I’ve been using Cubase 12 LE along with Ableton Live 11 for some time now and I came across one major difference which annoys me a little bit. In Live if you search e.g. “Am” to get all samples in A minor, it works just fine but in Cubase it show all my files because they’re in the “Samples” folder.
I know that you can use logical filters and search for a certain name but I wonder if there’s a way to ignore the file path while searching in a search box at the top of the screen. Is there a way?
I’m a little bit confused on whether you’re full knowing of the MediaBay logical search features or not? or if you are but they are for some reason insufficient (I’d actually be interested to know how Ableton is better)?
I’m aware that it is possible to achieve it with logical search. I’m just wondering if it’s possible to change Cubase’s default Attributes when using search box e.g. in right zone. Ableton seems to only look at the file’s name while Cubase searches all folders and subfolders. Maybe it’s just a feature that I need to get used to. Below are screenshots of both browsers with “Am” searched.
So this is Cubases right zone and Abletons left zone correct?
Have you tried putting quotations “am”? can’t remember if quotation protocol is included, not at my DAW right now.
To be honest, I don’t use right zone mediabay much, I prefer just pulling up the full deal which does globally remember your last search, subfolder location, etc.
But also you could set up SoundBrowser the same way as MediaBay (it is MediaBay, just a second one for sounds only) and it to should memorize directory location/last search etc I believe.
I will give you more exact answers when im back at DAW
I’m not ready to give up just yet. I’m still trying to suss out exactly what you’re after so we can at least make it a clear feature request because I’m all about petitioning for MediaBay improvements.
1
What do you mean by filepath? The file name? this part isn’t exactly clear to me. Or maybe you mean Meta Data, that makes sense now.
2
Also not sure what you mean here, the default Filter Attributes? And by default do you mean, every time you open the right zone, it’s set a certain way? if so, explain that certain way point by point.
3
I’m trying to figure out how to tie 1, 2, 3 into being one thing you’re talking about, but they feel like three different things you’re talking about. Am I wrong, or are you talking about one thing?
Not being facetious or anything, just trying to understand.
Just for clarification, in the two pictures… these are two different sample directories correct?
In the mean time, I think you’ll be able to get closer to the behaviour you want by using the actual MediaBay or SoundBrowser. And you could create a Workspace with a hotkey in which, you could position and size SoundBrowser to be the “right zone”
I’ll try to glue everything together. While I was looking for a loop in Am, I typed it in a search box and nothing changed - MediaBay was still showing me all of the files in that folder. Then, I tried using logical filters and when I only chose name as an attribute, it worked just fine. So I started wondering what actually makes Cubase display all of the samples. By using logical search, I came to a conclusion that it was the “path” attribute, because the name of the folder where all of my samples are contains “am”.
I don’t know if you have used Live, but it allows you to pin folders to the sidebar. Then, when you search something, it only searches through subfolders inside that folder. For example, this filepath:
Files\Music\Samples\Synth\Chords
If I pinned the "Samples’ folder to the sidebar and searched for “Am” samples, it would display the “Synth” folder and all of its subfolder which contain desired files. If I typed “Cho”, it would display the entire “Chords” folder.
I managed to achieve similar workflow in Cubase by adding the “Samples” folder to favourites. However, when I search “Am”, it searches through all of the folders, including “Samples”. This makes all of the files appear.
I’m looking for a way to pin the “Samples” folder so MediaBay looks only at the subfolders or tell it not to search by filepath but only by name of the file.
I’m aware that it’s possible to do it using logical filter and attributes but using searchbox is just a little bit more intuitive.
Interesting, sounds like you’ve tapped into subtle differences between the two in how they handle this and your perspective here is valuable imo. I’d change this thread to a Feature Request and title it as so as well. Thanks for taking the time to give a more thorough explanation.
In the windowed MediaBay/SoundBrowser, you can activate/deactivate ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’. Second, if you open the ‘Select Media Types’ menu, you can check/uncheck what file types you want in the default search bar.
There is also ‘Select Defined Favorite’, which I don’t think I have used, maybe it’s what you’re looking for?
Unfortunately, none of your ideas worked. “Include Folders and Subfolders” works only visually, “Select Media Types” does nothing because all of my files are audio and “Select Defined Favourite”, if I understood it correctly, only lets you quickly switch between different favourite folders.
However, I’ve recently heard about MediaBay Aspects and they might be the solution but I think they’re exclusive to Nuendo. At least I can’t see them in Cubase 12 LE.
Damn, I just looked that up and it does sound like what you’re talking about. Sounds kind of useful for music to so if you don’t mind,
change your OP tags to include ‘Feature Request’ and let us begin the petition to get this ported to Cubase. It shouldn’t be tooo hard for them to do if it already exists in their base Cubendo code.
Maybe change the title to “Request: port Nuendo ‘MediaBay Aspects’ to Cubase / competes with Ableton” that last part will get their attention
