Absolutely +1 on that one (of course for both types, plugin snapshot AND parameter snapshot) ! No need to imitate the uncomfortable and error-prone VST paradigm with these Cantabile presets!
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Regarding banked programs, that’s fairly easy to implement since 128 is a arbitrary number I picked to match the MIDI program change event range. There’s nothing hard coded in there that would prevent this growing to what ever. Perhaps I could add an option into the dialog where you change preset models where you can set how many banks you want and that would just increase the number of programs available in the list. That should work in combination with a bank program change binding to give more than 128 slots.
So kind of like States where you can lock them and then manually update them?
Brad
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That woul work splendidly. Anything to keep me from fat-fingering the work away.
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Yes,exactly like you describe on both would be great.
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OK. I’m about to go radio silent till next week, but then I’ll look at finishing this off.
Brad
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Now that I’ve got some touring out of the way, I’m contemplating upgrading to the latest experimental build and having a proper play with the new Preset Model feature. But one concern I have is how existing plugin instances will be affected. I use a variety of different ways of driving plugins, which broadly fall into the 3 model categories but done the “old way”, i.e. built-in preset selections, the “Entire Bank” way, and explicit state behaviour set on parameters. I’m wondering about the best way to migrate to the new model.
My guess is that currently my preset data is bound up on state behaviour (either “all bank” or parameters), and so the migration would be something like:
- Upgrade Cantabile
- For each plugin in racks, select the most appropriate preset model
- Go through each rack state, selecting a new preset each time and saving
- When all the patches are done, switch off the old state behaviour check boxes
It feels a bit precarious - if I change preset at the wrong time, could I overwrite my state behaviour data, and lose my sounds?
A useful feature would be a “Convert rack state into presets” command on a plugin instance that automates this, going through each rack state and transferring the stored state behaviour into the new preset model, giving you one preset per rack state, perhaps named after the rack state, with the new presets automatically selected for each rack state, and state behaviour settings changed accordingly…
Neil
Might be a good thing if we follow up on this:
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That seems like a good idea. To be honest right now I’m just trying to confirm the preset model options is a good feature to keep - seems most people like it. Let me think about how an enhancement like this might work.
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Hi All
I’ve been using Cantabile Performer for about 18 months and I am about to hit the limit of 128 presets for a number of plugins.
I’ve got racks which are in every song and these set the states of plugins such as compressors. Can the pseudo presets be increased from 128 by using banks of presets - two banks would be enough for me. I don’t expect my practice list to reach 256.
Hope someone can help me.
Baz
Hi Baz, and welcome to the community!
If you have more than 128 rack states, it looks like you essentially have a specific rack state for pretty much every song… In that case, using exported parameters might actually be the far better approach. That way, you set the parameters of your compressor and save them with the song, instead of with the rack. No need to use rack states anymore.
I use this all the time with delay/reverb racks: I don’t use rack states with them, but rather mark all relevant parameters as “exported”. That way, all the reverb/delay settings I make are saved with the song instead of with the rack - no need for dozens of rack states. And I can even have different settings per song state (by setting state behavior “exported parameters” to “on” for these racks).
Of course this would mean that you’d have to rework your compressor racks to this different mechanism, which can be a bit of a pain…
Cheers,
Torsten
3 Likes
Hi Torsten
Many thanks for your quick reply.
Unfortunately I am using 256 plugins with about 24 of those using a preset per song. Also three of those plugins are used in eleven instrument racks and a mixer rack (using MixMaxTrix recommended by a Cantabile user Goldy).
So changing from using presets to exported states is a nightmare.
Also I don’t know where to start and which state behaviours to select.
I like using presets because if I need to edit a rack by adding a plugin, I can edit the whole rack very efficiently without changing songs by just selecting states.
Also it’s easy to copy one preset to another for a plugin and I can easily see if I’m using the correct preset for a rack state.
As you can see, I’m very happy using presets because I think I know what I’m doing.
I am just hoping that Brad can see the advantages of increasing his preset model to more than 128 slots for those of us who are not advanced users.
Cheers,
Baz
I get that - that would be a major overhaul for very little value.
I think expanding the preset list beyond 128 has been discussed, and @brad hasn’t ruled it out. But it doesn’t seem to be on the immediate development roadmap, so don’t hold your breath…
I’m not against increasing this and I can’t think of any limiting factor off hand. (I just chose 128 to match the limit of the MIDI program change event).
I’ll look into it next week. (ping me back to remind me if you don’t hear anything).
Brad
Thanks Brad.
Can I make a suggestion?
If you are going to change the number of presets then I think the default should be 128 so that current users of presets (including myself) are not affected by any changes.
A new system could include an option in the plugin menu to “increase preset slots”. Then the user could enter any number (not just multiples of 128) which would be added to the current number of slots and this number remembered by cantabile for this instance of the plugin.
This should help to minimise the size of cantabile’s rack files compared to the option of just increasing the slots in multiples of 128.
This option could be selected at any time and not just when the plugin is first inserted.
I hope you don’t mind me adding to your workload.
Many thanks
Baz
Hi Brad
You asked me to remind you about increasing the number of presets in cantabile. Have you had a chance to look at it yet?
Thanks
Baz
Hi @baz,
Sorry I haven’t got to look at this yet (super busy wrestling with the new Bindings work I’m doing).
Also, on thinking about it more I’m wondering whether a better approach would be to just make the preset list completely dynamic - ie: add as many presets as you like. But, that’s a bigger job and I haven’t had a chance to work through the ramifications of such a change.
I’m planning to take a few days break from bindings to tackle this and some other outstanding issues, either later this week or early next week.
Brad
2 Likes
Hi Brad
Looks good.
If I increase the number of presets for a plugin to , say 172, what happens to the existing 128 presets which contain data?
Baz
- If you increase the number, existing presets will persist.
- If you decrease the number, any presets in the truncated range will be deleted. Presets with numbers less than the new count will be kept.
4 Likes
Hi Brad
That’s absolutely superb.
I look forward to getting the new build so I can re-organise my song structures in Cantabile.
Many thanks for your efforts.
Baz
1 Like