A survey conducted on popular music production forum site KVR [Source] found that of 333 participants polled over 70% commonly use Synth Presets to achieve their musical goals.
Reasons cited often centred around the ability to keep the production flow moving by being able to quickly get the sound needed, allowing musicians to concentrate on moving the overall production forwards.
One site user noted "Because I get results that go near the sound I want a lot faster." whilst another noted presets help them get the idea spark going. "Commonly. I like to start with presets to get an idea going quickly, "
Other members felt even stronger for presets. "I find that I just don't have the patience for it [creating presets]. Now, starting off with good, inspiring presets is the key to satisfaction for me."
With another advising "I still use synth presets almost entirely because I recognise that there are people far better at it than I am; and because my time for making music is limited and if I know that if I rolled all my own sounds I would end up doing nothing else."
Despite popularity of presets it's still a hotly debated topic in the music production circles. With the discussion thread on this particular poll spanning 24 pages of debate both for and against.
However despite the strong opinions you can rest assured that you're not alone, whilst not every top name producer would openly state they use synth presets you can often get a glimpse of top producers such as Avicii [RIP] dialling in a preset for their sounds on their how-to classes.
So don't feel guilty next time you reach for the presets, you're amongst the top 70% of musicians working to get your musical ideas down quickly and efficiently, and that's what counts!