Synth presets are little frozen moments of intent: someone, somewhere, decided that this exact combination of oscillators, filters, envelopes, and modulation told a story worth saving. They’re often dismissed as shortcuts, but really they’re starting points - sonic sketches that show what an instrument can do at its edges and its sweet spots. A good preset teaches you the personality of a synth: how it growls when you push the filter, how it shimmers with slow LFO movement, how it sits politely or rudely in a mix. The magic happens when you stop treating presets as finished sounds and start nudging them - one knob, one modulation route, one reckless tweak at a time - until the sound stops being a preset and starts being yours.