Okay, explain this one, Lucy. A few years ago I lost my NI FM7 disc, an then later I had to wipe the drive that it was installed on, so the vsti was now lost to my use. Today, I opened an older song that used it, and of course I was really missing it. I downloaded an update of FM7, but when Cubase launches, it says it can’t find the preset folder for it. So I wrote it off. But when I re-opened that song, there it was with the right preset listed in the Inspector, plus, most of all, it played back the right sound!
I suppose this means I won’t be able to use it in other projects, however
Well, I am no expert… but I think…
Cubase actually saves the value of every parameter set on the VSTi and the name that is in the preset box with the project.
It doesn’t just save the name of the preset and then load that preset when the project opens.
For example…
If you open a VSTi, then load a preset, then change the parameters of that VSTi (without re-saving the preset), then save and close the project, when you open the project back up, the parameters for the VSTi will be the same as you have adjusted them but the name in the preset box will be the same.
If you then select “load preset” and select the same preset, the values will go back to what is saved in the preset. Close the project WITHOUT saving and then open it and the parameters will be back to where you had modified them to.
In other words, Cubase does not load the instrument from the presets everytime you open the project, just when you load the PRESET, then it saves all the parameters with the project after that.
HTH
J.L.
EDIT: You may be able to get some of the presets that you have used in your projects back by opening the projects and then using the “Save Preset” function from the VSTi GUI to save those presets to the disk and then they will be available in other projects.
I was especially interested in that last part. In the project I’m referring to, I can actually pull up the presets from within the vsti, they’re all listed, and they can all be accessed – I tried it. I’m not sure I follow you about how to make it so the presets will now be available in other songs
It is an interesting topic and I am not sure I understand it perfectly but I think, for Cubase, a “preset” is a saved set of parameters for a VSTi. SOME VSTi allow you to define muliple “patches” within the VSTi at a time and switch between them. So if you use the “save preset” function in Cubase, you can save the full state of the VSTi at the current time. So, if the VSTi has sixteen patches loaded into it it will save the settings for all of those patches (not just the one you have selected). In the VSTi, try using the “save preset” function and then see what happens when you open a new project with that VSTi and load that preset. Hopefully, all of those “patches” will be there.
HTH
J.L.