I can see some might want a collection of this or that.
There is alway the ability to sort the collection by type, instrument or tags - so one can narrow down the search.
Personally, I enjoy creating a diverse selection. It’s horses for courses really.
Oh, and I LOVE those epic evolving TD pads that Pigments, especially, allows me to wallow in 
I usually stay away from most complex presets unless I analyze them for learning as I feel it’s now “them” making music, not me. Often the same is true for ARPs.
So I usually gloss over a lot of ARPs and pads and focus on leads, basses, keys, plucks, etc. If the evolving preset is simple enough to sit in a mix I might use and probably adapt it.
If a synth like Pigments gets new features and a soundbank is released alongside, I see these evolving presets as demos, not as something I can use in any shape or form, inspiration at best. So I only browse these usually if I have no specific music-making purpose.
@DerKastellan
That’s not a dissimilar thought process to myself, much of the music done here is highly rhythmical, it needs space or spaces in order for it to work properly, particularly the more funk based styles.
There’s a James Brown Bio-Pic where there’s a scene in which he points at one of the musician’s instruments, i think it was a drum kit from memory, and asks the player ‘what’s that’?
The player replies ‘a drum’.
JB then asks another player, definitely not a drummer this time ‘what’s that’? The player replies, (we’ll say an alto sax as i can’t remember exactly) ‘an alto sax’. JB replies ‘No! it’s a DRUM’!
Moves on to the next guy, ‘what’s that’? The guy replies ‘it’s a guitar’… JB says ‘No! It’s a drum’… this continues for a couple of other people until they get it.
He then says something like ‘it’s not the notes you play that make it funky, it’s the gaps in between the notes’! And there’s a lot of truth in that, particularly for certain styles of music, particularly those influenced by Funk.
The other thing that makes evolving pad type sounds either difficult or impossible to incorporate is that they’re just so slow, much modern music relies on modulation between chords, many of those pads are just too slow to work in that kind of material to have time to ‘develop’ (so you don’t really get to hear the pad develop) or they’re so complex that they interfere or get in the way with other instruments.
They can be useful for intros, middle 8s etc though with the styles i work with personally.
I completely respect the work that clearly goes into them, they’re just not that suitable for the genres of music i’m involved with.
In an early scene, James Brown explains to bewildered reporters what his new style of music is all about. Instead of being built on a melody, it’s built on a groove – a rhythmic environment that brings the mind and body to a state of readiness for feeling good. Later, Brown has to re-explain the principle to his musicians in the studio. Their training tells them, “It doesn’t work musically.” Brown insists: “Now we all got our drums.” Some may be guitars, some may be keyboards, but all should be doing the same work as drums: adding to the groove. “And when you’re playing a drum,” he says, addressing issues of music theory, “it don’t matter what key you in, what bar you in, what planet you on…” All that matters is: “Does it feel good?”
It explains why you play keyboard with boxing gloves. 
You can approach this question from so many levels. For me that question is why do I make music. I do it because I love the expression and feelings that making music bring inside of me. Sometimes it easily achieved from hearing a sound, so effectively a patch that someone else has made and it brings you on journey. Other times it’s that you have a sound already inside your head and then its the side of trying to recreate that sound yourself or finding something that is similar to that sound that you can use. Ive found in the process of looking for that right sound ive found new sounds all together,
I am like matjones in being incredibly grateful and sometime even in awe of the sound creations that some patch creators make. Sometimes I am frustrated and cursing up a storm as ive got almost the right sound but that extra residence or unwanted frequency and why did they …
I have too many plugin’s . Of all the plugins I own with the millions and millions of sound patches that they come with, there is far too many to every really know or truthful fully appreciate. What others provide in generating new patches that I appreciate the most is in the inspiration I get from hearing some of the sounds. It may make a new song. it might inspire me to remake a different song. It might be an effect inside the patch that gets the goosebumps to change or make my own sound.
Like you , I find musical inspiration in patches. When creating them I sometimes find myself lingering as they are completed and then I start recording. It’s more common for me to create music that way than opening a new project and looking for inspiration.
Well, I dropped a violin once. It was certainly percussive!
Kind of expensive. Like Gibson guitars… fall over once, headstock off.
Anyway, besides… I like it when the band knows how to lock with the drums. 
Funny you say that. It took me a few days to get back to this thread because I contradicted myself and went through the pads in Spire. Many of them are simple enough to be usable, but I found one that I was so mesmerized with, I immediately wanted to put a beat to it. Then change, it modulate it, wring it through effects…
A day later I had something I consider finished.
Sometimes somebody else’s patch/preset can end up being like a sample to make something new from.
I do get impatient with my music. At some point I want it finished … maybe some of those pieces have could used extra polish…
I don’t get it ! 
Gibson, not Simpson 1955 !
I bought an Astrolab 37 for the country. Everything’s fine.
I’m a heavy multi and I’m trying to understand why some multi designed in AL won’t load into Astrolab. Probably, missing samples or use of AL effects.
I imagine the learning curve for newbies.
Homer is drooling as that guitar is so gorgeous!
I love hollow body Gibsons!
I love Billy Gibbons ! Hollow body? Poor guy!
The ES-125 was sold to me by a jazz guitarist and sax tenor player, a friend of my sax teacher.
It has the original P-90 pickup. I was very lucky. I did a lot of non pro gigs with it.
Classical guitars need humidity but not that much!
J’aurais dû demander si vous étiez touché par une crue?
I should have asked if you were hit by a flood.
Here in Quebec City, it’s been a NAO winter (negative arctic oscillation); the polar air escaped from the Arctic so we don’t think of floods for now.
Hello @francoise , no worries, it’s kind of you to think of it.
As for the place where I live, our house is on higher ground. In some areas, it’s a total disaster.
In Rennes, the houseboats moored on the Vilaine are almost level with the streets in town.
But in many other regions, it’s completely flooded, and the rain keeps falling, and I fear these episodes will keep happening over and over; nature is completely disturbed.
Whose fault it is, it’s hard to say.
Have a good day.
Best regards.
The Vilaine? Be careful.
I live in Beauport, a borough (arrondissement) of Quebec city. It’s on the north side of the St-Laurent and it’s quite high. There’s a -1 c. difference with Quebec city.
I have made more than 1500 presets for Arturia plugins, just out of passion. Even though I created a site to sell them (many for free) I don’t do any marketing yet.
Arturia has definitely made it fun and easier than most competition to create from scratch. Some emulations I would not have understood if it weren’t for the built-in tutorials. I spent long hours tweaking and exploring each synth they make. When I took a moment to reflect, I already had over 1000 presets.
I often wish the FX factory fx were available in every synth, but I do appreciate some of the limitations of each instrument and how it forces creative techniques. I can’t think of a more “fun” platform for sound design. Pigments is certainly one of my favorites.
I hear you . It’s so easy to get carried away sometimes. I have spent most of today working on a new patch collection called Just FX. I want to offer something a little different so thought I would try creating FX type patches. It’s been a challenge as I try to push past wonderful sounding patches to hone in of something more FX. Then I got lost in Prophet VS and created a bunch of new sounds - the start of a Vol.2.
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