Zen

Great solution to managing presets. Where do you manage the MIDI-settings?

If Zen is used in a DAW, it is simply used as if it was an instrument, so the MIDI settings are those of the DAW.

But if you use Zen in its standalone version, click the cogwheel at the bottom right, then in the panel which opens, you can see at its bottom a link called I/O settings. It is here that you will manage your audio devices, your channels, your sample rate, your buffer size... and your MIDI inputs and outputs.

Have fun.

Thanx, found it.

This is great stuff! Thanks for all the work that went into this.

If I may ask a question: on 64-bit Windows, I have a couple of VSTs that are on the list -- specifically SQ8L and AM Freehand Free. I can download the patches, and when I click on one, I'm given a "file finder" window where I'm supposed to locate the DLL. For some VSTs, like Synth1, this works great (and thanks again!). For these two, though, I get a "plugin file not found" message, even though it's clearly there. Might this be the result of a version mismatch somehow? Or a 32- vs 64-bit problem? Has anyone run into a similar problem, or have any thoughts on this?

I ran into the same error message and I'm can say with a fair bit of confidence that its a 32 vs 64-bit issue. If you want to add or use a 32-bit VST you'll need to run the 32-bit version of Zen.

Hi PrtScr, I agree, and now I have both versions. My host can handle either version, but it can't run the two simultaneously. So like you I'm trying to come up with ways to use Zen to find presets I like, then push those out to the VST. I don't have anything smart to say about this yet, though. Good luck.

I was wondering if anyone knows about a good/convenient way to export the presets so I can run them from the vst's natively. Meaning after they've been downloaded I want the presets added to the VST so I can access it from within the VST without running it from Zen. I think Zen overall is a great idea, but for me I'd prefer to just use it as a straight up download manager and not necessarily launch the vst's from within it.

I've tried adding the zen preset folder to various VST synths, but I'm having some issues.. My next step is to look up more how I add banks to vst's in general cause I'm in no way an expert on vst's, but I just figured I would ask this here to see if anyone found a good way of doing this.

This was a pretty awesome preset browser/manager, but it's now discontinued (the downloads were moved on the BigTick website to https://www.bigtickaudio.com/discontinued-plugins/) the final macOS version 1.7.2 Beta (Zen Core #12) remains a 32-bit app, which means it's toast on 10.15 / Catalina and later. It's one of the few left on my list needing an update/replacement before I can upgrade my O/S (not that I'm looking forward to that in the least).

If anyone knows of something similar on macOS - especially free;-) - and can point me to it, you'd make my day.

Thanks, Chris.