Pre-sets are good if they have that exact sound you're looking for. I use presets as well as making my own sounds from scratch. Messing around with the synth is great thing to do and will get you to creating some incredible sounds as well as it becoming easier to get a specific sound you want.

Here is what I do (sometimes): If I find a synth patch that I like, I examine everything about the synth to try and see how they got the sound. Then I try to duplicate the sound, but in duplicating the sound, I find some other interesting techniques that can create a completely different sound that, who knows, you may like more.

ALSO!! Think of it like this. Rock & Roll... EVERY classic R&R band had the same instrumentation, but the songs were different. They all had the same sounds and same instruments, but nobody gave two craps.

I don't know if anything I said makes sense because I was listening to your podcast as I was writing this x)

Also, I thought it was pretty funny when you couldn't talk XD

Hey Melodicat!! mannnn I have same problem like you told, too!

Dude, the truth is KEEP DO WHAT YOU LOVE ..don't care much about other people! don't care much about being famous..just keep do what you love...support other people who make things like u do...those famous people they start from 0, too.

Problem of new music maker on computer like me is the "programs I'm using" it so hard to use!! harder than video editing program...and I don't know shit about using tools for making music such as the program, piano, guitar...but I trully sure that I have a lot of good ideas that I want to make that sound in my brain reality or come to life !!

Problem is.. don't have POWER.
"Ideas don't determine who's right. Power determines who's right," "And I have the power,...so I'm right." - Jonathan Irons said.

haaaaaw!! POWER CHANGES EVERYTHING!!
Power that I said... it mean the power of your knowledge, Power of using tools or your ability to make the ideas in your brain reality...
so it mean keep practice and never give up brother..

you have the same feeling as me )):

here the page that change my thinking.. http://skinnyartist.com/9-warning-s.....mateur-artist/

Exactly, see those are all super good words!

Yeah xD
See, that's something I try to do in my own time, study presets. For the most part I dedicate a time slot in my day where I do nothing but make presets.

I've made quite a few presets that turn out really good, but not enough to really make a good decent track haha

Finally got around to hearing this. x)

These are some very good points.

I'll admit, I've found what I like to do when I'm on the hunt for something specific is go through the presets, and see what sounds closest to what I want, and then tweak from there.

Though when I'm on the hunt for something that's not all that specific, I'll find the best preset, and then play with it just to see what sounds neat.

I can't say I've ever been pure presets or pure scratch. I've found I like it best to do a little mix of both.

What I do like about given presets is that they give you some neat ideas that you can do with the synth or effect that you wouldn't have thought of yourself.

Yeah exactly, presets can give you that first step when it comes to creativity.
I do a mix of both as well most of the time. Serum is a synth I'm using now, and it really helps teach you how to manipulate your sounds, and it visually shows you the things you are doing to it :3

Now that sounds pretty nifty. Is that its own thing, or is it part of FL Studio?

It's its own thing that you plug in to FL, but omg its awesome

Usually when I make a preset it is to have ease of use when modulating different envelopes.

So you can make the synth more attuned to what you need?

Yeah pretty much, for example for something simple in a new song I did i needed a pretty powerful square with vibrato on the tail and modulated portamento. Then you just go and edit the filters and effects to your liking.

I've found with quite a few presets that, if you want to modulate a specific effect it can cause the sound to be a bit wonky, but if I for example make that preset, I will understand everything that has gone into it to make that sound.

I'm not saying one couldn't just go to a preset and turn it into what they need, its just that for my own personal use it takes less time to just create what I want than to mess around with an already established sound.

That being said I do feel a bit more sense of accomplishment when I use my own presets, but that's not to say that I haven't used presets heavily in the past.

My philosophy on it personally is to just create as much as I can so that I can get better at creating the sounds I want. After all looking through library after library of sounds can get personally frustrating , especially when I want something specific.

It comes down to personal preference, and I think the necessity of self created presets vary on the genre. For example if you are making chip tune , hardcore, or breakcore, it is less necessary to have all of your own presets. Whilst genre's like Dubstep and D&B start to get a bit samey sounding when people are all using the same stuff. I mean even skrillex and zomboy use presets, not to mention the vengance sample pack in which zomboy has straight up just grabbed loops from.

At the end of the day, us musicians create music with the sounds instruments around us. So I do not consider taking a pre-made thing and making it into something complete to be lazy, infact its what gives electronic music its intuitive and creative sound in the modern era.

I mean seriously people don't get mad at guitar players for not making their own guitar.

So who's to say an electronic musician can't use the equivalent lol.

Exactly, a lot of people look at presets as some sort of Childs play, as if its not about what you do, but about how you do it, and those people are fake. Like completely fake. They live and breathe to drown in their own self obsession and its disgusting.

Like okay, it's one thing when you've got someone using nothing but loops and not actually creating their own content and trying to throw it out into the community like its some hot new shit, but when you take shortcuts like presets or some super simple effect VST's that get you really complicated sounds at the touch of a button to get the sound want, and make something out of it...? Thats completely different.

And even with loops I respect it, because its still creative, and it takes general arrangement talent to do. But the line is only really crossed if somebody throws it into a music community and tries to promote it as their own piece of original work.

couldn't agree more