"Multi-studio" idea I had that might have some advantages

[jabe]

I haven't tried this out yet, so can't say whether it would definitely work.

Like many others, I want ALL the free plug-ins I can get and I probably have too many that I don't use, although that may be because there's a lot I haven't tried out yet.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I could set up multiple userids (in Windows 7 & 10; I expect Mac and Linux users can do the same) and treat each userid as a separate recording studio. Each could have its own set of plug-ins, limited by folders. That would mean that only a sub-set of the plug-ins on my PCs would be loaded for each user/studio. There would have to be some folders common to all users/studios, but there would be one or more unique to each user/studio.

This means I could try out different plug-ins without them always using up resources. If I log out of a userid/studio, its plug-ins should be unloaded.

It might allow me to learn better to use a particular type of plug-in (eg: compressors) for what that type actually does, rather than relying on a few pre-sets, though it wouldn't stop me doing that if I wished to.

It would also allow each "studio" to have its own sound. One might be the best choice for a particular genre.

I thought the idea might be worth sharing. Thoughts/results of others would be of interest.

[Peter Widdicombe]

I guess there are 2 benefits on the surface...

1. You have less memory consumption for unused plugins. Now, the question would be, does an unused plugin actually consume resources, just because it happens to be available?

2. It might make searching for the right plugin "easier". Myself, I still haven't determined the most logical way of handling them across 2 machines.

I TEND to use one for production and the other for noodling around with plugins and testing new features, because of the differing look/locations/selection of plugins across the two; as there doesn't appear to be a nice logical synchronizable "plugin librarian" feature (hint hint...) making it easy to have a "test" library and a "production" library that you could easily bring plugs, related folders, and Waveform plugin categorizations in one go ??

[jabe]

Part of the thinking, for Windows at least, is that since the .dll files for Windows plug-ins are loaded when Waveform is started, there'll be fewer loaded because for each userid there'll be fewer scanned.

For the time being, my two machines will have to diverge, since I only have one 64-bit PC, so the older 32-bit one is going to stay with Windows 7, Waveform 8, and 32-bit plug-ins.

[whyterabbyt]

Part of the thinking, for Windows at least, is that since the .dll files for Windows plug-ins are loaded when Waveform is started

No they're not. Five minutes with ProcessMonitor will demonstrate exactly what Waveform loads at startup. Plugins are not loaded until they're accessed in an Edit (when the Edit is loaded, or when you add a new plugin to a Track etc).

[whyterabbyt]

Oh, and if you still want to be able to deal with multiple different plugin lists for different purposes, I think you should be able to swap the plugin file database with another via a .bat file before starting WaveForm

[jabe]

Part of the thinking, for Windows at least, is that since the .dll files for Windows plug-ins are loaded when Waveform is started

No they're not. Five minutes with ProcessMonitor will demonstrate exactly what Waveform loads at startup. Plugins are not loaded until they're accessed in an Edit (when the Edit is loaded, or when you add a new plugin to a Track etc).

Thanks for the clarification. That makes quite a difference.