Dilemma with preset management

[urlwolf]

I have this Dilemma with preset management.

- Many good synths have no preset management built in. But they expose the preset list to the host.

- Many good synths have some kind of built-in preset management. But they DO NOT expose the preset list to the host.

---
Hosts often do not have great preset managers (looking at you reaper, FL).

Some have decent preset managers with tags, search, and keyboard shortcuts (Tracktion and S1).


---
One could assume that the DAW preset manager is better than whatever comes with the synth (no preset manager, or very poor). Then one could try to do all preset management on the daw itself.

But often the synths with built-in preset management do not expose their preset to the daw preset manager. For example, in tracktion you can assign shortcuts to next and previous preset on say Charlatan (no manager) but not on say an U-he synth (with a preset manager, but no tagging nor search).

Does anyone have a good solution for this?
It's kind of a silly problem really.

[Urs]

There's always Zen:

http://www.bigtickaudio.com/zen/about-zen

As for u-he synths, I overheard two developers talking about that just last night, saying they wish to deal with this sooner rather than later. I think they're even working on some kind of semi-automatic tagging system that listens to their presets. Not sure if there's any truth to that though, i.e. you haven't heard it from me and I promise nothing.

[aMUSEd]

Linplug Spectral is an example of a plugin that manages to have a decent preset browser with preset ratings, but that uses a standard preset format (fxp) so still manages to expose presets to the host (so I can batch import them into Kore as well). So it is possible to do both. Wish more would go down this route.

[beely]

Does anyone have a good solution for this?
It's kind of a silly problem really.

Yeah, the whole patch management thing is currently an inconsistent mess, really.

I prefer to do it all in my host (Logic) where possible for consistency, easy organisation and sped of access so for many many plugins that don't expose the patches to the host, I save those patches in the host format so they do show up in the host. This mostly works well (although tedious/time consuming to do).

The few gotchas with this method are for synths that don't save everything needed in the host format - eg, Minimonsta, where you lose the morphing, where existing browsers are good and offer some good patch browsing features (eg Alchemy) or where the sheer amount of patches means saving individual host patches impractical to actually do (eg Omnisphere).

Macro tools are your friends for going through the presets and saving them to the host.

[Lotuzia]

I think its related to a more large subject that is 'Content Management', and with most synths beeing capable to receive a larger number of presets, it becomes more and more important. Also it adresses samples, loops, and samples libs as well.

I think multi criteria filtering is the main point. ( As also beeing able to create custom tags for each criteria)

In this regard I found NI, Spectrasonics, defunct Camel Audio and Xils-Lab some of the companies that really put some effort in these systems to offer the opportunity to musicians to find 'the right patch' for a track *as fast as possible*.

Imho if you can do it in the synth itself, there's no need to involve OS browsers in such tasks, because OS folders strict hierarchical organisation, with only one criteria ( ie name of the folder organising *similar* objects ) will always by structure be less powerfull than even rudimentary databased systems.

[Big Tick]

... except that then, you need to select the synth first. So if the perfect sound for the track you are working on, happens to be hidden in an obscure synthedit plugin you don't even remember you have installed, you will never find it... which is why tools like Zen, and its VIP successor, exist in the first place.

[beely]

... except that then, you need to select the synth first.

Indeed. Currently, you have to go to an instrument, and look for a bass sound on that. If no joy, you have to choose the next instrument, then look for a bass sound on that. That perfect sound might be in the instrument you never choose, because it doesn't occur to you to look there.

In some ways, the old MIDI/Sysex days were better than what we have now - I could load up my patch library, filter by bass sound, and flip through, regardless of which (real) synth they were coming from. And the experience was consistent.

In this day and age, with (effectively) limitless memory, disk space, and screen interface controls, we should be laughing - but patch management is still an inconsistent, and very variable experience, depending on what hosts and instruments you use.

I love the fact that 'Tick is working on Zen (I see there is a Mac version now, cool...), but I fear that the only proper solution would be to get together and devise some kind of plugin/patch standard (yes, yet another standard) and build momentum so everybody ends up supporting it (but then you still have the issue of older instruments that won't get updated to support it).

So in the meantime, we're left with a patchwork of how your host/s of choice handle patches, together with how instruments handle patches, patch browsing, exposing to the host and so on.

[urlwolf]

Zen is cool, but being a wrapper it breaks some workflows. It makes it harder to assign midi cos on the daw, for example

[Big Tick]

hmmm, not really - if I remember correctly, Zen has 32 assignable controls + 1000 parameters that are passed through to the final plugin. So you can assign midi using your usual midi learn workflow.

[urlwolf]

Other problems I have with Zen:
- it doesn't support one of my faves, glass viper
- fonts are tiny, tiny
- it's one more window to manage
- no way to assign keyboard shortcuts to 'next preset' or 'save preset'.

Last 3 are a common malady on the vst world.