Okay so I have just upgraded to Pianoteq 6, but need to replace Pianoteq 5 in all my songs (and there are several hundred 
) is there any trick or quick way other than to manually load each song and change it?
Thanks
Well, this is a long-shot but ā change the filename of the DLL to be the same as Pianoteq 5ās?
Thatās cheating a bit, I know, but it might work.
Terry
If you were using a Pianoteq rack in your songs, youād simply be able to change the plugin in that rack, and all your songs would magically use the new oneā¦
However, if youāve used many bare instances of Pianoteq, you should be able to do a search/replace across all your song files, changing the old DLL name for the new one, using a basic text editor. Thatāll change songs that use the bare plugin. Then do the same across your racks, to make any racks using Pianoteq point to the new one.
If you donāt have a text editor that can do this nicely across multiple files, something like Find And Replace Tool should do the trick.
Neil
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Thanks guysā¦Neil, I guess this is in the .json file we had discussed on another issue (setlists as I recall 
)
PS: I donāt use racks at all - way too complicated haha! I prefer individual song setups on a song name basis.
Hmm, then thatās what you get for ignoring one of Cantabileās most powerful features (re-usable racks)! And youāre missing out on pre-loading as wellā¦
As @Neil_Durant wrote: whenever I get a new version of a plugin (or I want to substitute one for another), I simply edit the rack the plugin sits in, and Iām done for all songs 
You should really consider adopting linked racks!
Cheers,
Torsten
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These are the .cantabileSong files, which internally are structured as JSON.
Thatās what I do too. But I put racks into songs instead of plugins. Each rack is not much more than a plugin in a box. Once you have a few racks made up, itās really no more complicated than putting plugins straight in, and your song switching time diminishes to almost instant. And you avoid this crazy job of having to edit every single song when a plugin is updated
Neil
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Well, you can have your view and MO, and Iāll have mine, okay? The setups you use are way WAY too complex (for me) and too much to hunt through at a gig should something go wrong. Okay if you have plenty of time at home to spend on such fripperies haha, but all I do is setup a split add a backing track (where needed) and off I go. I have so many songs now that I have pretty much all styles covered. So if I want something for a new tune I simply recall a previous song, make some minor adjustments and away we goā¦in any case at a gig the laptop lid is closedā¦so it really is all controlled from the keyboard and nankontrol
Songs load in under 10 seconds (and thats using some heavy sample based sounds in Sampletank 3 -some of the sax and brass samples are huge!) and thatās the longest. Most are about 2-5ā¦ which is way quick enough for me! I think way too much emphasis is placed on getting something to load a few microseconds quickerā¦waste of time and resources imo! However if you have setups as complex as yours are, then mebbe you are one who DOES need absolute load-in.
anyhooā¦peace to you brother
Okay so what you are saying is I can scan the entire folder of songs??? Not sure how a text editor can do that. Look at one song at a time I can understandā¦unless there is an over-arching .json file that has all the songs in it.
Otherwise I think I am totalyl not getting how you are saying this is achieved?
yep that would work I think, just need to remember to delete the ācorrectā one afterwards hahaha!
Precisely, scan a whole folder of songs and replace every occurrence of your old plugin DLL name for the new one.
Many more advanced text editors (for programmers etc.) can do find/replace across whole bunches of files. So like I said, if you donāt have one like that, check out Find And Replace Tool, mentioned in my post above. Just tell it which folder, what to find, and what to replace it with, and bang, job done!
Regarding the complexity of my or @Torstenās setupsā¦a song using racks will look just as simple as a song using plugins. You donāt need anything more complex than youāre already doing, except to put each plugin in a rack, and use that rack each time instead of the plugin. Butā¦do whatever youāre comfortable/happy with!
By the wayā¦Iād strongly recommend making a backup copy of the whole songs folder before doing your search-replace, just in case something goes wrong! And do it with Cantabile not running at the time
Neil
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You overestimate my setups - most are no more than three of four instruments, with some bindings for volume control; typically just a piano or e-piano, maybe a string or hammond layer and one or two solo sounds thrown in. But each of these three or four elements are contained in a rack, and thus re-usable; no need to re-invent my solo patches.
But yes, some of my racks themselves have a couple of plugins chained, e.g. piano->EQ->compressor->chorus or e-piano->tremolo->chorus->amp. Makes it easy to create simple, re-usable patches like āDark pianoā or āHonky Tonk Pianoā which are then easily selected in a song by just pulling in the piano rack and selecting āHonky Tonk Pianoā or āSupertramp Wurlyā.
This actually makes my songs really simple; just a few racks instead of individual plugins.
And of course whenever I start a song, I pick one thatās already close to start with and adjust to taste. But yes, I do spend a bit of time customizing my song setups, customizing my sounds and creating individual settings for intro, verse, chorus and printing them into song states; this is part of the arrangement work I do on any song.
Partly this also has to do with the fact that I do triple duty in my band: lead singer, keyboarder and occasional guitarist. Iām far too busy to spend time twiddling knobs or switching sounds during a song - everything needs to be packaged nice and clean so I can simply step through my song parts and focus on playing and singing.
The really complex setups are for a few songs where I need multiple sounds in different combinations; Pink Floyd stuff is notorious for that. In these songs, I DO need tons of different layers and splits spread over my two keyboards, plus maybe some samples triggered by drum pads, with all this changing between intro, verse and chorus, solo, etc. This is where I really spend some serious time preparing my song file in advanceā¦
But to each his/her own - Iām not desperate to convert you to the Dark Side - but we do have cookies here 
Love, peace & rockān roll 
Cheers,
Torsten
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It took me a while to āgetā Linked Racks too, but Iām glad I did. They actually make things much simpler. You really are missing out on a massively useful feature. To each their own, but if you can find time to get your head around them you will find your life becomes easier in future.
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Thansk Dave and Neil. I will get that text tool and give it a go Thanks Torsten and The Elfā¦you are probably correct and for the record I DID try racks when I decided ages ago to ditch all (when I jumped up to C3 Performer from Solo) and re-start using the racks system. But it all got a bit much and at gigs I had things not working as they should because I forgot to edit/save/change/whatever some setting or control simply becuase they were buried in the racks.
It is why I use just songs - far more simple a process, and what I save is what I get at a gig!
Maybe one day Iāll revisit them, but Iām happy at the mo
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