Not sure if this has been asked before, but search has not turned up anything
Is there a simple way of getting a list of recognised plugins from Cantabile? I am asking as I want to ensure that my DAW PC and GIG PC are fully synchronised not only with the right plugin DLLS but also plugin data (I got caught put by that the other day in practice).
So as a means to an end it would be great to get a list of plugins that I need to work through. If there is not feature I could drop down to a lower level or even write a parser for the appropriate JSON file, but it would be a handy feature if Cantabile could do this for you.
No, I want an actual list I can use to work through and tick things off. I can do that at a very low level in a CMD window or write something to scan the JSON file but don’t want to reinvent the wheel if there is already a way to do it.
The only ones left out are ones that exist only on one machine. That was a necessity for me - I don’t want all my studio plugins on my live laptops.
So for your purpose, you could use the list from PluginVersionChecker to
check for version / timestamp mismatches (there are still some plugins that will appear out of sync because they don’t have a version number and their installer actually stamps the .dll with the install time )
go through the whole list line by line to check plugin data that needs to be synced manually
To check for plugins missing on my live laptops, I simply use @brad’s setlist analyzer on my two live repertoire setlists - it shows all missing plugins, so I didn’t want to replicate this functionality…
For the purpose of pre-gig checking, this should be good enough, IMO.
Of course, I could modify PluginVersionChecker to
generate a list of all plugins just for one machine without comparing two machines
extend the comparison to identify plugins that are installed on only one machine
but so far, I didn’t see the need for that.
@Derek, can you elaborate what is missing from the PluginVersionChecker output for your purposes?
That will fit my needs close enough. Looking at a single machine’s JSON would be be useful without need to copy it would be useful, but other than that…
Like Brad, I had a feeling that something had been done, but I couldn’t find it and started to doubt it!
So to conclude the post, as you didn’t give a link above , here it is, and I will check it out tonight.
As I said, my main objective is to just be able to work through all of my plugins (for which I need a list), find out where their data is kept (e.g. presets) and ensure I have a file sync task setup to ensure that is copied.
And of course the plugin version checker is really useful as well, as I am not 100% certain if I can get away with just syncing the DLLs.
That might be better left to a manual task to run the installers to do an update. For example the Arturia V collection insists on putting the DLLs in the wrong place for some instruments (need to check why) and if you then try and run the old DLL the synth quite often does not work until you put the DLL in the right location. I had that at practice last week. I had let Arturia do an update a few days before, forgot to check after the update and when I came to do Welcome to the Machine, the Mini V was not working. No sound and if you opened the GUI, it was just showing a red box, no controls. Put the DLL in the right place and it works.
Back OT, I am using FreeFileSync as a handy little tool for the task of syncing the computers. If people are interested I will post details on it. In fact it would be useful to share the info I find as well such as where data is located for the various synths, as there is no consistency and it can be hard to find, so I was going to make a list to ensure that I don’t forget again as I find them!
Yes, the link was in the original thread that @humphrey linked to; didn’t want to duplicate too much…
Yes, absolutely - a number of plugin have data in home directories outside the VSTplugins directory - I always update with the original installers; no sync of plugins directories.
I do sync my Cantabile directory using Dropbox - it contains songs, setlists, racks plus some one-shot samples. I also make sure that my Cantabile directory is in the same absolute path on all my machines - eliminates some potential errors.
Regarding content data, I try to work with “full bank” state behavior on those synths that have funky preset managent mechanisms, so I can make sure that everything replicates nicely through Cantabile files.
Regarding the Full Bank state behavior, I was afraid for a while that it would really eat memory or cause slow loading. I can’t really tell that it has done either. I think we can call Full Bank behavior a “best practice”. Cantabile must do a really good job of managing that BLOB of data from various synths. Full Bank makes Korg M1 and OP-X PRO II manageable without being too fiddly.
Anything new gets Diva or Zebra (or Analog Lab). I think I still have it in a couple of places though where I want that particular OB sound.There’s that yacht-rock soft brass pad like Christopher Cross on “Sailing” (or many other examples). I think I have the same pad recreated on FM8 and a few other places! TBH, I could probably loose OP-X and not miss it. Korg M1, on the other hand …
Ah, my bad, as I didn’t actually rad the post that Humphrey linked to, as at a glance it was about showing version numbers for a plugin. I should have checked deeper…
So far state behaviour has worked apart from once, and I only caught it before practice, so being a pessimist, I would like any hand crafted patches on both machines, just in case - I’ve been bitten once to often when using computers live on stage, so I prefer a belt and braces (and several backups) approach.
)
, here it is, and I will check it out tonight.