Hi
TLDR: How to find my favorite factory presets with ease for certain instruments types, and how to make Arturia’s instruments and presets fit more organically into the Steinberg’s ecosystem.
I am in the process of going through all of my factory presets from Steinberg and Arturia. I go through each VST chronologically, and in each VST I go through all the factory presets chronologically. I mark the presets that I like, for later. In Steinberg’s VSTs I am rating my presets using 1-5 star rating where 4 is good and 5 is best. In Arturia I am adding regular likes (hearts) to good presets, and I also give them a red tag if they are some of the best ones.
If I come up with a nice melody for any of those presets, I record it, and then I create a new track, and continue with the next preset, and so on.
It ends up looking something like this:
I dedicate a whole *.CPR file for every VST, but sometimes I create several files for that VST, if there are too many tracks with too many melodies - just to make the files lighter.
I know this workflow is probably not the best, but it is what I’ve come up with and it has been working, so far.
I am done with the Steinberg ones (like Retrologue, Padshop, etc.), and I am finishing up Arturia’s presets, hopefully done in a month or two.
I do all of this to scour every VST that I own for good sound effects and instruments, saving them to my favorites. And in the meantime I get to practice my midi keyboard skills. If I come up with a good melody that sounds even better using some of my favorite factory presets, then it’s a bonus result.
When I am finally done going through thousands of factory presets, I will listen to everything that I’ve recorded, and mark my favorite takes (events) using colors and start curating them by adding additional melodies on top of them using different instruments. And this is where I’m unsure of how to approach the next step.
Let’s say I have a melody that I really like and I want to expand it by adding more instruments, like a bass, percussions, etc.
( OR let’s say I have a melody that I really like and I want to listen to it using other favorite presets (instruments) of the same category. )
What would be the most logical next step?
Arturia has its own preset searching system and unfortunately Arturia’s presets can’t be added to the Media Bay, as far as I know.
So I am considering an alternative workflow method like making a main Cubase file that will serve as a template. And in that template I could perhaps make a folder for each type of instrument (lead, bass, drums, etc.). And each folder could contain a handful of tracks where each track already has some of the best sounding factory presets assigned to them for that particular instrument type.
Problem with this method, I imagine, is that there might be too many tracks, in the end, making the entire file too heavy to work with.
This is why I’m interested to hear how people in here approach this type of workflow.
To conclude, before this topic becomes way too long. I am aiming to create music that has a certain style to it. I want to use and reuse some of my favorite factory presets in a way, that is easy and accessible. So that I can add additional instruments to certain melodies without getting lost in the preset searching systems. So, ideally, I imagine having around 10 of each instrument types. So if I have a great solo lead melody and I quickly need a good bass preset to compliment it, then I would like to have it ready and available, so that I can keep the creative momentum and not getting discouraged when looking for a few golden needles in huge piles of haystacks.
I am not sure about the method, though. Any suggestions are very welcome!
I would be interested to hear any tips or tricks pertaining the subject.
Thanks for reading all of that.