What’s missing from electronic music creation? (Spoiler: RANDOM PRESET LOADERS! 🎲🎹)
We live in such an age of abundance, where we have no shortage of tape-saturating gadgets, granular doodads, and other come-hither ways to process and make our sounds into everyday miracles. I’ve spent so much of my life grabbing synthesis tools into tidy piles and spending contemplative time with them. Along the way, metacognition prompted me to realize how adverse I am to bad interfaces, or ugly interactions that don’t feel satisfying — part of this is a link back to how much more comparatively expensive it was to screw-up the look ’n’ feel of a hardware synth, but it also has deep roots in my fundamental appreciation for what ex-Apple Computer, Inc. has borne upon the world. When you grow up with such excellence, it’s hard to shake it in the decades that follow.
I’ll say outright that despite the aforementioned abundance, there are SOME IMPORTANT THINGS still lacking today, NOT necessarily in the realm of “the sounds themselves” but how we discover them. The following isn’t even about whiz-bang visual maps and AI-powered similarity search, but more basic feats of features. Actual musical expression has come a long way in the last decade, to where MPE is finally tottering over the hill from a “Gee-whiz, do we really need that gimmick?” ➜ a practical part of “Hey dude, you’ve got ten finger-digits, each one can act independently!” And I’m alternatingly depressed, bemused, and SHOCKED at what’s still comparatively absent…
I will first speak to one thing that could solve a lot of problems, if only it were more commonplace.
That is to say: a RANDOM PRESET LOADER! 🎲
(NO, not a “random preset generator”, which is a complementary tool to create and seed fresh patches, but a LOADER.)
Here’s how I expect it to work:
Click 🎲 or 🔀 button
The virtual instrument/effect instantly loads an existing preset/patch/sound/etc., RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!*
*Praise be to Fatboy Slim
Simple, yes? Effective? YES!!!
You see (and hear), we live in an anti-pulchritudinous PRISON of A-Z tyranny by linearity, where the prevailing method of preset browsers shows the same basic features, over and over again. As humans, search fatigue sets in so we get biased towards the beginning of lists, and yeah I get that “searching by category” is a common way to target a more specific sound you want, and some patch browsers allow other metadata filtering, like by author.
But lack of a random preset loader TRULY a GLARING OMISSION for a feature that universally benefits electronic music tools.
The value of having this button extends to discovering more of what you paid for, making it simpler to surf sounds you might’ve overlooked. And in the heat of the moment when you’re jamming, that can make the difference between a momentous flowstate vs. being hung up on “What sound do I put in here next?”
Fine examples o’ random preset loaders
On the positive side, let me call out some AMAZING TOOLS™ that feature what I have in mind, and my comments on each:
Spectrasonics Omnisphere — well, natch. What don’t they have? But they led the way with a Shuffle button, which gets more valuable with the more patch libraries you have installed. PLUS it works with their search filters, so you have the “best of all worlds”.
Devious Machines Infiltrator — unlike so many multi-FX, they have this beautiful 🎲 dice button built right in, and it really makes a difference when you’re looking to roll some quick inspiration.
Audio Ease Speakerphone — Added for venerable v3! I asked and OMG it’s great. Some loading times are long-ish, due to the sample bay I reckon, but still would rather have it than not.
G-Force’s line — Right in their search browser, they’ve got a Random button that makes the best of this. Just what I want.
Sonic Charge Synplant 2 — yes, it was added for v2 (I requested such a thing), and I’m overjoyed that a simple hold-Cmd-click loads a patch at random from the currently-targeted folder. The Ultra Lidström Bros. have long been proponents of creative randomization, so hats off to ‘em!
Lunacy Audio Cube — I’m thankful for also having this, despite some loading times being more sluggish than I’d like, it definitely adds value, and can be targeted per folder-category, and such.
Baby Audio Magic Dice (a mini-Spaced Out ) — I mean, the whole UI is pretty much THIS. Technically, this is a preset generator, and curiously, unlike some other BA plugins (hey Transit! BA-1) it LACKS a preset loader — it’s got its priorities right.
Arturia’s line — honorable mention? They have shuffle sort across their product line, BUT with a caveat: their search browsers do NOT retain across instances (I’ll get to that in a bit), making persistence more difficult. Still, hats off to them.
These are some highlights, I continue to celebrate others as I come across them, and appreciate my attention being drawn to those I’ve neglected.
I can search and find various forum threads that bemoan the lack of a surprise loader on Native Instruments Kontakt, the u-he line… other mainstays that are missing such a glorious thing are UVI’s Falcon, East West Opus, and other tools that are otherwise gemful 💎… MISSING MISSING MISSING this vital feature! BTW, even Vital and Serum 2 (!!!) are missing a random preset loader. Other proclaimed powerhouse synths are stunted without the ability to surprise yourself with a preset from deep within its annals, and well, that’s just limiting what you can do with it. Which doesn’t make any sense.
Here’s a shocking observation: NI’s own Guitar Rig 7 Pro has a random preset loader, yet Kontakt 8 continues to lack it? That’s wack! GR7P is a fantastic example for a “misleading name in the best way”, you buy it for one thing and use it for everything else…
I’ve found no compelling arguments AGAINST a random preset loader. The 🎲 can be small and won’t clutter up the UI. It’s not confusing.
Life can be too predictable, driven by societal scripts and linear “functioning” that actually DEHUMANIZES our natural inclination towards curiosity (here I am inspired by Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments), and along with it, the serendipitous surprises that existence should have!
Search browser retention across instances
(2) Now, I want to also address another thing that’s often neglected: search browser retention across instances! Sure, many synths have an expanded search browser view. BUT when you duplicate a track instance in a DAW, that browser view might be forgotten. This is a fiendish problem with Arturia’s line, since it also has a lot of sounds (see: Analog Lab which amalgamates ’em all!): if I’ve selected a soundset and duplicate the instance, then the duplicate LOSES TRACK (no pun intended) of my search focus. Arturia support told me ‘bout a workaround wherein I can add presets to a playlist, but curiously, this carries its own limitations: the shuffle command is missing here!
Arrow keys for preset scrollyness
(3) And another thing: allow ARROW KEYS to scroll presets. Musicians with two hands are often busy doing keyboarding on both a piano and other musical surface + mousing. And it’s a pain to reach for the tiny < > arrow buttons and have to click, those lil’ targets ughhh. In an expanded view, sure, up/down arrows might go up and down the list. But what I’m also asking for is MORE like what Plogue does, where you can use up/down + left/right to navigate. Guess what else does it? I was surprised that NI Reaktor 6 (will v7 actually be merged into Kontakt v9 somehow?) allows this for its ensembles as well, so although it lacks an ensemble-localized random preset loader (let alone a ⭐/❤️ for favorites), this is a win in its court.
C’mon!
Sidenote: companies, please enforce a sensible consistency of UI schemes across your product line. Drives me mad when a lovely applicable feature found in one isn’t in the others, or maybe you haven’t updated it yet.
As of April 2025, I continue to reach out to esteemed tool-creators and provide reasoning for the above. Courteously and colorfully, and I’ve seen change happen over time. I shall continue, and this appeals to you — I encourage you to be the change you wanna see in this here world (thx Gandhi) as well.
The bottom line (because I, not Stone Cold, saith so): give the people their random preset loaders and much musical creativity will follow! 🙌🎲