How do *you* save custom VST plugin presets

Cubase
#1

Hey folks,

A few months ago I upgraded from SX3 to C7 after using Logic Pro 8 then 9 for a few years and I’m trying to wrap my head around how the Media Bay works. One thing that’s just killing me is where custom VST plugin presets are saved.

Let’s say I click Edit Instrument on, for example, a Retrologue track. Then say I click Save Preset… and save it under whatever name. If I then click Load Preset… the preset is nowhere to be found, even if I click the back arrows and/or type in the exact name I just used.

This appears to me to be very strange behaviour! Is there something I"m missing?

How do you all manage your custom presets?

Any help would be much appreciated! The sounds themselves are pretty damn good so it’s a shame to be held back by something as silly as preset navigation.

thanks!
Matthew

#2

El bumpo!

#3

Rescan your mediabay, And if you’re on win system your preset are saved in : user/documents/VST3 Preset

#4

It would be helpful if you said whether you are on a Mac or a PC.

#5

Very good point, Jeff. I’ve added my system details to my signature.

Oddly saving now seems to be working: I click on Save Preset, type a name and hit Enter and then can find it by searching. Not sure what changed but at least that problem seems to be solved.

That brings me back to my main point, though - what’s the best way to organize custom presets? Is it to create new folders called “Custom Presets” (or whatever) within each VST folder? Tagging them seems odd to me, though I could be persuaded that that’s better. Or perhaps there’s a more “Steinbergy” way of doing things…

I’m open to all possibilities.

#6

Actually, here’s (to me) a million-dollar question: how do I save presets for non-Steiny VSTs so they show up in Bank/Program Selector?

If that’s possible, which I have to assume it is, it could really streamline my workflow.

#7

The only way to do so is to save each and every presets as ‘vstpreset’ ones. Some VSTis (and it erraticaly depends which one, as this sadly has nothing to do with with an eventual VST 2.4 compatibility…) will allow you to do this in one pass, using the ‘Convert the program List to vstpresets’ function available near the preset selector of the VSTi window. Otherwise, you’re out of luck : you’ll have to convert each of them one by one with the ‘Save preset’ function…

And beware ! Each time you’ll edit a preset, you’ll have to export it again as a ‘vstpreset’ beside the saving under the regular proprietary format, otherwise you’ll end up with a horrible mess mainly composed of a non synchronized double presets list management. This without speaking of the hassle using Mediabay and its strange UI or its mandatory regular scans in order to retrieve some presets suddenly missing…

Guess what ? I simply don’t use Mediabay and the program selector is used only to select the presets of my external instruments, as their management is not Mediabay dependent : here, it’s the MIDI device manager that is involved. So, if I want a VSTi preset, I use directly the involved VSTi window (made a key command to quickly use the ‘Edit instrument’ one) and it’s own preset management : much less hassle as, 7 years after its release, Mediabay is still unable to manage efficiently VST2.x presets. Among other issues, the FXB/FXP format (yes, Steiny’s own creation…) support is broken since Cubase 4 : you can only import them for conversion, but there is no more saving available…

#8

I’m so sick and tired of Cubase inconsistent and unpredictable preset management.

I understand that 3rd party has something to do with it.

I wish it would just WORK. It’s 2014. Everyone in the industry should take a few days, get together and make this stuff just work.

#9

Thanks for the reply, Cubic. In which folder do I save those? Or does it matter?

#10

Not really. Actually and this, since few years (I think the change occured during the C5.5.x days), the presets are all saved in subfolders, each one named as the VSTis authors/designer companies and containing sub-subfolder(s) named as the VSTi involved. All these are grouped (for Windows 7 ; I don’t know how things go under OSX) in the C:\Users<username>\Documents\VST3 Presets one. Of course, the latter (and all its content) needs to be carefully scanned with Mediabay in order to have a chance to use what’s in it…

Guess that you can choose other places, but I didn’t even attempt to do so : not worth the hassle…

#11

O/P: You have all my sympathy. Many of us still dislike Mediabay and VSTPresets, even though they’ve been around for years now.

One problem is that, when first released, the thing just didn’t -work- properly. There was much re-scanning and many of us just held onto FXPs and VST-specific presets.

And SB, like many of the standards it’s created in the past 10 years, failed to market it aggressively so it is (ironically) a teeny minority. There’s no incentive for developers to support it.

Now it does seem to work properly, but it still escapes me as to why it’s ‘better’ than what we had before. It -could- be better if it allowed for more sophisticated database functions. But… also as is common with SB… it’s kinda withered on the vine.

There are many requests in the F/R area of this site to improve it. Personally, I’d like to be able to:
a) Print reports.
b) Copy/Export/Import presets
c) Have user-defined fields such as ‘Album’ or ‘Style’
d) Create queries such as
‘Show me all CPRs with Omnisphere OR Alchemy presets’
'Show me all presets I used for any CPR with the Album ‘Greatest Hits’
'Show me all presets I used from Vendor UAD of type ‘Compressor’

IOW: Use it like a real database.