Many thanks for all your upgrades again, and the impressive list in 4049.
Since VST3 implementation, Plugin Alliance seems to be the only company where VST3 presets are not recognized by Cantabile. This still is the case in 4049 (see JPG). No serious trouble, as I can use the VST2, but will be happy if you manage to address this. The VST3 presets are e.g recognized in Reaper (see JPG) and Cakewalk.
I used the Shadow Hills Compressor A grade as example, but all PA show the same behavior (Bettermaker EQ232 et al), except some instrument VST3 (such as Knifonium, BX_Oberhausen) that show their presets inside the GUI, so I can see where I am in the VST3
I have a number of VST3 with the same problem. Plus a bunch of them don’t appear under their Vendor category (for example Melda) forcing me to look in the (in my case) bloated Effects category.
Hrm… I had that on my todo list before release but it must have been overlooked somehow. I’ll get it fixed.
Build 4049 has a workaround for an issue where some VST 3 plugins don’t return the vendor information correctly. Off hand, I’m not sure if it works for Melda, but trying doing a full plugin scan and let me know if it resolves it.
I have a pile of PA plugins and here’s what I found testing:
For plugins that do not have their own preset manager, the fix works except if you first go to the Cantabile preset list and change it to “Use Plugin’s Programs” (where nothing shows up) and then use the “P” button to choose a VST3 preset, then the name does not copy. Changing Cantabile back to “Entire Plugin Snapshot” allows it to copy name. Either way, once the name is copied, the name is recalled upon save/close/reopen song, so its just a quirk to be aware of.
For plugins that do have their own preset manager, the “P” button does not show up and selecting a preset from the plugin’s manager does not copy the name. Not really an issue since the plugin’s manager does recall the name upon save/close/reopen song.
This looks reasonable, since in that case you’re telling Cantabile to use the plugin’s internal (i.e. non-“.vstpreset” presets via VST3 - which it can’t access, since that mechanism doesn’t work for these plugs. So Cantabile doesn’t have a way to access these plugins’ internal preset names - the “name” field will stay empty, since Cantabile doesn’t get a preset name from the plugin. Loading “native presets”, only plugin parameters are copied from the .vstpreset files directly to the plugin’s parameters.
When you use Cantabile’s mechanism (plugin snapshots), Cantabile uses its own mechanism to manage preset names, independent from the plugin. So it’s easier for Cantabile to manage naming directly (I guess simply by using the .vstpreset file name as a preset name). So in this preset mode, Cantabile will display its internal preset names in the plugin preset list. That’s why “plugin snapshot” mode should be your choice if you want preset names for this kind of plugin.
Personally, I prefer using “entire bank” (or explicit VST parameters) state behavior to manage snapshots of my plugins in racks, so everything gets stored per rack state whenever I update the state. For me, this is easier than dealing with rack states AND plugin states - just one “flat” rack state.
In that way, recalling native presets is pretty helpful, even if I then use rack states to actually save the state of the plugin.
