Cover image created with Google Gemini and finished in Canva.

Have you ever found yourself listening to the same musical phrase over and over again, trying one sound after another, convinced that the right one is somewhere in that long list of presets?

I do that quite often. Sometimes, I can spend hours on just a few bars of music. Not because the melody is difficult to write, but because I'm looking for the sound that will give it the character I have in mind.

A loop, a list of presets, and a piece of paper

When I work on a track, I rarely stop at the first preset I like. I usually go through the whole list, or at least a large part of it, listening to the sounds with my musical phrase playing in a loop.

When I find something interesting, I write down its name and number on the first piece of paper I can find! I'm pretty sure those little notes are still somewhere in one of my notebooks.

It's not the most organized system, I know, but it works for me!

Then comes the real test: listening to the same phrase with each sound.

A preset can sound fantastic on its own and still be completely wrong for the music I'm making. Another one, which seemed rather ordinary at first, can suddenly make the phrase come alive.

I'm not just looking for a beautiful sound. I'm looking for the right sound for that particular piece of music.

When Synth1 opened up a new world

Discovering Synth1 was an important step for me. Its sound library, along with the many additional banks available online, gave me an enormous range of possibilities to explore.

One example is No Where, where I used a synth lead with Synth1's arpeggiator set to random mode. Instead of simply playing a fixed sequence of notes, the arpeggiator introduced a different kind of movement into the sound.

I enjoy experimenting with these features. Sometimes, a small change in the way a sound behaves can give a musical passage a completely different personality.

And this is also why I like going through presets rather than choosing one quickly and moving on. You never quite know what might catch your attention.

When an effect changes everything

With Alien Experimentation, the starting point was the bass line. I built the track around it, and while experimenting with VST effects, I found a way to transform the original sound.

The preset was called “Synth Bass”. If I remember correctly, I combined a flanger with a little delay. The result gave the bass a stretched, almost elastic quality.

I don't remember the exact settings anymore, but I remember the sound I was looking for — and how different the bass became.

That unexpected result became part of the track. I hadn't necessarily planned it from the beginning; I discovered it while experimenting.

That's one of the things I enjoy most about music production: you can start with a simple idea and end up somewhere you hadn't anticipated.

Too many choices? Maybe. But I wouldn't want to go back.

Today, I have access to so many instruments, presets and effects directly from my computer. It's a wonderful playground, especially for someone like me who enjoys exploring sounds as much as composing melodies.

Of course, having so many possibilities doesn't necessarily make composing faster. Sometimes it makes choosing harder!

But I don't see that as a problem. Trying sounds, comparing them, listening again and making small adjustments is part of my creative process. The search itself can lead me to ideas I wouldn't have found otherwise.

In the end, I'm still chasing that little something that makes a musical phrase feel right. It might be a melody, a bass line, an unexpected effect or simply a sound that fits perfectly.

And when I finally find it, all those hours of listening suddenly make sense.

What about you?

When you work on music, do you choose a sound quickly and build around it, or can you spend ages searching for the perfect preset?

I'm curious to know how other musicians approach this part of the creative process.