Patch management is confusing - need help

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

Hi, sorry if I didn't explain this well in the manual. I'll try to explain the process in more detail below.

So first you will need to rename your patch on the GUI by right-clicking on the patch name. Then you can go about saving it. If you skip this step then it will load with the original name.

Now to add it to an existing bank, there are a couple ways to do it.

You can save the individual patch, and then pull up your bank and load it into there. Afterwards you will need to save the modified bank.

Another way to do this is by using the Copy/Paste feature. This is how I do it personally, it just seems to go with my workflow. When you create a patch you like, hit the Copy button, then pull up whatever Bank you want to add it to. I usually do this by clicking the little Hexagon to the right. This quickly brings up my list of Banks. After I've loaded the bank I want, I just 'Paste' the patch into an available slot. Don't forget to save the modified bank.

Sometimes if it's a really good patch I'll save a copy of it in a 'Patch' folder just in case I accidentally overwrite it.

I hope this clarifies things. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

Okay thanks, that helped a bit. As a user it would help if there was only one way to name a new preset, because I wasn't aware that you could also click in the GUI to name a preset, seeing as it brings up a new window where you can also give it a name.

I'll see if there's a way to fix this in the next update.

So let's say I now have my shiny new preset I just made. How do I make a brand new bank with that preset as the first and only preset in the bank? As far as I can make out, when you click Save Sound Bank it opens up a new window where you name the bank, but it also copies all the presets in the bank that's currently loaded, so you end up with two identical banks with different names. Is it possible to make a fresh, empty bank?

I use the INIT bank as a blank canvas when creating a new bank. If you save the current bank you are working in, it will copy all the patches in that bank, because you've only modified that bank. So if you pull up the INIT bank, load or paste your patch into any given slot, and save it as 'New Bank', it will now show up in the list of banks. When you load your New Bank, it will have your new patch and all the rest are initialized and ready for tweaking into new patches or to be overwritten with any patches you've saved.

A quick workflow method if you plan to make several banks, is to load up the INIT bank, and save it as many times as needed with different names. For example: Bass, Ambience, Sound FX, etc. Now anytime your playing with Phonec and you come upon a sound you like, you can just copy it, open up the bank it fits best into and then save the bank. I do this a lot when making music or even running tests. Sometimes I just want to save my patch without disrupting my workflow. This is a great way to do it.

Another thing to note is that you can overwrite the Default bank with your own patches, and that will be the bank that loads up by default each time you load Phonec.

And lastly, if you haven't noticed this in the manual, you can save a 50x50 pixel image for each bank. Just name the image the same name as your bank, and that image loads up in place of the hexagon (The default bank image).

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

Yes a dialog window will pop up because it's asking you where to save the bank. If you put your new patch in "keys", all you have to do is save it as Keys.Bnk. Doing so will overwrite the original file, but that's what you're trying to do. Now the next time you load up Keys, your patch will be in there.

Also make sure your saving with the right extension. I see in the picture the extension is .pst, but that's for presets. If your saving a bank, the extension should be .Bnk.

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

I'm sorry you lost your preset. I'll look into what can be done to fix some of these issues. Thanks for the feedback!

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

This is still annoying. As far as I can tell you can't modify a preset and 'save as' without first copying and pasting it, otherwise when you save the bank with the new modified version the preset you began tweaking gets saved as the new modified version also, so you end up losing the original and gaining two copies of the same sound.

I don't quite understand the problem you're having here. Of course overwriting a bank with a modified preset will give you just that. A modified version of that bank.

However, we are currently working on a v2.3 update to Phonec, and are looking into possible improvements to the Patch Management system.

[Vortifex]

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[jack [psychicmodulation]]

This is still annoying. As far as I can tell you can't modify a preset and 'save as' without first copying and pasting it, otherwise when you save the bank with the new modified version the preset you began tweaking gets saved as the new modified version also, so you end up losing the original and gaining two copies of the same sound.

I don't quite understand the problem you're having here. Of course overwriting a bank with a modified preset will give you just that. A modified version of that bank.

However, we are currently working on a v2.3 update to Phonec, and are looking into possible improvements to the Patch Management system.

I don't know how to save a tweaked preset without overwriting the original. I tried to explain it as concisely as possible. Can someone just do me a How To Save Presets For Dummies 101 or something? Unless I'm mistaken I have to copy and paste a preset before I can tweak it without overwriting the original.

You don't have to overwrite the original. You can save it anywhere you want. Just choose a different slot to save your preset. You can even go to a different bank and save it in any of those 127 slots. Or you can just save the preset to your hard drive for later use. I don't understand what you mean about having to overwrite the original.