KVR Audio

blamm · Post by **blamm** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:11 pm

Hi.

Is there an easy way of managing my vast library of VSTs by instrument and effect type? I am beginning to seriously loose sight of what I have.

I use two hosts. Buzz and Tunafish. Buzz distinguishes between instruments and effects but no more. Tunafish does nothing but present the folders they are in.

Thanks

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:38 pm

Delete most of them. That will solve your problem.

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:37 am

honestly i organize my plug-ins by the way they are listed on here, with only a few exceptions.

put semi-modular synths into the semi-modular folder. put FM synths into the FM folder. put hybrid synths into the hybrid folder. put distortion effects into a distortion folder, and so on...

for the unorganized, i did see a commercial VST plug-in manager the other day which searches for duplicate .dlls and such. someone's smart to try making money off of disorganization...

bernhardtjeff · Post by **bernhardtjeff** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:51 am

Delete most of them. That will solve your problem.

no joke. if you can't even remember what you have, chances are you don't need a lot of them.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:41 am

I agree 100%. I did a 'search and destroy' and ditched plug-ins that I never touched. Even if in theory one of those reverbs might have been better, what more do I need besides Convo Boy, RoomVerbM2, and Ambience?

People can't bear the thought of missing out on options, but I find it more liberating to impose limitations.

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:02 am

I have mine all listed by plug-in name myself with zero folder seperation but.....my folder is so small over all I can remember each plug by name and what function it serves by memory.

eduardo_b · Post by **eduardo_b** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:13 am

blamm wrote:Hi.

Is there an easy way of managing my vast library of VSTs by instrument and effect type? I am beginning to seriously loose sight of what I have.

I use two hosts. Buzz and Tunafish. Buzz distinguishes between instruments and effects but no more. Tunafish does nothing but present the folders they are in.

Thanks

I know it might seem inconceivable, but you'll actually be better off removing a large number of synths from the plugins folders. I went from an estimated 175 to just under 50 synths of one sort or another, and I don't miss any of the ones I deleted -- although I'll admit they're all on a CD. I've pretty much left effects alone despite the ridiculous number of them cluttering several subfolders.

I did find it helpful to create a number of subfolders under Vstplugins (synths, reverb/delay, filters and so on) and then sort everything into those. That way, I can find what I have in each category more easily.

As for the synths, I soon found as I tried each one that some were much better for the kinds of music I want to work on (ambient miscellaneous), and those were the ones I've kept. That really helped a lot because I can concentrate on them. I highly recommend you cull out the ones you really know you won't be using.

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:22 am

I've got about 15 VSTis and I feel like that's more than enough for my needs. Of those I really only use maybe 4-5 of them that often anyway. I'd rather spend time learning to get the most out of programming each of these machines than having to struggle with remembering how to program a few hundred of them. Having too many would just make it too difficult. In fact I feel constantly compelled to strip my choices down to the least amount of VSTis that I really need.

Anyway, how many f**king 3 oscillator VA synths with 1 LFO and 2 ADSRs do you need. The fact is not that many of really sound all that great anyway. I'd rather go for quality over quantity any day.

If you really must have that many options maybe you should look into Reaktor, VAZ Modular, Karma FX Synth, Tassman or some other modular system. I have Reaktor and it's really my main workhorse for most of what I do. With these system you can make an unlimited amount of your own synths. And in the case of Reaktor there is a huge User Library to draw from. It's like having thousands of instrument in one VSTi.

I guess another option may be to get one of those massive romplers with gigs worth of sounds. With that many synths do you really program them anyway or are you just use the presets? If you mainly use presets this may be a good option for you.

As for organizing plugins, I do it by folders with the developers name on it. Since I have very few synths and several of each from the developers, that I like, this seems to work very well for me.

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:28 am

I made an excel spreadsheet of my plugs, with columns dev/plug/description, sorted by description. One page for instruments, and one for effects. Limit yourself to 50 of both.

lion_cub · Post by **lion_cub** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:47 am

I currently have 26 synths and 17 effects, if that's any help

eduardo_b · Post by **eduardo_b** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:57 am

John Vulich wrote:I've got about 15 VSTis and I feel like that's more than enough for my needs. Of those I really only use maybe 4-5 of them that often anyway. I'd rather spend time learning to get the most out of programming each of these machines than having to struggle with remembering how to program a few hundred of them. Having too many would just make it too difficult.

A lot of my synths are ones like Absynth, Tera, Cube and Atmosphere, plus a number of specialty ones such as those from Fortune, Conrardy and others. These have lots of innovative presets that help me jump start the process, and are particularly good for non-VA synth sounds -- and I agree that many of the VAs are not all that great, and the rest sound similar (I do like imposCar and minimonsta, however).

If you really must have that many options maybe you should look into Reaktor, VAZ Modular, Karma FX Synth, Tassman or some other modular system.

I don't find myself willing to create more synths, and I find it callenging enough to use the ones I already have. I've tried Reaktor and Karma, but thought I had better things to spend my time learning.

I guess another option may be to get one of those massive romplers with gigs worth of sounds. With that many synths do you really program them anyway or are you just use the presets? If you mainly use presets this may be a good option for you.

There are a few -- Atmosphere, Vapor, Morphology -- that seem worth the disc space they use. I've just started trying Sonik Synth 2, which sort of replaces a lot of VA synths, at least to my mind.

I can at least remember most of the synths I have now, which wasn't true before. Geez, I remember wondering what some of them were and had to open them to find out. Needless to say, they were quickly removed.

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:00 am

8 Synth(VSTi)
-incudes Reaktor and I'm a major tight arse on Reaktor ensmbles also -
+ 9 FX(VST)
+ Live 5's built in FX/MFX/Instruments
+ Reason 3
Way more than enough for any sane individual IMHO.
I sometimes think it's too many myself

M'Snah · Post by **M'Snah** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:32 am

fabi · Post by **fabi** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:43 pm

i got wusik v1 via the 9 bucks deal, but i am thinking of deinstalling it. same goes for the microTera, which i've had for years but hardly ever use anymore.

i did some major cleaning during the past few months, and one thing that i found out is that although i would NOT want to miss the flexibility of making music on a computer via vsti's and vst's, i really by now DESPISE fiddling around with the mouse.

for pure mixing purposes i wouldn't want to waste my bcr2000's knobs, but i really want to have my favorite 'creative' fx-parameters mapped to knobs and buttons, so i can play (as opposed to program) immediately.

i can change the routing for each new song if i like, but right now my bcr together with my graphics tablet and 25key-midicontroller is set up as a pseudograins-dubbox-angstrolooper-karmaFxSynth-asynth-theremin box.

the computer screen+mouse and keyboard is pretty much reserved for mixing, routing and atariST algorithmic midi composition/accompaneiemenenet via steem, yMvst and unknown64.

it's 'my' instrument, and it's coming along nicely.

RapRogue · Post by **RapRogue** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:25 pm

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Plugin Management