With multiple racks, I want to experiment and move from using States to Entire Plug In Snapshots

PatAzzMusic · May 4, 2025, 8:03pm

Forking from another thread…

There may be a Youtube video out there somewhere with this information, but I haven’t found it yet.

I’ve been using States in my rig for years to handle sounds within linked racks. It’s becoming very cumbersome and I’d like to figure out how to migrate to Entire Plug In Snapshots where possible as it sounds like that will be more efficient/easier to deal with longer term as I have @ 250 songs to go through and I don’t want to screw things up…

Even though I currently have “Entire Plug In Snapshots” set, I’m not certain how it really works.

I believe that this is possible with nearly every plugin that I’m using (thus the experimentation phase to be certain).
Do I need to get rid of any “state” files or data to make this work?

Thoughts anyone?

PS - Slap me if I’m being an unholy pain with this…

dave_dore · May 5, 2025, 11:03am

Hi Pat,

In my experience you can convert over to plugin snapshots.

set the preset model of the plugin to “Entire Plugin Snapshots”
go to each state you have made in the rack and save each state as a new plugin snapshot in individual preset slots
then you will have all the states saved as (entire) snapshots (this allows you to save them all as an fxb bank for a backup)
if you want you can then delete all but the first state and use it as the place you call up the programs you made by saving them previously.
now you call them up using the “Selected Program” state behavior instead of “Entire Bank”

That’s one way to get it done. Best of luck!

Dave

PatAzzMusic · May 5, 2025, 2:06pm

Thanks Dave - I’ll do that over the next couple of days (after I backup all of my current tracks).

BTW - I was missing the part of saving the snapshot (critical… my bad).

dave_dore · May 5, 2025, 6:50pm

Also remember to keep track of the plugin slot numbers so you don’t overwrite by accident any stuff you already did. You can also lock each preset slot that you complete so you prevent accidents. Best of luck with it!

PatAzzMusic · May 18, 2025, 8:42pm

Back again, @dave_dore

I’m working on moving things over, but I am having trouble creating the snapshots in the rack for each soft synth.

I’m having issues saving different “state” settings to the snapshots - I can get one but not additional ones within the same plugin.
Open a song
Open the linked rack
Select the State settings that I want to “migrate” to snapshots
Open the VST UX
Use the Rename Program in the hamurger menu on the right side

Save the rack and the song

Repeat for another song or state with the same plug-in.

Result:
I only get one snapshot preset per “bank”, even if i select a different snapshot.

It seems like (maybe… ) having the Entire Bank setting set for the linked rack state could be the culprit, but I’m not sure.
Also…
I’m working on creating a Rack for outputing to one or two hardware synths (the MOXF8 and a Roland XV-5050 ) to take some of the load off of my laptops.

For example, if I put my program, volume and “reset” bindings in the MOXF Linked Rack, do these need to be saved as “states?” Or is there another way to make this work.

cdv_gabriel · May 19, 2025, 6:51am

Hi @PatAzzMusic,

first of all, let me explain how I manage something similar (I think) to what you are trying to achieve. I use linked racks to embed all my synth plugins and I use the states of my linked racks to store different configurations, including the selected plugin snapshot in the plugin synth window. Other things that I manage using states are the FX plugins (delays, EQs, etc.). The different FX programs are also managed using plugin snapshots.

To achieve this, I first have to store the different presets of my plugins as plugin snapshots. I select an unsed slot in the plugin snapshot menu (at the top of the plugin window) and I recall the plugin preset that I want to store. Once I get the sound I want to store, I change the name of the plugin snapshot (I also lock the snapshot using the lock icon close to the name, to avoid unintentional changes to become permanent).
I do the same for the FX plugins (selecting an empty snapshot, recalling the preset and then changing the name of the snapshot and locking the snapshot).
Now that I have the configuration I want, I create a new state, so that the whole configuration (including the selected plugin snapshots) will be stored in the new state of the linked rack.
I must add that I usually lock all of my states (with the lock icon close to their name) because, before doing that, it was very easy for me to change something and forget what I had done, so that I was not able to undo it. By locking the state, I am sure that if I recall the state again, all of my changes will be undone (unless I have explicitly updated the state using CTRL+U or right clicking on the state itself, selecting “Update state”).

After doing that, every preset in my linked rack corresponds to a different sound (similar to the “multi” programs on a workstation keyboard, including FXs, routings etc.). The states in my songs then remember the selected states for each one of the linked racks, so that they are correctly recalled as I play through the song.

In your procedure, I can’t see two important steps, that I usually do:

each time a want to same a new preset, I select a different plugin snapshot before recalling the preset. Only after recalling the sound I would like to store, I rename the snapshot. You should be able to see all your previously saved snapshot when you click on the plugin snaphot menu (top of the plugin window).
each time I have completed setting up the configuration of the linked rack, so that I am getting the sound I want, either I create a new state or I update the current state (remember, my states are locked) so that the state will be updated with the current configuration. If you are not locking your states, remember that any time you change something (e.g. the selected plugin snapshot) the state will remember your last configuration: if you don’t create a new state, you will be overwriting the same state every time (at least that’s what I think happened to me until I decided to work with locked states). Maybe that’s what is happening with your current procedure?

Hope this helps,
Gabriel

dave_dore · May 19, 2025, 12:44pm

Hi Pat,

Gabriel points out some important things that are needed but to be sure I am going to detail the procedure here as I do it. If I am correct the following procedure should work for your request.

1- open the linked rack and unlock all the states

2- Ensure the plugin preset model is set to Entire Plugin Snapshots

3- Use Rename to match the plugin preset to the same name as the state

4- save the rack or save all

5- lock the preset

6- select the next rack state and then copy its preset program

7- navigate back to the first rack state

8- select the next preset slot

9- paste the program you copied from rack state 2 into preset slot 2 of rack state 1

10- rename it to the second rack state name

11- lock the preset

12- repeat for all states

13- when done select the first state, the preset list on the GUI should look like this now for the first state in the rack

14- If it all works you can delete all the rack states except the first one and rename it so it doesn’t confuse. Now the preset hamburger menu holds the presets.

15- To use in songs you go to the state behaviors for the rack and change “Entire Bank” to “Selected Program” and set it to Exported box

16- if you had song states with rack state changes you need to re-visit the song states and make sure the right program is selected for each song state and then re-save the song when done.

Since the preset names are buried now in the rack you can speed up your selections for each song by using a custom button on the rack to call up the plugin GUI without opening the rack. You can select the preset you need from there, close the GUI and then do a Save All or save Song.

Button on rack slot. You can choose an emoji for it using WINDOWSKEY+ the period key.

binding for that

15- you can backup your presets to a Cantabile FXB file using the Export Bank command in the GUI menu list. That way if a rack fails you can easily rebuild it.

That is the detailed procedure I use. It will, I am sure, vary from user to user.

Dave

Corky · May 19, 2025, 1:30pm

WHEW !! I think you covered it very well.

cdv_gabriel · May 19, 2025, 1:33pm

Great explanation, @dave_dore!

I had not understood that the OP’s goal was to get rid of states completely. Just a question: when you write

I am correct in assuming that you still need rack states if you want to change the plugin preset according to different song states? That’s what I usually do: song states “remember” the selected state for each linked rack. Inside the linked rack, each state remembers the selected plugin snapshot. Is there a better way to obtain the same behaviour?

Always keen to learn!

Gabriel

dave_dore · May 19, 2025, 1:55pm

good spot Gabriel I forgot to include something in the description so I will edit it. The state behaviors Selected Program box needs to be set to the Exported checkbox only. Once that’s done you would need to re-visit each song state and set the program for it and then save the song.

dave_dore · May 19, 2025, 2:03pm

@cdv_gabriel edits have been made to post I made. Do they make better sense now regarding the song states?

cdv_gabriel · May 19, 2025, 2:12pm

Yes, it makes sense. If I understand correctly, by checking only the “Exported” box in “Selected program”, the song is given control over the selected plugin snapshot, so that there is no need for internal rack states. Clever!

The way I use racks is that I think of them as hardware workstations, with rack states being like “Performances” of “Multis”. I had never thought about giving to the upper level (the song) the possibility to control their internal configuration (except, of course, changing the rack state).

Thanks for the clarification!

Gabriel

Edit: I should add that my linked racks also contain FX plugins (EQs, delays, etc). The routing also changes between them for each internal rack state. That’s why I say they are like “Performance” presets of a workstation. Sometimes they also contain multiple synth plugins: for instance I emulate a TX802 embedding 8 instances of Dexed in a linked rack (or a DX1 by using two instances).

dave_dore · May 19, 2025, 2:17pm

correct

You’re Welcome

dave_dore · May 19, 2025, 2:25pm

I see, in this case the rack states are preferred. My model is for just a simple plugin per rack and would use linked FX racks at song level for chaining things. If your performance patches you made in the racks are in multiple songs then you are already in the best place you could be IMO.

PatAzzMusic · May 19, 2025, 3:36pm

Thank you @dave_dore and @cdv_gabriel . That’s a lot of good information, but I really needed that level of detail. I love how the community jumps in here… and I need to do more to help (probably make a video of the process once I get through a couple of them).

I tend not to change presets within a song as I’m always worried about how the target (VST or hardware) will act (e.g., cutting off the sound), so I think Dave’s approach will probably work best for me.

@cdv_gabriel I LOVE the idea of having a rack with a bunch of DX (or other non-multitimbral) plug ins to simulate the old TX816 hardware. I did a TON of sessions in the 80’s using that device, but unfortunately lost all of my “multi” programs to a: Battery failures and a harddrive freeze (an old Mac SE30, so that dates me even more ).

PatAzzMusic · May 20, 2025, 2:54pm

Been working on this. I’m following Dave’s steps (thank you - I would have spent a week trying to figure this out and would not have been nearly as efficient).

In some cases I’m going back to the original patch in the VST (without the alterations saved in the State data).

I’ll let you know what the final result looks like.