POLL: How do you save your plugin presets?

[stardustmedia]

Both, and I never have to copy the presets into the project as Studio One does that for me. So did Live 9 and Reaper, I seem to recall. I thought all DAWs did.

Saving a synth preset in Studio One (or Dodo One, as my autocorrect seems to think), I'm presented with a dialog that asks which folder I'd like to save it in, and it only seems to allow a single level of subfolders, meaning that Hive/EDM/WhoppingGreatSupersaw is out of the question. Time for a feature request, unless another S1 aficionado knows different.

That'd be a great time and life saver, if Logic would have such a feature "Save all plugin presets into project folder..."

[DJ Warmonger]

I save presets within whatever structure plugin offers. However rcently, after using VIP, I discovered it's nice to browse and save presets within the project. It might also be good for later if I want to reuse presets someday or maybe put them into preset pack.

[Woodgardens]

I write them down. Quite tedious though as a reference for making other presets this method is still unbeaten IMHO

However, it's not a recommendation for the impatient ones...

[Aloysius]

The old fashioned way.

[Harry_HH]

Questionnaire is a bit simplified - I chose the alternative "both in plugin and DAW", but i practice this is rarely the case, more commonly it is either or. Preferrably I save as a plugin preset, and only in the DAW if that is not possible.

I think raising this issue is important, not to know results of this vote or the distribution, but to discuss the challenge organizing the tagging/searching the presets.
This issues has been discussed earlier in the Kvr in the past years, but so far none has created a good, versatile but simply enough GENERIC application to this purpose.

Too often the presets of different plugins are spread overall in the DAW´s folder, not to mention the inadequate or non-exist search-options.

Some plugin developers have been more creative in this area than the others - e.g. Arturia´s Key Lab is better than the average, but could be much better, Alchemy has one of the best browser, so far, Spectrasonicas has done progress, too, NI has some good attempts.

Not only a good, generic application, and good tagging, but also intelligent "similar-to-this-sound" -kind search options should be common practice, after 25 year history of modern DAWs. But unfortunately this is not reality today, far from that.

[Kr3eM]

The old school way, as fxp.

+1
For almost 20 years I've found this to be the most reliable and it have saved me many times from dodgy presets managers like Cableguys, as an example, which I can't use since my DAW is offline.

Although I also use the internal managers while working as an backup and temporary save more variations when I design a preset.

[beely]

That'd be a great time and life saver, if Logic would have such a feature "Save all plugin presets into project folder..."

I'm not sure I understand what would be the point of that feature?

You either want to save any used plugin presets ‘with* the project (which happens anyway, as all plugin parameters are saved within a project so it can be recalled), and/or want to save any plugin tweaks/edits back to your global library so you can use them in other projects.

So what would the point be in saving the preset files into the project folder..? The data is already in the project, and those files can’t be used in any other project unless you copy them out anyway...

I would have thought potentially more useful would be an option to "save all plugin presets to global library", tagged with the project name...

[Jace-BeOS]

That'd be a great time and life saver, if Logic would have such a feature "Save all plugin presets into project folder..."

I'm not sure I understand what would be the point of that feature?

You either want to save any used plugin presets ‘with* the project (which happens anyway, as all plugin parameters are saved within a project so it can be recalled), and/or want to save any plugin tweaks/edits back to your global library so you can use them in other projects.

So what would the point be in saving the preset files into the project folder..? The data is already in the project, and those files can’t be used in any other project unless you copy them out anyway...

I would have thought potentially more useful would be an option to "save all plugin presets to global library", tagged with the project name...

Scenario 1:

Plugin goes missing for some reason (upgrade went bad, needs reinstallation, or moving from computer to computer where plugin needs to be installed, for two examples), project gets accidentally saved with the plugin removed, no project backup exists.

Scenario 2:

Changing from one platform to another, where several third-party plugins used by the project are cross-platform. I can export the MIDI and audio data to universal format, move that data and the preset files to the new system, instantiate the new DAW and plugins, then load the presets into the plugins.

I've dealt with both scenarios already.

[beely]

Scenario 1:

Good points. Thanks.

[Jace-BeOS]

A potentially helpful note about saving FXB presets (or any type) as separate files: include the name of the plugin in your preset file name.

Example: "Poly Lead 3 - dys (NI Massive).fxb"

(The "dys" indicates it's a preset I made)

Why: if your FXB file becomes disassociated from the project folder or plugin library, there's absolutely nothing in the preset to tell you what plugin it goes to. I have two FXB files of presets I created and I have no idea what plugin they're for.

I also tend to eventually gather up all my custom and third-party presets into organized folders (by plugin name) so I have a library of plugin presets in case I need to load a system from scratch (I keep this library of folders backed-up).

All this data we just kind of presume will be there later whenever we need it, but there are all kinds of reasons to be wary of trusting data persistence...

[Synthman2000]

I normally save them in pre-labelled separate "per synth" folders. This normally deviates from the paths where the synths have their presets. I rarely use presets that are shipped with a synth so want to control where I save my own work. I then back them up periodically off the C drive by a simple drag and drop of 1 folder.

[jancivil]

I wonder how you guys handle this, if at all. Do you do it systematically? Always?

Not really. I voted what would probably be the statistically highest occurrence, saved by host/Save Project. It depends first on is the plugin hosted in VE Pro (which I will decouple from-) or -Cubase. Coupled, it auto-saves when I save the Cubase project. Decoupled I have to save it on the other side. Some things I drastically save at multiple levels which is a matter of redundancy and CYA. Like it's a plugin preset (actually I don't even usually deal at this level), then a channel preset, then possibly part of a Channel Set, then a Project, and a Server Project at the highest level. It could OTOH be Reaktor loaded in Cubase and I do nothing of the sort.

[wagtunes]

No way to answer the question because it depends on the synth and how the particular DAW I use handles preset management.

For example. With the Arturia V Collection, presets are saved internally in the VST. There is no way to access them any other way. If you want to export them so that they can be used by another person, there is an export feature that exports the entire bank. This is not my preferred way to work but in some cases (XILS is like this too) it is my only option.

With other synths, there is a menu, you choose "Save As" and it takes you to a location on your hard drive where you can save as either a Cubase or FXP file depending on the capability of the synth itself. Some synths will only save as FXP files and some only in some proprietary format even though you can access the preset on your hard drive. Sharing, in this case, is simply a matter of zipping up the folder.

Then you've got BS like Softube Modular which will differ depending on what DAW you're using. For me, I can save either as VSTPreset or FXP, though I use the easier default VSTPreset and then take the folder and convert to FXP using a converter to have both types for sharing.

But there's no way to answer the question because sometimes I'm locked into a method that's beyond my control.

I prefer to be able to save on my hard drive as a preset file and then zip up the folder for sharing. I'm not sure what option that is in the poll but that's what I prefer.

[Sg1122]

The old fashioned way.

izotope did this with ddly

[Aloysius]