Is there a way to rename a plugin or at least give it an alias/friendly name? I can’t seem to find it.
Thanks for the assist!
Unfortunately not.
Whoa… Wait… Seriously? Like at all? There’s no way?
That’s like saying you can’t save a project. It’s just such an easy and common sense of a feature to have.
Please someone else weigh in and tell me this is wrong.
I might be one and done with Cubase if this is true.
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Oh my… The more I look, the more posts I’m seeing of users begging for this for flipping YEARS! YEARS!!! YEARS, developers!!!
Yeah I’m probably out on Cubase immediately. I’m going have to start looking into getting back with Sonar or into Studio One.
That’s insane. The total disrespect for the customer on such an easy feature to implement, again for YEARS, is just spitting in their face.
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But would you be totally satisfied with Studio One?
Anyway - you could create a set of custom folders that make sense for you - mine or organized based on functions: Compressor, Distortion, Vocals, Drums, etc.
For example, if I want a gate - I open up “Gate/Expander” and I can see all the available options even if I forget what the name of the plugin is or I have totally forgotten that I even bought it.
Custom plugin collection are great but they don’t help once the plugin has been inserted and you can’t make out which plugin is which because certain vendors choose to add the same prefix to all their products.
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I’m not sure if Studio One is necessarily perfect for me or not. I’m certainly going to check it out now though. I’ve heard good things about it. I came from Sonar X1 and the audio editing of Cubase stood out to my by comparison. I could go back to Sonar I suppose as well. That is always an option.
I was actually making the custom folders when I discovered I could not find a way to rename my plugins the way I had in Sonar. This is a big deal to me as my eyes work well for most everything but reading those plugins fonts always do a number on me. Some companies have incredibly long names for their plugins and then have mono, stereo versions. This is a REALLY big workflow thing for me. I’ve dealt with it for a bit now as I’ve transitioned over to Cubase but I found it incredibly frustrating to work through and thought that today I was going to finally get rid of that thorn in my side. If I have to sit there and stare at the screen for 15-30 seconds longer just because of the plugin naming thing it really takes the piss out of my enthusiasm to mix. 80% of the time I’m playing where’s Waldo, and I never did like that jerk lol.
Honestly that has never even crossed my mind as an issue - but you can mouse over the plugin to see the full name if it’s not obvious.
Mousing over a bank of even 8 tracks is not efficient at all let alone across an entire project. This is a standard feature that has been available on every other DAW for an extremely long time.
This is nearly liken to not having midi support.
I’d be honestly curious to see an screen shot of the actual issue - the worst offender I see are “UADx blah blah blah blah,” but I have a LOT of plugins and it looks like most vendors seem to be aware of what a space constraint is.
I’m browsing my channel inserts and 99% of the plugins are easily identifiable. Even for Waves, it’s obvious what version is being used because the track will be mono if it is the mono version.
Everyone has to do their own cost benefit on what keeps them productive and happy in the studio - I’m happy with the features and workflow for what I do.
Waves are the longest named plugins I’ve got and, yes, they give me issues. I get mono and stereo options regardless if the track is mono or stereo which add to my issue. UAD stuff all starts with the same prefix as does I believe all of the Brainworx stuff that I own.
Again this is available on every DAW.
I don’t need a plugin to be, for example:
bx_SSL E Channel Strip.
SSL E CS - is much easier on my eyes and to the point. Or if I had a folder dedicated for channels strips I could simply have - E, G, J, 73, 84, 6176, Vision, Omni, etc.. Since it’s in my channel strip folder I would know what it is without the need for excessive description. Much faster. Much cleaner. Much easier (IMO of course).
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Is it not the case that when other DAWs allow renaming, it’s only at the project level?
I’d prefer it at the global level. VST2 plugins could be renamed by changing the filename, why not have that option with VST3? Is that so hard?
Given a choice, I’d rather Steinberg implemented renamable CCs.
Sonar X1 allows globally. From my brief look into Studio One it appears to be global. Reaper it can be done as well. In fact, I think in Reaper you can do a global alias and a single instance alias. Don’t quote me on that though.
I don’t believe Pro Tools has this feature but Pro Tools is hardly the DAW a developer should wish to be following an example from. I’ve used it. It’s fine-ish. It’ll certainly get the job done for sure. It’s just the slowest horse on the track anymore despite it being the first one out of the gate.
Oh, come on … 
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Oh really? How often do you load a plugin? I use plugins in every session. The ability to rename them to something short and sweet is very basic level stuff. In fact there’s sessions I never use midi. So yeah… to me, and I’m sure others, the ability to customize a thing that you use several times across an entire project and interface with many times over is very important.
I certainly would trade this one feature for all the Dorico stuff that <2% of users utilize. Guess what everyone uses though? That’s right, plugins.
I’d also prefer having alias names for plugins.
However, my personal/subjective list of priorities for choosing DAWs, it’s quite a bit lower than a “must have”.
But if it’s a “must have” for OP, then it won’t matter what other advantages Cubase brings to their workflow - and I can respect that.
Side note: For Instrument plugins, the renaming of an Instrument Track works for the last few versions of Cubase and I’m using it regularly.
Bold absolutist statements like that should really be accompanied by pretty strong evidence.
For example, many users do most of their sonic mangling in hardware (some guitar players, some EuroRack enthusiasts). Many orchestral composers use the mic placements and fx chains inside their orchestral libraries. Those individuals plus many Podcasters and YouTubers may be content with the channel strip, rather than adding 3rd party FX inserts.
So yes, I would also prefer to rename insert FX. But I’ve long come to the conclusion that the rest of the world does not care that much about my personal preferences and my bold public threats of picking another product don’t do much other than publicizing something about my personality that I potentially might regret later.
So when I find that a product doesn’t fit my “must have” needs, I simply move on …
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Any one using a forum, any where, should be made to recite this 100 times before being allowed to post.
(Just my personal preference! 
)
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I switched to Cubase because I preferred the audio editing workflow. It was definitely a big step forward from where I was at in my opinion. I am very happy so far on that front.
In general I believe everyone prefers that the things they have to access or interface with the most in a workflow are the things that should have the most polish, so to speak. Like if I asked someone would you rather have to hover over a plugin to see which one it was or would you prefer to just look at it while you continued doing something else with the mouse or hardware controller I’m pretty confident 99.9% of users will go for the glance. Likewise, if I gave you the option of these two scenarios which would you choose? (we’ll stick with channel strips since that is what I reference previously)
Channel Strips
6176
Vision
73
84
E -
E %
G -
G %
J
A 200
Sand
Pink
My preferred mono/stereo symbology
-Mono
%Stereo
OR
Channel Strips
UADx LA-6176 Channel Strip
UADx API VISION Channel Strip
DV Brit73
DV Brit84
SSLChannel Mono
SSLChannel Stereo
SSLGChannel Mono
SSLGChannel Stereo
bx_console SSL 9000 J
bx_console AMEK 200
SAND4STRIPULTRA
PINK4
For me, which you and I agree on that no one needs to care about, one of these is infinitely easier to work with. Luckily for myself, I do care what I think and I am willing to voice that. That was not always the case in my life I have not seen anything good come from that rather meek version of my former self. I could be entirely wrong but if given the choice from Steinburg I think a lot of users would use this feature even if they never considered it until this very moment.
The searching that I do because of the inability to have a friendly named insert is an absolute mood killer. There’s really no good reason why it is this way. It’s been a feature request for literally a decade. Maybe longer. I’m not sure.
I didn’t think that I was making a very bold claim at all. I don’t dabble much in the world of VST instruments so perhaps there is a way to run a vst instrument without loading a plugin/vst instrument. Certainly anyone attempting to mix or master is using a plugins. So, I firmly stand by that point that ALL users use plugins but not all users use midi. To be honest I’m very confused as to way that came across to you as such a “bold absolutist statement.” I’m guessing I am misunderstanding your point.
I would agree that many users use hardware but I would be willing to bet that most users do not or at least the hardware makes up a much smaller portion of their workflow than plugins do. Certainly most guitarist are not using hardware anymore unless we are talking about only those users utilizing Cubase in a strictly professional capacity. Even in that capacity though, countless records are being made using only plugin amp sims. I could not even guess what a professional composer’s workflow looks like and you are probably correct that podcasters and YouTubers are not exactly the type of user to use third party plugins making my point and issue moot for them. I could be wrong but I am doubtful that the majority of Cubase users are professional composers, podcasters and YouTubers. Again, hopefully I did not miss the mark on the point you were trying to make here.
As previously stated no one here or anywhere else needs to agree with anything I say, but it actually appears that many have and do (including yourself) and it’s been documented for a decade so I’m not sure why you are trying to minimize this lack of a basic feature that, for me, is a real obstacle. Like I said previously my eyes are fine for most things, but that list of plugins all smears together for me and it just doesn’t need to be that way.
As far as threats of picking another product; I’m not sure who you believe I was threatening. I was simply stating my position and venting because this issue really does tick me off. I paid a lot of money for this application, and I take full responsibility of not vetting it properly, but for it to be absent this feature that I thought at this point was a given and then to find out just how many people have requested it and for how long, well, that also ticks me off. It tells me that Steinberg doesn’t care about their customers and I just gave a lot of my money to a company who couldn’t care less.
I’m not sure what you believe I am publicizing about my personality other than that I have one and I’m not afraid to speak up and say something when I believe I have something valid to say. I’m not afraid to display frustration with a product or a company if I am not happy with it. This is actually how companies are able to improve. If their customers never gave them feedback then their growth and development would be blind. This is a valid topic. This is a valid request from other Cubase users across many years which is primarily why I am frustrated now. I started with shock and disappointment from the lack of feature and it quickly grew to frustration when I saw customers being ignored. I don’t think there is anything regrettable about that at all.
After all is said an done it appears you do agree with me that this is a feature that would be beneficial. It appears really you only take issue with two things. 1) The fact that I am voicing my frustration that so many other people have documented a desire to have this feature added and yet it has fallen on deaf ears. 2) For some reason it bothers you that I have expressed that this lack of feature disrupts my workflow and enjoyment of using Cubase enough for me to look for a DAW that does not disrupt my workflow.
Hopefully you did not take any of this out of context. I’m not angry with you or trying to be snide or passive aggressive at any point throughout this novel of a post (my apologies lol). Really I’m more confused by your reply than anything so surely I have misunderstood you.
I have found a momentary work around. A MASSIVE thank you to @Phil_Pendlebury for sharing this on a different thread. I hope you don’t mind my linking to your video Phil.
https://youtu.be/JAS-15gdHHQ?si=WDcUysXJhgDtpTxw
(edit)
I suppose Phil doesn’t say in the video but you can change the name of the plugins in the same manner that he demonstrates that you can update the plugin folder name.
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Thanks.
This is an old video. It’s not very well set out to be honest. But hopefully the general gist was helpful.
I really ought to do an updated version.