Fiend]

Omnisphere is definitely one of the best in that regard.

Omnisphere has what, 8,000 presets? And yet I can spend hours using it's browser before I can find anything remotely usable. Despite Spectrasonics' hype and hyperbole, Omnisphere is mostly just a so so ROMpler with marginal native synthesis capabilities (but a great arpeggiator). Spectrasonics' true core competency is spin.