That’s the way I have been doing it too. It also varies as to ease of use even then.
For the uninitiated…
Some VST’s show their presets automatically. But the “reporting” of the VST’s to Cantabile varies as to what they tell Cantabile about themselves, so whereas some VST’s show all the patches automatically, others have to be assigned to the list by going to the “hamburger” icon in the VST after loading a patch, hitting “Rename”, and then save the song. Don’t forget to move the slot to the next empty Preset entry before changing patches.
When done this way, then states can pull up the patches for you. Just make sure the VST’s state awareness is turned on at the bottom left of the states window.
That is on my other computer where I created that post, where I HAVE Cantabile installed, but it is never actually used for live playing. That is @So_Godly’s Red theme from long, long ago now!
I found another possible way, but it would involve creating a special bank of patches in the correct order you desire within the preset itself, or use the “Rename” approach I showed above.
It uses a button that sends a controller signal to a binding that sends a “next preset” signal to the VST.
I’m thinking that one could perhaps create a Cantabile binding that responds to specific program messages (or controller numbers?), like a Program Map found in many hardware synths. I’ll fiddle with that idea. It would be nice to have random rather than forced-sequential access to any patch I need at the moment.
Ok, I found a “random access” method that works with my Behringer FCB1010 pedal, sending any program change programmed into that pedal’s foot switches:
If the presets aren’t in existence yet in the presets list, you’ll need to use the method above - but sending a program change does work using this method, and does not involve using states.
(I wonder if states can be used to pull up different preset lists one has or makes, like when I use a different bank in Spectral? I need to have the bank pre-selected in Spectral at the moment for this to work, and it only switches within that bank. Then again, the pedal is not sending banked program change messages… so of course not! More experimenting to do.)
Well, on a patch-by-patch basis, you can use the “Rename Program” approach I talked about above if the VST is not updating that list automatically, and then from the hamburger menu use “Export Bank” to save your assortment. Then you can use “Import Program or Bank” to bring that list back again, so you can have a variety of lists. Trouble is, this is independent of Cantabile by itself - no binding will import a bank for us that I have found. Each import has to be done manually.
Perhaps an assortment of racks would work with different imports, having different identifying names so the “cannot add same rack twice” rule does not kick in.
[I just tested that, and indeed you can have two racks with different instances of the plugin, and the imported banks are sustained with saving the rack.]
Just discovered this cool method that uses a “System Wide” keypress to trigger a patch change. Still needs a whole boatload of bindings, but that is more “pretty” than 59 states, perhaps!
Be sure to close Cantabile or disable this binding by un-checking it if you want to use any of the assigned keys later on!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is the core problem here that the patch names of plugins inside a rack are a bit too hidden away? ie: you want a way to select plugin presets inside a rack without exposing states for every one?
That would be the idea of what is desired - sort of like a Program Map in my Yamaha TX81Z, with an easy to setup arrangement that shows what patch you will be pulling up.
The bindings approach is very close (and can be used in conjunction with the Notes column to name the preset)
Here is what I mean, using the notes to show the name with the “Any Window Keypress” approach"
Some hardware keyboards have very easy Program Map setup screens - you just assign an existing patch/Program to each slot using a drop-down list or a second selector list screen.
The original purpose of the thread was for external hardware patch changes rather than VSTi patches. Cantabile automatically reads the names of the patches from a VSTi and appends them to the numbers in the editor. I was hoping to somehow emulate that behavior for patch change MIDI messages to be sent to external hardware.
Though I myself did not entirely catch that, I will mention that I use MidiQuest 11 Pro to accomplish this.
Further, it will output your hardware setup to a midnam.xls file, which is why I’d love for Cantabile to be able to use midnam.xls files!
I use it as it lists the hardware patch names. I suppose since that list can be exported as a text file that one could incorporate that text file content into a binding setup, editing the song or rack in a text editor.
I may mess with that and will let you know what I find out.
Yeah, it is quite an expense alright. Definitely understood! I saved quite a while for it.
I’ve been looking over the Rack settings inside the file, and have not seen an easy way to do replacements of names, but once you do set up bindings with the states, it becomes merely a matter of re-naming (editing) each state to change the name, as the route & bank/patch# stays the same. Here is my Wavestation SR one:
You only need the one binding if you have those two items checked on the lower left - just keep changing the bank and program entry (which you likely already know, but for those who don’t…)
BTW - anybody needing the Cantabile bank numbers for the Korg Wavestation SR - here they are!
And here is my SR rack, with the states to get you to patch 0 of each of the above banks, plus a “Favorites” having a ROM Patches selection that uses the last binding to call those up via states.
More like an act of cruel and unusual punishment, if you ask me…
Ah, for an easy way to simply insert different names en-masse into an existing state setup, as the bindings do not need to change at all. Perhaps from some two-column editor where one can load a text file of patch names into one column and assign those to slots in the other column? How we acquire that text file of patch names would still be our own problem (not expecting the MidiQuest sort of sysex-querying that is different with each hardware synth).
I’m studying the Rack file format for clues how one might write a Visual Basic or other such program to parse the selections into place. I need to step into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine to remember how to use VB though! (Still have Visual Studio, but … use it or lose it, ya know?) Is this a @Torsten sort of solution? (Hello!)
Using the rack’s “drop-down” menu that changes these kinds of patch-change states does make this sort of operation more sane to actually access this buncha states. Racks Rock!
Easiest thing to do would probably be some way to translate the 1-based rack state selection into a 0-based banked patch selection trigger. Then at least all you would have to do would be type in the state names.
As far as I know there is no way to use an expression in anything but a sysex event.
