As I said before, it was a quote from a PG-13 movie.
He was telling the op that if he uses FX he’s not really making music. That sounds about as rational as me quoting a movie from the 90s! He’s probably just trolling though!
Have a great day!
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The sound source not being important is a (valid) creative choice, but I think as soon as you say “the sound source isn’t important”, you’re making the fact that it isn’t important important. If it truly wasn’t important, it wouldn’t even be mentioned. There is value in knowing that an S-1 is more that enough to give you a whole world of sounds that were a madman’s dream to many of us in living memory, but I think perhaps there’s more value in learning not to care at all. It’s never been easier to sample, and sampling is the ultimate testament that any sound has potential. But of course then you’ll fall into the trap of wondering how important your choice of sampler is, because we live in a fallen world. Navigate it as best you can.
That was kind of my point, there seem to be subtle nuances that make a big difference. Even if it’s maybe just because people play their expensive guitars differently 
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@Kegeratorz: Ah I didn’t know that, thanks for clarifying!
So in conclusion, I’d say it doesn’t really matter but it does, depending on what kind of person you are. @sezare56 can seemingly make whole tracks from just OT onboard metronome. I can’t, I’m more inspired by a nice sounding synth. But then again, he’s clearly inspired by thinking about all of the ways he could use his OT.
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hear Matmos’ thoughts on this idea:
(but it’s also nice working with sound sources that get you good sounds quickly and easily too)
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…all sorts of fx were kind of my main instrument for years and years…took me a while to realize what a difference it makes, if ur dry sources can also stand for their own allready…
make up can change the impression big time…but anything that needs no make up at all, is as best as it gets…
meanwhile, drowning in caves and echochambers sounds a bit oldschool these days…
Impossible to answer until “sound source” and “important” are defined 
Some random stabs at distillation:
Is particular sound necessary to make music? No. You can make a compelling song with noise + FX.
Does the source affect the type of music made? Obviously. In parallel timelines identical expect that in one I sat down with a guitar and the other I sat down with a piano, different music will result.
Since source affects the type of music, mustn’t the sound of the sound source be determinate? Not as much as we think. I bet I’d make a similar song on a piano with guitar’s timbre as I would on a piano with a piano’s timbre. The interface is what matters, it’s keyboard vs. fretboard, not plucked string vs. hammered course.
Does the sound matter when making a kind of music? For sure. If my goal in writing a song is to elicit a particular emotional response, it’s very hard to invent that whole cloth in the listener. Instead I must mine their past for memories of emotions. Sounding familiar to those memories is half the battle done.
Does the quality of that sound matter then? Not really. Our sonic memories aren’t that high fidelity. If I hear a song that makes me feel something on a nice system, that same song will still make me feel that thing on my car radio or mobile speaker or out the window of a neighbor’s apartment as I’m walking by.
EDIT: Is some sort musical output the only acceptable purpose of sound? I hope not! I’ll sit for an hour with headphones and my System-8 just listening to different detuned saws for nothing but my own dumb enjoyment of it. Would I get less joy from messing with my DAW? Yes, but not for any definable, non-emotional reason. Would I get more joy from an actual Jupiter-8? Personally, no, but others who have that attachment would and that’s totally justifiable and cool.
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The 2 Octatrack metronome sounds are excellent sound sources ! You can make lots of things with a good sampler, filters, fx, and free time !
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After using Behringer Pro VS Mini, I think I disagree. I found its sound very…not good.
Man, I hang out with guitar guys all the time and none of them know why some models cost $10K+.
A guitar is a precision instrument but above a few thou, it’s just marketing, mythmaking, and GAS.
Guys like to talk a lot about tone woods or whatever but 99% of the sound is the pickups, strings, and technique, so any $ that doesn’t go into build quality is basically vanity money. There’s a ton of online debate on this, of course. Dive in if you dare.
But If you guys think synth GAS is powerful and arbitrary, oh boy, go hang out with some metalheads.* It’s like a whole nother level.
*(not Metalheadz)
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I heard that pure gold guitar body sounds better. Pure gold strings are the best…
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I think the sound source is less important than we think it is, but is nonetheless important.
Most people listening to a track won’t care if it has synth A or synth B on it.
The person making the track will care at the time. Maybe it doesn’t sound quite right and that gets in the way of getting the take, even if the sound itself could have been fixed in editing the track.
I’ve heard plenty of interviews and stories about recording famous songs where the band and engineers can’t remember exactly what or how they did certain parts, or even who played them.
So I think it’s really only important as far as it goes for getting the track made.
I have a guitar I think sounds lovely, but as soon as I try to layer it with itself for other parts it just doesn’t feel right. The Toraiz AS1 as a synth I think layers beautifully with itself. In both these cases the source is important and is either a hindrance or a help.
I watched Donny Benet’s rig rundown vid last night and my impression was that the sound source was incredibly important to him in a studio context, but in a live context it was portability and reliability that trumped sound. A PJ bass, a few boss pedals and a korg monologue for live, vintage and high end for studio.
I would also argue that adding FX in series to an instrument is still the sound source (as opposed to fixing the sound source). I bought an analog heat because I was inspired by the way it livened up otherwise potentially dull sounding synths. One box that could bring up everything as opposed to just getting another synth (spoiler: I’ve bought several more synths). Same with a crunchy old sampler for adding some extra personality to vst presets.
I think this is one of the negative byproducts of the amount of choice we have with music gear these days. Because the sound of the gear doesn’t matter once it’s on a record. It only matters if it made making the record harder, and I guess you don’t know that until you’re sitting down to do it. But choice comes in when you’re deciding what sort of musician or producer you are and how you want to present that to the world.
So maybe the S1 has all the sounds and audio quality you need to get the job done, but then you might think well, a serious musician would show up with a Juno X.
So perhaps ironically, the sound source does matter, but it matters who’s watching, not who’s listening.
It’s the wood that makes it good.
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I think the sound source is important.
I also think processing is important.
Whelp, I’ve said my peace, vote for me in 2024!
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I’m a professional turd designer….
If I’m doing specific sound design work, I pretty much always keep things simple and build from there, if you’ve got good ingredients and sound source, it’s often not necessary to add that much processing.
My go to is something like ableton operator, and then I often use some transient shaping like neutron to eek things about a little and that’s often it.
In the past fav sources have been pocket operator tonic, OG Op-1, Prophet 5, Roland S1, Omnisphere, mannequins Just Friends/Mangrove, Synplant
One factor and big consideration which skews sound design and can have an affect on the importance of sound sources, is the complexity of the music or soundscape the sounds live in. If I’m listening to perhaps one voice in isolation eg. The prophet or something like a moog subharmonicon, it’s easier for a listener to detect all the subtleties, if you have a layered hyperpop ultra clarity and frequency separation based production, the art is not in the sound sources, but carving enough room around all the sources in the mix and allowing room for all the elements, and at that point it’s easier to manage each element without chucking additional fx everywhere.
I’d add that in the electronic/ambient genres, it’s a grey area. I love chucking all kind of sources through my analog heat+fx, and that processing box becomes the instrument completely.
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Jimmy Hendrix used his cheapo guitar extensively throughout his career. Im not a guitar player but i do know hes a legend. And didnt buy expensive gear for a “better sound”.
Even Florian from Bad Gear, had problems making the Rythm Wolf from Akai sounding good. (Well he made it sound okish, but not great.)
That’s the thing, though. What does “sound good” mean? History is littered with boxes people abandoned because they “sounded bad” and “couldn’t be used for music”… right up until they started to get used in bangers (usually because they where cheap after being universally shunned).
To put it another way, it is repetition that legitimizes, not “good sound”. Does an out of tune bass line automatically disqualify one from having the song of the summer? Or might it contribute because it’s fresh and new and not overdone? If, in interviews, people ask “where’d you get the idea for that bass riff” the artist said “oh, that’s just how bass works on a rhythm wolf” would everyone immediately decide you have to have a wolf to have that sound? Seems like a pretty plausible scenario.
“Sounding good” follows success, not the other way around.
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You mean, because we have been constantly been 303 squelched - we love its sound? I am not so much a fan of it, allthough i had my share of acid tracks. I think it comes down to taste more than the repetition, i like the distorted electric guitar sound, more than that of a piano - both could have been very expensive instruments, i would still like the electric guitar more. I surly agree that taste is beeing formed by exposure, but i think its a two way street. Some form taste, and others follow, then they iterate. Sometimes it comes down to the right tool for the job.
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I completely agree with this. If I run a cheap analog synth or an expensive one through my Sherman Filterbank or RML boxes, it really makes no difference. Or for ambient, the qualities of the reverb are way more important than the source… an Iridium or a Volca FM can sound equally good.
Plus when you factor in how good plugins are these days… having expensive hardware is really a choice based on workflow, ergonomics and your associations with the instrument. I would love to have a Waldorf Wave… but does that actually sound better in a mix than, say, Arturia Pigments? Maybe not.
Another aspect for me (and highly subjective) is if I have a big expensive synth or drum machine around and I don’t feel I’m utilizing enough, I find it frustrating. Amazing instruments like the Machinedrum UW, Prophet 5, 12 and Rev2, Syntrx, Implexus etc have come and gone. I’d rather have a few cheap and cheerful synths around, plus Elektrons, and a bunch of fx that I can get down and dirty with, and that yield better results. YMMV.
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there’s no wrong answer
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