Preset Model for SWAM Plugins

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Wondering of folks who are using SWAM VSTs (Audio Modeling) have a suggestion on how to manage presets.

The default Preset Model chosen by C4 is Entire Plugin Snapshots, which is slow (I sometimes use 3-4 SWAM plugins in a song). The SWAM plugins do have presets (Factory and User), but maybe they are not exported as Programs to the outside … I would like to use a faster, more lightweight Preset Model, but have not experimented yet to see if they might work.

I had a substantial issue with my master volumes being reset in SWAM plugins (and wrecking my whole set balance) when I switched machines … which seems to imply that Master Volume is not controlled by C4 in the Entire Plugin Snapshots model … perplexing.

Another issue I have is synchronizing the presets across the 3 audio computers I use. The presets folder for SWAM plugins is fixed (%AppData%\Audio Modeling\SWAMv3 on Windows) and I would need to create (in my system) another Windows Junction in %AppData%\Audio Modeling into my Dropbox directory.

And … there seems to be config data in %AppData%\Audio Modeling\UserData which I am not sure can be relocated.

Any thoughts on a good model for handling SWAM presets would be welcome.

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I am using a couple SWAM instruments and would appreciate answers to these questions also.

I sometimes have a preset which switches to the wrong one, and I cannot figure out why. It’s rather frustrating when using live. I have to spend some time to look more deeply myself.

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So far, I’ve not been able to get any recommendations from Audio Modeling on the best preset model for SWAM plugins under Cantabile. I think I’m gonna have to try a bunch of setups and explore the tradeoffs.

Big concert this weekend, so I’m not touching anything right no (although I just got a Windows Update … yikes!). I’ll dig into this next week …

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I decided not to use SWAM plugins live.
At first I had problems with the GUI (vst3), either no reply to my question or something irrelevant (don’t remember exactly). So I didn’t come to the point where preset switching model is of concern.
I think they are busy with their IOS apps.

5

I have had good luck with the support system at Audio Modeling. Emanuele Parravicini has responded quickly and, although the conversation may need a few email round-trips, the issues have been resolved.

This preset issue is the only one that has been beyond their sphere of experience …

6

Still trying to get some suggestions for SWAM preset management.

I posted here:

https://community.audiomodeling.com/index.php?u=/topic/304/separate-midi-mapping-presets-for-each-swam-instrument

… and on this forum:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/swamusers

and sent a direct query (copied below) 4 days ago, and still not responses on any front. It may be that most of the users are on the much less expen$ive iOS versions, which significantly fewer preset options. Or maybe folks just use one instrument. Still in limbo as to how to best manager these rather feature-laden presets …

Emanuele -

I am not clear if I can store a single .swamec file for this, or whether I need 33 files for each of the SWAM instruments. Here’s my setup:

When I load a new instance of SWAM into Cantabile (Win10x64), I configure Controller Mapping => MIDI Mapping & & Quick Reset => [PRESETS] => to the Factory Preset: Sylphyo Default

… Then I make a few “adjustments”:

  • Expression to CC2 (rather than CC11),

  • Growl from CC76 to CC4 (this is what works on the VL70-m with Matt Traum’s Turbo Chip),

  • Remove the MIDI mapping for [Volume] (typically defaulted to CC7). This avoids the problem of accidentally setting the SWAM volume from the Sylphyo - a problem you helped diagnose!

I would like to save a preset for this. It looks like MIDI presets are particular to each instrument, so …

Question 1: I would need to save 33 presets, one for each instrument? Is there no way to have a preset that simply overrides the 3 “adjustments” I make above?

Also: I run on three different host computers - the home system, the performance laptop, and the performance backup laptop. Rather than doing this, I would like to export (depending on the answer to Question1) either one or 33 .swamec files.

Question 2: Do I need to import each of the 33 .swamec files into each instrument on each of my two other computers? Or … If I simply copy the directory tree at /Users/Clint/AppData/Roaming/Audio Modeling/SWAMv3 between hosts (or share them via Dropbox), will those presets simply show up in the SWAM instruments when I open them on that computer?

Question 3: And … what happens if I need to modify a MIDI setting? If I change the 33 presets on Computer 1 and those files get copied to the other two computers, I would need to open all instances of all instruments I have in all my song files and re-select those modified MIDI presets? I am guessing that the SWAM instrument does not re-read it’s preset (or does it?) from the User Preset file …

Sorry for all the questions - but I would like to understand this before I set up a workflow to make this smooth …

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7

Got a reply from Audio Modeling … this does help:

A given external controller mapping preset (.swamec) is valid for any instrument of the same “family”: Solo Strings, Solo Woodwinds, Solo Brass.

It means that the same .swamec preset can be imported on any instrument belonging to the same family.

Unfortunately, there is not a way to share “globally” a .swamec preset. You should copy it into each instrument’s user folder, for each instrument belonging to the same family.

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I realize that this is kind of an old thread. But I just went through SWAM hell and I thought I would share my findings. I was originally hoping to put a SWAM orchestra into a single linked rack. I started with just 5 string sections. Things did not go well. It seemed to work while I was editing in the rack and I was able to save it. However, going to another song and back messed things badly. My midi channel assignments all went back to omni (any). Other settings seemed to return to SWAM defaults. And the worst thing was that they were all transposed by the pitch bend amount. There were no transpositions anywhere and no pitch wheel sitting here on the couch. But if I set PB amount to 0, thing were in tune. I use the preset mode where all settings are stored in the song. I tried letting the preset be stored in the plugin snapshot, but the results were the same.

I went back to saving everything in the song and made 5 separate linked racks. Things seem to be working better now, though I haven’t really stressed it out yet. At least the midi channel and tuning are working.

Keep in mind SWAM’s annoying insistence that you must wiggle expression in order to get sound. When you change songs, there is no output until you wiggle the expression pedal or go in to each instrument and move the slider. If the instruments weren’t so damn good, this “feature” would be a deal breaker.

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9

I have a Song-OnLoad binding in my Sax rack that “wiggles” the exoression pedal automatically…

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Thanks, Torsten. Great idea. I haven’t used bidings other than physical controls to vst controls. So much power here, it’s hard to keep track.

11

The expression wiggle worked perfect. Thanks!

However there are still issues with using the setting to save everything in the song. All hell breaks loose when starting the song. Main volume goes to zero. Instruments transpose by the pitch bend amount, etc. I have it working by saving the presets in the plugin. But so far I haven’t used different presets in different songs. I’m not sure I’m out of the woods yet. But it’s getting better.

One possible reason for the weird behavior when saving everything in the song might be that these SWAM instruments are talking to each other even though they are in separate racks. I had a violin section linked rack. I created another 2nd violin section linked rack when I added SWAM violin section to that I was warned that I should move the stage location of the new instance so it is not in the same place as the other. Crazy cool stuff.

12

Me poking this old thread again. I still can’t get SWAM to play nice with Cantabile. Working with a single instance if SWAM violin. My usual approach is to store all parameters in the song. But this just doesn’t work. Starting from the factory default violin preset, I change the instrument to electric violin and the bowing mode to auto. Save all in Cantabile. when I go back to that song, it restores the instrument to electric, but the bowing mode always resets. I then tried setting Cantabile to use the plugins presets. I saved my setup as “Electric Double Stops”. But it does not show up in Cantabile. It only sees the 7 factory presets. And I can’t write to those. I suppose I can fix this by sending the bowing mode with a binding on song load. But that is going to get tedious if there are other parameters that don’t work normally. If this stuff wasn’t the best shit I ever heard, I would have deleted it by now.

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I have experienced the same issues and keep hoping it gets resolved. Sounds like a new release for the Solo String just dropped. Hoping …

2 Likes
14

Did the update. No difference. i tried to discuss this with SWAM a little while back. It seemed clear that they had no idea what I was talking about. I think the only route to a fix would be Brad directly in touch with one of their programmers. Not sure of the interest level on either side.

15

Totally agree. Would love for this issue to be resolved so I can confidently use SWAM in Cantabile.

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I spent quite s bit of time on this today. I tried sll 3 flavors of Cantabile preset management. None of them would work for me.

I was successful getting it to work in gig performer. It has an option to save a snapshot of a pluginxs settings as a new instrument. It has the extensuon .gpp_vst (or something similar. I’m not at my laptop right now).So in a song/rack, you do all your tweaking in the original plugin and save that to the GP vst. Then delete the original plugin from the song/rack and substatute the new one. Discaimer: this is only the 2nd time I have ever used gig performer.

It also seemed to work seamlessly in Camelot Pro. No surprise as Camelot comes from SWAM. However I got quite frustrated attempting to put a couple of complete songs in there. This was my first exposure to Camelot. The frustration may or may not be due to my lack of experience.

Gig performer’s method sounds a lot like Cantabile’s plugin snaphot mode, but I could not make that work. The closest I came was using Cantabile in the mode that uses the plugin’s presets. When you switch to that mode, the factory presets show up in the plugin snapsot list. If you save a user preset it won’t show up in the list until you go away from the plugin and come back.

So I have 2 songs with variations of SWAM trumpet. When I switch songs, Cantabile thinks it changed the preset. but SWAM is still on the previous preset. The preset has a ‘*’ on the name indicating that it has been edited. This might be the reason for not taking the new preset selection. If I manually save the old preset or reset SWAM’s engine, I can now select a new preset using Cantabile or the plugin.

I tried automating the preset save. but ctrl-s at that point mskes Cantabile crash (reports sent). I can get started on a SWAM reset with ctrl-r, but that takes me to a menu that I couldn’t navigate with arrows, tabs, or ENTER.

I hope I’m not coming off as dissing Cantabile. It’s a great product with smazing support. But it seems to have a problem with SWAM which is an important plugin for me. I’m just looking for something that works for my situation.

17

I found that whatever preset I saved didn’t work when I reloaded it up again. If I changed it in memory I could get basic presets to stay. I will experiment again for more complicated setups and you have described. I am betting it’s a SWAM issue since preset management works fine for most all my other plugins.

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I think you’re on the right track with binding on song load, I’ve used that on a couple plugins that weren’t loading correctly, simply to select the correct instrument. Maybe if you bind just one or two of the key parameters the rest will save? Or bind the preset or rack state, or bind re-load the rack or plugin? But you’ve probably tried all that.

I feel your pain…A few months back I got SWAM Saxes and reprogrammed a bunch of songs with it. Seemed to work fine but I admit I didn’t test it very long. I gave it it’s own rack and used rack states, which seemed to work. Then in rehearsal Cantabile crashed whenever I’d open a song with SWAM in it, or sometimes in the middle of the song when I went to the first song state with SWAM un-suspended. I had 2 days to the next gig so I reverted back to my old standby, The Sax Brothers. After that I spent a few days trying to get SWAM to play nice with Cantabile but it was hit or miss. Even when I thought it was working, the occasional issue that sometimes occurred later was too risky. I gave up. Sucks, because it does have some expression and tones that are better than TSB.
Tom

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I tried some SWAM Preset manager changes in Cantabile and it worked as expected. I only tested Flute and Violin. I also tested changing Presets in Studio One and it worked fine. Not sure if I will run into my previous issue, but I cannot complain at the moment.

20

I wasted a lot if time this past week looking at Camelot Pro and Gig Performer. Neither comes close to Cantabile for my needs. Camelot is graphically quite nice. Including handling of graphics scaling independently for each plug in. First time I could actually read Amplitube without messing with settings on the fly. But, unless I missed something, you are limited to a straight linear connection between objects in a rack. No concept of wiring that I could find. I couldn’t even change the order of things. I had to delete them and put them back in my desired order.

I was very close to buying Gig Performer. It had this cool feature where you can build a front panel for your rack with various knobs, buttons, lights, etc. and connect to whatever is in the rack. I spent some time building a pretty rack with my favorite guitar and effects. And a few other racks that weren’t quite as fleshed out yet. Then I tried to build some songs out of these. racks. You can’t! It’s one rack per song. Two if you count the global rack. They do have a concept of rack variations where you can save varations of the rack’s settings. But you are either going to have a bunch of kind of complicated racks per song, or fewer more complicated racks. Or, I suppose, one massive rack with variations for each song. Too complicted. Too messy.

Back to Cantabile for another gasp at SWAM. i think I have it figured out. SWAM does not work with linked racks. I tried all 3 modes for saving settings and none would give me consistent results. I also tried bindings to send a program change to SWAM on song load. Strangely, it worked at first but then stopped. The SWAM GUI would display the selected preset, but it did not actually change it’s settings. And it is unclear how SWAM actually nymbers their presets. The Electric Violin preset I made showed up at 2, and bumped the remaining factory preset numbers up one.

I am so used to doing everything in linked racks it never occurred to me to try anything else. Well, it seems to work just fine if SWAM is a plugin at the song level or in an embedded rack. Not ideal if you are going to be using a lot of different SWAM setups, but, for me, I think it will be OK. You can create minor varations by song load bindings. But as far as I can tell, you can"t bind to the violin type. Type definitely does not show up in SWAMs internal cc assignments.)

Disclaimers:

My analysis of Camelot Pro and Gig Performer are the opinions of a complete noob.

My workaround for SWAM in Cantabile is not thoroughly tested. YMMV.