KVR Audio

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:31 am

I think most of sample organization utilities missed a key point: they should be used inside the DAW, integrated in the audio pipeline, in sync. This is why I created Universal Patch Finder. A Library/Sample organizer in VST format.

My first internal release was indeed a standalone application, but it is not practical when your are "in action" making your stuff in your DAW. And most of the time, you can have some issues regarding the audio interface, because two applications are trying to access to the device. So I made a VST with it.

My software is intended to be used like this:

Let say, you are creating a new song in your DAW,
you are working on a specific place, let say 4 bars.
So you activate the loop playing in your DAW and
here come's Universal Patch Finder:

every time you click on a patch, let say a Rex file, the audio preview will wait the beginning of the next bar to play it, so you can hear the patch in sync with your current work.

if you want to test a patch with a reverb or whatever, to see if it's a good idea: no problem, simply apply an effect on the VST output of Universal Patch Finder.

when finally, you found the right patch, a simple drag & drop will load it in your DAW.

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:03 pm

Mediabay in Cubase does this, and does a good job, except at speed - it has very slow response, maybe due to the tagging system, which I use extensively.

Does yours use attribute-tagging for more purpose-aimed searching?

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:20 pm

yes, I made 20 tags to organize libraries. but I don't use tags for patches.
Patches have a note 0/0 to 5/5 stars.

Mediabay don't use the concept of library and as far as I know, it
does not handle Kontakt files (NKI/NKM). Moreover, what happen if
you decide to change your DAW ? well, oops. A sample organizer should be
agnostic and should not use a proprietary format to store the database.
Universal Patch Finder use SQLite which is free and widely known.

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:42 pm

Sounds really interesting! Is it available for testing?

Ah..just noticed it's available for download. Will definately check this one out.

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:55 pm

feel free to point me any bugs I missed, I will fix them as quick as possible.

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:47 am

Pytchblend wrote:Great list there CC4... I'm surprised there are so many!
Has anyone auditioned these fellas? I'm time-stretched and would love to know the top 5?
Ta!

I'll fix and update that list above here soon. I'm looking forward to try out the Universal Patch Finder.

For Mac, everyone seems to be swearing by Iced Audio AudioFinder.

For those with $199+ burning a hole in their pocket, SoundMiner gets great reviews.

I always found Sample Catalog to be helpful and intuitive, however it doesn't play 32-bit WAV files and other formats. You can still use it to organize those files however. Unfortunately the software is no longer supported and both links listed above are now dead.

RyAudio Sample Librarian and ifoundasound appear to be the best affordable options for PC. I'd recommend trying both of their trials. I recently tried both and had a few issues with each, so I'm still "undecided."

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:48 am

Installed Universal Patch Finder last night and did some testing. Damn it loads files fast and preview works just great - much faster response than Mediabay! And drag and drop works just great as well! It took me a while to figure out a way to organize the tags for libraries, and I really miss the option of tagging individual files. Like I have a library of selfmade sounds in Kontakt, so I would just add them as a library, but the sounds are not all keys or all bass, so I would need to split the library and add each sub-folder as an individual library. It can work this way, but I think it would be better with a more extensive selection of tags at patch level.

And the Geist export just rocks! Great added function!

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:05 am

it would be better with a more extensive selection of tags at patch level

well, you can search by filename, may be it is enough if your patches contains Bass or Guitar in the filename (including the folder)
My concern is to keep the interface as simple as possible. If I introduce patches tags, it can be visually too complex.
May be, we can imagine a tab navigator for tags. one tab for libraries, and another for patches.
if everybody need this, I can do that

bob bobwood · Post by **bob bobwood** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:03 pm

If you wish to add other file extensions with XP, the UniversalPatchFinder.ini file is located here so that you can edit/add;
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Hypercube Softwares\UniversalPatchFinder\UniversalPatchFinder.ini

Thanks again droopy6.

And if anyone wants the link for droopy6s' Universal Patch finder, here it is;
http://hypercube-softwares.dyndns.org/

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:37 pm

Just added an extra folder of samples to my Drumloops library and it doesn't show in Universal Patch Finder - so how to update the content of a library? (adding folders to an existing library)

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:35 pm

you must delete the lib then re-import it.
uuuh bad idea.
I never thought about "living" libraries where content can change...
Refresh button, is only useful when you change the wallpaper with external editor.
I probably should change this...to rescan the lib.
And it is very easy to do, by the way.
Ready for a 1.2 guys ?

CC4 · Post by **CC4** » Thu Nov 01, 2012 1:07 am

I'm liking "Universal Patch Finder" however I wish more tags could be added to individual samples. Maybe the software is a bit too simple. I can quickly find a Drum Library. Inside that library though it would be nice to be able to tag the samples to narrow down when I'm looking for a kick, or snare, or tom, or bongo, etc. This software will be a bit handy inside the host though.

Instead of modifying file names or folder structure, I start to think maybe something like TagScanner would be handy if I wanted to write tags to the file. Sample Librarian then becomes attractive because it doesn't write tags directly to the file and you aren't tied to particular tagging standards.

garchev · Post by **garchev** » Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:35 am

Guys,

Please check I'm Bard - this is a new application and looks very promissing:

http://blog.getbard.com/post/1692045028 ... le-library

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Thu Nov 01, 2012 9:25 am

OMG

, did you read this: http://www.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic. ... 6165ed2ebb

mediabay use the same database as universal patch finder: SQLite.
This mean theoretically I can import mediabay in my database. I
just have to understand how their data are organized.

droopy6 · Post by **droopy6** » Fri Nov 02, 2012 9:19 am

I looked into mediabay database, and I understand why it can be so long to use it. Seriously, their database is very badly designed. It seems they don't even know how to modelize many-to-many relationships between patches and tags. A Common practice is to create an association table, like this:

if you create a user tag in mediabay, they add a column to the patch table. So basically, if you have 1000000 patches, it will add 10000000 unused entries for it.
With an association table, you add only one entry. And search will be faster.

Character field is also badly designed, with stuff like "A+B+C". But I wont explain why it is bad, we are not in a developers forum

Does anyone is interesting in adding the equivalent of mediabay in Universal Patch Finder ? Basically, it could be faster and you could import your mediabay database of course. But you wont have all functionalities of mediabay.

by the way is there stuff like mediabay in other DAW ?

Sample Organizer