Media Bay Sidebar again - how to handle project-specific content?

Hi there,

It’s been a while since I asked about this media bar. There doesn’t seem to be much discussion around it here in the forum - yet I found it such a useful tool. I can quickly open the sidebar, enter something in the search and then boom, I have a bunch of audio files, presets, settings right at my disposal to play around with. I really love it!

Now, I have licensed quite a lot of sound libraries over the years. Presets, Samples, Sound Effects. They are all registered with the Media Bay and it updates easily. However, there comes a moment when you work with a client that has their own licensed content which I cannot use on my own projects, understandably. Yet, I want to be able to search these libraries just as easily.

What do you guys do to “temporarily” make these kinds of libraries searchable? Do I really just check/uncheck the folder in the Media Bay browser? Seems a little excessive if you have lots of folders like these… I am wondering if I can make some kind of collection that I can “activate” before searching these collections.

Happy about every suggestion!

Robert

well looks like I’ve been describing the principle of Protools Workspace browser :face_with_hand_over_mouth: :shushing_face:

Hi,

What about to use the File Browser in the MediaBay Rack?

How is the MediaBay Rack different from the Sidebar and how do I activate it?

From what I can see in the tutorial, this might be what I am looking for, I only hope it’s configurable so I can use it inside a sidebar that I can tuck away :slight_smile: then I would be happy
Let me test this out!

Nope, that’s not it. Like I said before, going into that thing and searching for the folder, unchecking it is already too tedious/unintuitive for me. What if I forget doing that? What if I have multiple projects, each using different licensed, client-owned sound libraries? What if that folder is placed inside my main sound library folder which is itself already scanned by the Media Bay? I try to keep things tidy on my hard drive by not cramming sound libraries into project folders and vice versa.

I think what would really help here is an ability to create “sets” of different views on your file system. A set or “view” that is named “Project A” can have checkmarks in Specific folders that I deem necessary for this specific project whereas my saved set “Default” has all Checkmarks active in Sound libraries that contain my standard repertoire.

This is actually also something that I am missing in the “sound browser” as well. What if you’re a DJ that wants to make an album with a certain set of sounds in a specific spectral mood? Ableton actually lets you create such sets easily.

In my opinion, Cubase is lacking behind in that category.

Ah well, back to good old Finder-searching and managing.