i know lot of people use presets and tweak them, what do you think?

good to do both yeah? presets and synthesis knowledge

It is definitely good to do both and neither is inherently a bad choice - there are seriously talented professional who use presets and there are others who make all their stuff from scratch. What's important is making it easier for you. Some people find it easier to start with an initialized patch and build their sound according to their ears and desires, and others scroll through presets for inspiration then tweak and layer.

I think when you're just starting out, you should be fully open to presets - it's gonna be harder to learn how to finish a song than it will be to build a cool synth lead. Teach yourself how to make your ideas conform to the tools you have, so you don't get frustrated at any failures and get discouraged from making more music. You can still lean sound design and create patches, but I'd make that its own exercise: Pick a day out of the week to only make patches, and save a fuckton of your own presets for later.

Keep in mind Laidback Luke only just started learning FM synthesis this month, and I bet half this forum knows more about how it works than he does. It's not a set path either way!

I don't really see anything wrong with presents, especially when we're speaking about amateur production. They are there for a reason, and are certainly an excellent blueprint. But...

It is very amateur. Similar to samples, professionals process them to their desired sound. I don't really think any professional is going to use a preset as is (if they're even going to use them at all).

No doubt presets helped me to create my first dozen tracks or so, but after a while your experience reaches a level where you know and have the ability to adjust specific parameters or sounds within that preset to get what you really want.

In my opinion sound design is not something amateur producers should focus on (doesn't mean you can't), but I feel like a lot of sound design comes later down the path of music production once you find your personal style.

Recently I was creating a track where I came to a huge road block, because I couldn't get the right sound to finish the introduction of a track. Turns out, sound design was the answer. I re-watched all the masterclasses and multiple sound design videos and was able to tweak what I needed to get what I wanted.

Already made a topic about that

https://theproducersforum.com/index.php?topic=608.msg2936#msg2936

I knew it was there somewhere! ...tried to find it and link it here, but failed. Thanks.

Whatś also dope is twerking the presets that youe made yourself. You get some seriously unique results.

You should tweak and postprocess them to make them more your own and be able to understand how everything works within the preset before using it so at least you know how to make a sound like that. Or even better you could look at the preset that sounds like the sound your going for and then make your own version in a separate instance.

For a professional perspective (remember it's from twitter, so it goes chronologically from bottom to top):

Knowing your stuff when it comes to sound design is helpful when it comes to editing presets. I frequently pull up presets that I've made or that I keep and am familiar with not because I want to use that sound exactly, but because it's pretty close to the sound in my head so I can just tweak it real quick from there.

A lot of people will say that presets are okay but don't use them instead of learning sound design. They work really well together. You'll also get better at choosing which presets to use as you get better with sound design as well.