Plugin management..... How?

[goofrider]

How can one possibly mangement 100+ plugins? My VST Plugins folder is getting HUGE because of all the quality freebies keep coming out.....

I typically group them by maker/author, but that just doesn't work anymore, because now I end up having similar effects (say, delays) spanned across some 12 different folders.

I come to the point I have several memos on my Palm PDA to keep track of what plugin does what.... It used to be one single memo, now it's grown to 4 memos. I'm about to rebuild them into a handheld database.

What do u do to keep track of your plugins organized??

I guess I should start with deleting the freebies I dont use...

[tee boy]

Thats definately a thought mate - of you cant remember what it does, do you really need it? I got to admit though, my plug folder is also in crisis. Every now any then I delve in and sack all the stuff i dont use. Keep it simple, its the only way to go.

[WOK]

The only way is to make folders with the names of categories, e.g. "Drums", "Analogsynth", "Sampler", "Delay", "Reverb" and so on.
You can change the name of the .dll files to include the name of the maker, that works on most files (not all - some stupids include a check of the original name).

[pHz]

i have core folders for each instrument type (eg - drums / samplers / synths / emulations / etc) that i keep as stripped back as i can (although im not very good at doing the 'minimal kit' thing tbh) ...

... i then also have a 'testing' folder that everything new goes into before i either keep or discard it

(same thing in my effects folder too)

slainte rob

[DevonB]

I have all my main synths in the 'root' folder, then all of my effects are in their own folders, and if I have other things to associate them with (low usage, demo, etc) they have their own folder.

Devon

[Johnnycarcaz]

I have wanted to clean my plug-in folder as well. I wanna get the dll files out of the sub folders created during installation. If I do this this isnt gonna screw with any old song settings would it?

I used to do sub cats like drums, analog, digital, organ yada yada yada and after I had a reinstall I got lazy and didnt bother. NOW IM REGRETTING IT!

hmmm
maybe this will be a before sleep project.
-j

[wgreenlee1]

I think there should be a standard naming convention implemented.

Something like....

SYN_TriangleI.dll
SYN_TriangleII.dll

EFF_Chordworx.dll
EFF_Delay.dll

Etc.....

And then have each devoloper add his\her naming to each synth/effect...

SYN_OdO_Apad4.dll

Something like that so when Im browsing with Fruity Loops and it gives me the list of VSTs all synths or whatever will be listed together by devoloper.

Im thinking about renaming all of them but I guess Im going to be pretty bored with everything else to attemt it....lol

But something like this sounds good to me.

[funkynuts]

Main folder -workhorse stuff used regularily classed by type ;sampler,synth fx etc then sub indexed :delay ,fm synth etc.
occasional folder-does what it says on the tin
rare folder-maybe the really resource hungry stuff only used when needed

[pHz]

Something like that so when Im browsing with Fruity Loops and it gives me the list of VSTs all synths or whatever will be listed together by devoloper.

Im thinking about renaming all of them but I guess Im going to be pretty bored with everything else to attemt it....lol

ive done the renaming thing ...

... not so much a case of boredom - more frustration with the fact that fl-studio DOESNT reflect the subfolder structure of your vst directory like (most ??? ) other hosts do ...

so i have either ...

vsti-synth-veritgo.dll
vsti-sample-sfz+.dll
vsti-drums-dr008.dll

or ...

fx-master-vintagewarmer.dll
fx-fsu-buffer-override.dll
fx-delay-ohmboyz.dll

... etc

slainte rob