I had a hard drive crash and lost a number of songs I had written. Since that time I write down on a spreadsheet all the track information for each song. I also save (and back up) midi exports, and project files to an external jump drive.
I have found doing this has helped when VST’s get updated and the preset doesn’t show up. I look at my paper notes and am able to recover the settings.
I have been trying for months to create an Access database to save this information. I am an Access hack at best and have been unsuccessful. The multiple effects for each track, and each song (many-to-many relationships) have given me trouble trying to design the forms.
I was wondering what steps others take and if they know of a database that might do the job or I could modify to suit my needs.
It’s been over a decade since my last MS Access database adventures, so I won’t be of that much help.
But generally, the trick with many to many relationships is, that they require a new intermediate table with at least 2 columns:
- the primary key of the first table in the many to many relationship
- the primary key of the second table in the many to many relationship
The concatenation of those two column fields becomes the primary unique key for that table, and each of the two columns act as foreign keys for linking to the tables in the many to many relationship.
The form designs become a fall-out from that underlying table design.
All that being said, this has nothing to do with music making with Steinberg software, and MS Access programming forums are probably a much better place for your MS Access programming questions.
However, your underlying desire for various listings may be solvable without designing databases and forms:
With a bit of imagination, and the help of calculated columns and spreadheet sorting commands, most questions could be answered without resorting to a full relational database design and associated full GUI/forms designs.
Thank you for that thoughtful response. I have been working with Access for months, trying to get this done. I have been on Access forums and they have been helpful. I’m familiar with the many-to-many relationship join tables. It has been the continuous forms controls that have been the source of my problems.
I only posted here because I wanted to see if any other Cubase users had come up with a solution I might adopt.
What I am doing is probably overkill, that if I backed up my files properly I really wouldn’t need this information. But I have found it helpful, even during editing sessions where I decide I want to undo some changes, I have notes about where I started from. It has also been helpful when installing updated VST’s and they don’t hold onto the preset that was selected. (Not even a file backup can fix that. But my worksheet has the preset name recorded.)
The note keeping isn’t necessarily overkill.
But making into a full forms based relational database backed application, rather than a spreadsheet may be. 
If you’re doing the application programming more as a mental exercise, then I wouldn’t want to talk you out of it.
But if you’re after the most efficient way to enter, update and review your plugin notes, learning a bit more about spreadsheets may very well be a faster path.
I’ve developed database backed software for a living in my dark past, but for this use case, I’d prefer a big-ass spreadsheet. 
LOL.
Basically, I’m using a spreadsheet, only caveman style. (Pencil and paper) The database was/is a mental exercise. I too have built databases in the past. Occasionally I think “hey, I should build a database for this”. I enjoy it as a hobby. ou have to stay with it though and occasionally there is some portion of the project that becomes a mountain too high.
Thanks for your comments. I enjoyed them.