# Preset overuse vs acoustic instrument timbre



## mekosmowski (Jun 8, 2020)

When people think synth presets are overused do they also think that violin timbre is overused?


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## JohnG (Jun 8, 2020)

well....

I think the "overuse" problem arises when a particularly striking / arresting / notable synth sound gets used in, say, a main title for a movie or a trailer or (in the case of the now venerable "oil-can" sample from the 1990s), gets used in Every Single TV Show.

Synths are more susceptible because it's _exactly_ the same, whoever plays it.

By contrast with an abruptly-popular preset synth, a violin can make hundreds of different sounds and, depending on the mic positioning, can even sound rather different making the same sound in the same room. Change the player, change the room _and_ the mic position, and you get even more variety.

For periods of time, sampled acoustic instruments can suffer the same problem -- when Symphobia first came out and there were fewer comparable libraries with similar string effects (at least few that were recorded as beautifully), those effects got used rather a lot and were fairly recognisable to those in the business.

So what do you do?

Disguise it, the same way great orchestrators do. Double it with something unexpected, or crush the initial attack with percussion -- anything to make it "your own." Or reprogram it so it's different.


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## Smapti (Jun 12, 2020)

I think it depends on the genre you're in. Something like a reese or hoover bass is a strong subgenre marker and actually becomes more useful the more that people use it -- you wouldn't want to disguise either of those in your productions, even though tons of other musicians have used them.


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