[LAU] ZynAddSubFX Usability Survey

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 29 Apr 2016 10:37:35 -0700 (PDT), Len Ovens wrote:
>However, I suspect most plugin users are most interested in being able
>to select predefined patches (presets or custom) and only minimally 
>interested in tweaking the odd settings.

99% of musicians are interested in getting usable presets for synth
that provide such a complex synthesis mixture as Zyn and Yoshimi
provide. I consider myself as one of the few sound designers, anyway,
with Yoshimi I most of the times use presets, instead of editing much
parameters, I tend to make the sounds less bloated, by simply unchecking
a synth. The best way to "edit" bloated sounds, when they are wanted, is
to mix them by grains or in the case of Zyn and Yoshimi alike synths, by
e.g. mixing volumes in a vector style as provided by Yamaha SY/TGs. We
are living in an age were sounds are not only made by the synth. A lot
of sound design happens outside of the synth. In the old days e.g. a LFO
manipulated a filter of the synth unsynced to the played notes.
Nowadays, we often prefer to record a synth and then to use filter with
the automation feature of the DAW, for the track of the synth. The
reason for this are less randomized results, without the unwanted side
effects caused by an unsynced LFO. Speaking for virtual synth we should
keep in mind, that when used in combination with a DAW, the DAW usually
is part of a quasi modular synth. IOW e.g. instead of a synth's unsynced
LFO and filter, a DAWs filter and automation are used as a replacement.
So even the sound designer crowed not necessarily likes to program too
complex virtual synth, with overloaded GUIs, instead presets are used
and manipulated by filters, vocoders etc. provided by plugins of the
DAW.