Free Smart Collections for Sample Browsing

[magickalmutagen]

I've made some smart collections to make browsing for samples quicker and I thought I'd share them. Just download the attachment and unzip the contents into:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Bitwig Studio\library\samples
• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Bitwig/Bitwig Studio/library/samples (use Finder's Go to Folder (Shift+Command+G) and paste the path in there, it's a hidden folder by default)
• Linux: ~/.BitwigStudio/library/samples

If the "samples" directory does not exist yet, just create it. Once you open BWS (you need to restart BWS if it's open), you'll find them listed under the Samples tab of the Browser. If you find yourself typing "kick", "snare", "string" etc over and over again, then this is for you.

The actual filters themselves are a bit wordy due to BWS's filtering being a bit broad and inaccurate currently, so I've added !not logic to some of them to keep up the accuracy. You can of course edit/extend them as you need.

Just as a brief explanation of how I've set them up: Any sub-categories, for example Hi-Hats, won't be found (or at least hopefully not many) in a parent category such as Percussions. This is to reduce a bit of overlap and clutter. If the collection's name is a bit mysterious, just right-click Edit them to see what they're supposed to contain.

If Bitwig improves their filtering, I'll update the filters to something more elegant and post them here when the time comes. It'd also be great if Bitwig included some smart collections by default as they do help to vastly improve the browsing of thousands of samples.

The smart collections:

[giacometti777]

Thank you! This also just alerted me to the existence of this functionality. Gr8 timesaver!!

[nsq]

Thanks! So far I was too lazy to do it myself

[Cyoon]

also post that in the resource thread pls.

viewtopic.php?f=259&t=481188

and thanks!

[h2ogun99]

Wonderful! Thank you for the effort. Very helpful.

L

[magickalmutagen]

No problem guys. If you find that the collections are including some odd samples, you can edit the filters to exclude them. Making good smart collections is a bit tricky at the moment because if a sample, for example "clap.wav", exists in a directory that includes the word "bass" anywhere in its filepath, that "clap.wav" will show up in the Bass smart collection, but as you can see by Bass's filter, I've tried to exclude a lot of samples from accidentally being included. You might need to do the same if that's happening to some of the other collections.

[aMUSEd]

How does this work? Is it only for Bitwig samples or can I use it with all my samples (which are not in the Bitwig directory but on an external drive) and if so how?

[aMUSEd]

Also I'm not sure if this is the right location on Mac for Smart Collections - in fact I'm not sure what happens even when I create one myself in Bitwig as there doesn't appear to be any actual place they get stored (at least not in the Bitwig library folder which I would have thought was the logical location). There is not samples folder in Library but I made one and put yours there but they do not show in the browser so it can't be right.

[magickalmutagen]

How does this work? Is it only for Bitwig samples or can I use it with all my samples (which are not in the Bitwig directory but on an external drive) and if so how?

It works for all samples that you have added sample content locations for, including the samples from the downloadable packages. So basically if you can browse it currently, the collection will work for it.

Also I'm not sure if this is the right location on Mac for Smart Collections - in fact I'm not sure what happens even when I create one myself in Bitwig as there doesn't appear to be any actual place they get stored (at least not in the Bitwig library folder which I would have thought was the logical location). There is not samples folder in Library but I made one and put yours there but they do not show in the browser so it can't be right.

What might work is using BWS's browser to find a sample that you know originates from one of the packages, for example Irrupt, right-clicking it and choosing Reveal File. Once in the file manager, navigate backwards from the current location till you reach the directory labelled "Bitwig Studio". In this directory there should be one called "library" and inside of it, another called "samples". This is where you'd extract the zip to. At least, this is the structure of the files on Windows, it may differ on Mac but that's the best I can think of without having access to macOS. Might work for Linux too.

[JohannesTress]

Under Linux the right folder for the smart collection files is a hidden one in the home folder. Instead of copying the folder into

Code: Select all

 BitwigStudio/library/samples 

you should copy it to

Code: Select all

/home/[username]/.BitwigStudio/library/samples/

Maybe it's the same with mac?

[magickalmutagen]

If someone can tell me the correct location on Macs, I can add it to the OP too.

[aMUSEd]

On Mac the default Bitwig user library is in:

/Users/usename/Documents/Bitwig%20Studio/Library/

but there is no folder in their called samples and if I create one and add these collections it does nothing

a smart collection I made to test where they go doesn't seem to appear anywhere in this library location either

so it's a complete mystery

if they made it a hidden folder then I don't know how to unhide it or why they would do something so stupid

[magickalmutagen]

On Mac the default Bitwig user library is in:

/Users/usename/Documents/Bitwig%20Studio/Library/

Windows has a similar library, but that's not the place.

if they made it a hidden folder then I don't know how to unhide it or why they would do something so stupid

Hidden folders are a typical convention on Unix systems, so the BWS folder may be hidden on Mac too. You could just try typing in ~/.BitwigStudio into Finder and seeing if that takes you somewhere (hidden folders usually begin with a period, and ~/ is shorthand for /Users/<username>). You can go directly to a folder using Finder via Go from its application menu and then "Go to Folder...".

~/Library might be hidden by default but from some searches online, it could be the place that BWS stores these files along with its preferences and such. Once you're at this location, search for "Bitwig Studio". You can also try searching directly for the "samples" folder. The reason why this seems kinda hard is that all these files are managed by BWS and aren't meant to be modified by hand, so aren't meant to be easy to get to.

Alternatively you could try this app named Funter that is meant to be able to toggle hidden file visibility, and see if the .BitwigStudio or Library folder appears in your user directory. Once you're done though, best to hide any hidden files/folders again.

[aMUSEd]

OK tried unhiding stuff but there is no hidden library location so I guess on Mac at least collection files don't actually exist in a locational sense, just within Bitwig. Which means there is no way to import these.

[magickalmutagen]

OK tried unhiding stuff but there is no hidden library location so I guess on Mac at least collection files don't actually exist in a locational sense, just within Bitwig. Which means there is no way to import these.

You might be right, but if you've not given up yet, I came up with another idea you could try:

• Create a new smart collection in BWS with a unique name like "test123"
• In Spotlight, search "test123" (you can also try "created:xx/xx/xxxx" with the day's date)
• Hopefully "test123.scollection" will appear, if there are too many results, try the "Show All in Finder" option if present
• Highlight the file by using your arrow keys to scroll down
• When the file's highlighted, press Command+Return to reveal the file in Finder
• Extract zip to this location and deleted the test file
• Restart BWS to refresh the list of collections

Maybe it's fruitless, but I'm pretty determined to figure it out