I’ve seen this brought up already but I wanted to chime in. I like to use Padshop in a very experimental “lets try this” kind of way, where I’ll render another sound in place and toss it into Padshop for a quick transition sound effect for example. The issue is that Padshop doesn’t just store its sample within that instance in that project - it creates a duplicate of the file within my Documents folder on my (internal) SSD. Every time, for every sound ever dragged into the synth.
This is a problem for a couple reasons. First, I don’t like having a duplicate, unsorted sample library being populated on my main internal drive. Again, most of my source sounds are quick renders in place, so the contents of that Padshop folder are just dozens and dozens of wavs like “Phase Plant 04-01.wav” etc. These should stay within the scope of the project they came from, in its Audio folder and in Padshop instances in the .cpr - they should not be copied into a big junkyard of every sample I’ve ever thrown into Padshop, on my internal drive no less. This is bad enough for Padshop patches I end up keeping in my projects, but worse for the cases where I try something, don’t like it, and delete the instance… whatever samples I loaded in were still copied to my internal drive.
Another consequence of this is that working on multiple machines is extremely cumbersome. If I work on a project using Padshop one one computer, then try to open it later on another, that Padshop instance will have an empty buffer. So I either need to 1) keep that entire sample junkyard in sync between the two computers, or 2) export every single Padshop patch (even the 4 second riser that will only ever be used in one specific project) as a preset, then import these presets on the second computer. It’s also worth mentioning that this default location C:\Users*\Documents\Steinberg\Padshop\Samples\User Samples cannot be changed, so I can’t tell Padshop to point to an external drive for example without messing with symlinks.
In practice, what this means is that instead of experimenting often with Padshop as I did in the beginning, I now use it extremely conservatively. I ask myself every time if its worth adding to that growing sample library, or having to sync machines at some point later. Instead I try to get my results with other VST samplers (which store files within the patch itself), and will probably need to purchase a more sensible granular synth down the road. Which is sad! An excellent sounding, stock granular synth is such an incredible boon for Cubase, especially in the context of creative sound design for electronic music. Every DAW has its well known 1st party sound generators - Ableton’s Operator, FL’s Sytrus and Harmor, Bitwig’s Grid. Cubase has Padshop, which is so unique! No need for a 3rd party granularizer! It really should not have this stipulation of nonsensical file management, and I hate that I essentially try to use it as sparingly as possible.
