Lets see how many make it to the end of this post.
I have been creating patches for years now, primarily in Pigments, my ‘go to’ synth, but also in other Arturia synths. Some of you may have seen my free collections. Recently, I have been mulling over my direction in life and have decided to try and sell the collections, both old and new, more as an exercise than for the money. I basically want to see IF I can do it and IF there is a market for them.
So, my first step is to reassess my present collections. This is where I have come to appreciate the role of professional patch creators as I have been lazy in terms of adding Styles and Tag information. This is due mainly to me not needing it personally as I dont search using them, but I now realise others do.
Additionally, revisiting my collections has also made me realise that I do not use macros much at all and am consequently missing out on their ability to transform patches.
So, I am undertaking the mammoth task of ‘remastering’ my collections. I am adding cover art, Style and Tag info, assigning 2 macros per patch and inevitably tweaking or polishing some patches using the knowledge I have gained over the years.
I have a lot of work ahead of me. I may even investigate setting up a simple website to sell them.
I suggest you use all the Macros in each preset.
Also the more modulators associated with hardware controls you use the better - like Modwheel and Expression.
Users of Analog Lab and Astrolab who do not have the full applications are relying on those controls.
I agree - I need to make them more widely accessible and interesting for the likes of AL and Astrolab users.
I am setting up 2 macros and leaving 2 for people to add. It’s taking so much time just to do these additions. I do tend to used the Mod Wheel much of the time and not just for vibrato etc. Sometimes I set up quite complex changes, morphing from one sound to another (Im talking mainly Pigments here). I am also paying more attention to velocity settings - again not just for volume but for other settings.
Your patches are generally rather good, i think i’ve used one or two in productions myself, my machine has been sent to Coventry (Literally) for the next week or two, so i can’t recall which ones exactly.
I do use tags from time to time, mainly for instrument type and never really go any deeper than that tags wise… ymmv of course though.
One thing i am defintely NOT is a sound designer, a tweaker most certainly. The MAIN thing i find with 3rd party patches is just how many of them, i’m talking in general here, are either difficult or impossible to use in a production, again ymmv depending on what exactly the end user is after.
HUGE, ‘motion’ type pads are great for selling synths but are generally useless in a production, unless it’s the only element, or for things like bgm/soundtracks for film/TV etc.
Another thing i’ve found, not in your patches actually, is some of the patches are so close to some of the others in a collection, that they feel a bit lazy to the end user.
A personal gripe for myself, not sure how others feel here, is swamping a patch out with effects, for myself it’s the ‘core sound’ that’s the important thing and genearlly have a vision of how i want things to sound, that’s probably just me though.
You make a good point regarding usability - the ability to fit into a mix. I must confess to creating some (many - lets be honest) HUGE motion pads. Strangely enough, I do see these as soundtrack material and often as standalone patches, requiring little further additions. Indeed, a couple of my own tracks just use 2 of my own patches.
Yes - I too have experienced some collections with little breadth sound wise. I think it helps that I alway create patches from scratch.
Again, I agree, the core sound is important and it should sound pretty good with FX tuned off. I often assign the FX to the mod wheel (and now the macros) so that people can ‘mix them in’ as desired.
I completely get why a lot of sound designers seem to like creating those pads, i would imagine they’re quite fun and challenging and often one could ‘get lost’ in the process. A good demonstration of the depth of one’s skills too in that respect.
Useability is the BIG thing for most people i think though, again though genre and context will affect/dictate to some extent.
Developing a ‘presence’ for your business is generally the biggest challenge with anything like this, same for anyone creative trying to sell their wares of course.
There are a few outlets online that might be worth some dialogue with? It seems more and more people are looking at making a living this way rather than trying to make it with their music.
Sometimes it’s worth taking a hit percentage wise if you get enough business from it.
Yea, I generally use macro 4 for effect send, esp. with long echo regenerations so I can leave the “ring out” while playing new lines with no FX. Don’t scrimp on the aftertouch either! Love your sounds Funt!
Good point. I have ignored Aftertouch mainly due to not having the feature on my Keylabs Essential. However, I just splashed out on a Keylab Mk2 with aftertouch, so now I can use it.
MPE:s per-note-modulation/macro possibilities are INCREDIBLY USEFUL when sequencing without ever owning or learning/adapting to play an MPE-enabled keyboard. So, consider what, if any, macro makes the most sense on per-note-basis in a chord for instance. Those should be Macro1 and/or Pressure for maximum utility with MPE.
(When Live introduced MPE support, I wasn’t interested in a MPE keyboard, and I thought I’d pretty much never ever use it but decided to test it out in the sequencer atleast. Since then, even though I’m still not interested in a MPE keyboard, I don’t think I have a single Live set that doesn’t use MPE somewhere…)
So, I have reworked 40 patches so far. Now you mention MPE on macro 1, which I had not thought of, I can move all assignments from macro 1 to macro 3 - no problem. But, not having an MPE keyboard, should I leave macro 1 unused for possible MPE use or should I blindly assign somethings to it?
I guess it doesn’t really matter that much. Don’t think you need to move all assignments just because Macro1 might be MPE. But it might make sense to just think a little about if macro1 is useful on a per-note basis. Say macro one changes effect settings (that are global) and macro two affects filter and wavetable-modulation (which are per-voice), it would probably make sense to switch them.
My feeling (that might be prejudice) is that ppl who buy patch banks won’t assign anything to anything, they just use what’s there, and if what they want isn’t there, they’ll just keep browsing patches until they find something close enough to what they wanted.
I tend to agree that the majority buying patch collections are unlikely to modify them much beyond basic tweaks such as filter or FX much less so assign macros. So, unless I can understand what I am adding by considering MPE, I shall leave macro 1 unused for now.
Given my rather cynical view of people tweaking my patches, I suppose I should try my best to create great sounding patches in the first instance
Pigments is constantly evolving and I can’t cater for future changes. I have had to set some bounties on this process, otherwise I will never finish it.
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