New FREE Preset Sharing Site: Preset Galaxy Started by Greg Schlaepfer - Presets for Orange Tree Samples Libraries, AD2, Omnisphere 2, XO....

[PavlovsCat]

Orange Tree Samples' founder, Greg Schlaepfer, just launched a new website, an online community for freely sharing presets for soft synths, plugins and sample libraries. It now has Greg's own presets and banks for Orange Tree Sample libraries and various soft synths and plugins.

While the site currently has a modest collection of Greg's personal presets / banks, from experience, like his sample libraries, his presets are superb, and consequently, very much worth downloading.  This is my cut and paste from the site's most popular presets list (it's not comprehensive, just what I found when creating this post): 

Soft Synths / Plugins
XLN Audio XO
Spectrasonics Omisphere 2
XLN Addictive Drums 2

Orange Tree Samples Evolution Libraries
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Texas Twang
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Hollowbody Blues
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Infinity
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Modern Nylon
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rock Standard
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Songwriter
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Stratosphere
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Strawberry
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Texas Twang

While I'm friends with Greg, I actually only found out about Preset Galaxy from a post from Orange Tree Samples Facebook page and texted Greg to ask about it. I have his XLN Addictive Drums 2 presets and use them regularly, but I didn't have any of his Evolution presets beyond the factory presets, so I'm pretty excited to get these (I plan on downloading and installing them after this post), as I use Evolution libraries in nearly every project. 

Visiting this site, I immediately thought of how XLN used to have a community for freely sharing presets for AD2 (I'm pretty sure that Toontrack did too), as did NI for KONTAKT (for sharing libraries and presets), but both shut them down. Consequently, finding free presets for XLN plugins or KONTAKT libraries is just about impossible these days (I am only aware of some developers that SELL presets) and finding high quality free presets has always been a challenge, so this site is especially great to see . I've long been addicted to Pianobook for picking up free KONTAKT libraries and downloading free Vital presets at the developer's site and PresetShare.com and would love to see PresetGalaxy.com become a vibrant community of talented people freely sharing presets. It also helps me feed my unstoppable appetite for new sounds (and GAS) without spending cash.

https://www.presetgalaxy.com/

Edited January 29 by PavlovsCat

[Fleer]

Sweeeeeeet!

[TheSteven]

Thanks @PavlovsCat for bring this up and thanks @Greg Schlaepfer for creating this site & sharing!

 

[TheSteven]

3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I immediately thought of how XLN used to have a community for freely sharing presets for AD2 (I'm pretty sure that Toontrack did too), as did NI for KONTAKT (for sharing libraries and presets), but both shut them down.

Yes, a disappointing trend. 
I have often occasionally wondered why companies stopped, perhaps... 

• concern about free presets competing with and demotivating sales of their own or sponsored libraries
• having to pay someone to maintain/police those forums (for example to pull down posts of idiots uploading warez/pirated libraries)
• the costs of hosting & providing the bandwidth of those communities?
  Web space & bandwidth cost money - for example XLN presets for AD/AD2 are saved online with your user account so they are paying for your storage.
  People like free presets but don't care to sponsor the sites that provide them - It appears to me that most of the free preset web sites have changed owners multiple times or evaporated in the last decade.
• or just not giving a damn ie if it doesn't appear to boost the company's bottom line how can a manager justify spending any effort to support it.

Perhaps useless speculation...
spending time pondering such things doesn't contribute to my bottom line/productivity either.

 

 

 

[Fleer]

Would love to see this evolve into the preset sharing site of preset sharing sites, the place where you just know you’ll find the highest quality of presets. And with Greg Schlaepfer at the helm, I’m quite confident. 

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, TheSteven said:

Yes, a disappointing trend. 
I have often occasionally wondered why companies stopped, perhaps... 

• concern about free presets competing with and demotivating sales of their own or sponsored libraries
• having to pay someone to maintain/police those forums (for example to pull down posts of idiots uploading warez/pirated libraries)
• the costs of hosting & providing the bandwidth of those communities?
  Web space & bandwidth cost money - for example XLN presets for AD/AD2 are saved online with your user account so they are paying for your storage.
  People like free presets but don't care to sponsor the sites that provide them - It appears to me that most of the free preset web sites have changed owners multiple times or evaporated in the last decade.
• or just not giving a damn ie if it doesn't appear to boost the company's bottom line how can a manager justify spending any effort to support it.

Perhaps useless speculation...
spending time pondering such things doesn't contribute to my bottom line/productivity either.

 

 

 

I think you're right and it's a common way business people look at things that don't directly produce revenue.  What these folks miss is that these communities keep your brand front and center in front of customers and if you eliminate these resources, you're likely going to have to spend money to drive visitors to your site. In any event, I'm glad Greg is doing this.  He never told me about this until I saw the announcement,  but Greg's a wonderful person and a fellow idealist. I'm not sure what his objectives are for this community,  but I trust that he's the ideal kind of person to run a community like this. I suspect this may be largely a passion project. He uses plugins too.  I'd love it if someone added some great SD3 presets as I use that more than anything. I've created a lot of my own presets but I don't feel like I know what I'm doing well enough to share them. I mainly tune drums, layer and swap drums and cymbals and incompetently adjust effects. 

[PavlovsCat]

Okay, as I mentioned, I finally had a chance to try out the Evolution presets, and they are fantastic. Orange Tree Samples could  easily have charged for these and I think people would be very happy with them. Tomorrow, I'll add this to my recommended freebies list, For anyone who owns Orange Tree Samples Evolution libraries, these presets are a must have, IMO.

And yes, I'm friends with Greg, but anyone who knows me even a little, knows that I don't give false praise.  If any other Evolution library users that try these out weigh in, I bet their reactions will be very  is similar to mine. The presets are superb. 

Edited January 30 by PavlovsCat

[PhonoBrainer]

Not to in any way besmirch or disrespect anyone - but an obvious question would be, why aren't the improved "private collection" presets already included in the original product?

 

Just wondering. The new preset site looks promising.

[PavlovsCat]

54 minutes ago, PhonoBrainer said:

Not to in any way besmirch or disrespect anyone - but an obvious question would be, why aren't the improved "private collection" presets already included in the original product?

 

Just wondering. The new preset site looks promising.

A good deal of the presets / banks at Preset Galaxy are for other developers' synths and plugins (Omisphere 2, AD2, XO, etc.), so they're third-party and that's why they're not included with the original product. 

As for the Orange Tree Samples libraries presets -- which I'm guessing is what you meant -- my guess for the reason that Greg is sharing them through this community is because updating each of those KONTAKT Player libraries with the presets would mean going through NI's process for public release and that would mean committing time, resources and costs to add new presets, which would be a lot of work and costs that would likely need to be passed on to customers. I know from numerous developers that they all end up creating their own presets, and commonly composers who make demos will come up with their own presets as well. But due to those presets being made AFTER a KONTAKT Player has been approved and processed by NI, it's too late to make it into the official release, so the reality is, the customers usually don't get those presets. 

But let's ask  @Greg Schlaepfer. I'd also like to ask a related question: Greg, will at least some of the Orange Tree Samples presets at Preset Galaxy be included in future updates for those libraries or will they always remain exclusives made especially for the Preset Galaxy community? 

[TheSteven]

On 1/29/2024 at 4:34 PM, Fleer said:

Would love to see this evolve into the preset sharing site of preset sharing sites, the place where you just know you’ll find the highest quality of presets. And with Greg Schlaepfer at the helm, I’m quite confident. 

So in for a dime, in for a dollar?
No offense intended but that's a whole lot of work (all unpaid) for anyone to take on.  Can't see anyone who's got a life (bills, family, working on an artistic endeavors, etc.)  knowingly taking that on.

10 hours ago, PhonoBrainer said:

Not to in any way besmirch or disrespect anyone - but an obvious question would be, why aren't the improved "private collection" presets already included in the original product?

I don't think the term "improved" has been used in context with these offerings;
the wording on the website is "Assorted supplementary presets".

I can't and won't speak for Greg, as I don't know and it's not my job, but I do know from personal experience that updating a publicly released software product is not something you take on lightly as it is always a PITA (updating & testing installers, updating distribution system, updating documentation & website, notifying users, responding to users inquiries or issues, etc.) and when you update something people think you're lazy or lack diligence for not updating all the others (what no new banjo or kazoo presets?).  

I am happy that Greg gave us what he did and look forward to any future tidbits that he would care to share.
 

Edited January 31 by TheSteven
grammar tweaks