Poll: Best Method to Organize Third-Party Plugins in Live?

[zenophilix]

Some organization can be had by using the Favorites Collection (color-categories) in Live 10.

I wish the Collections area had about 20 folders available, in addition to sub-folders & dividers.

Overall though, I find it to be pretty effective:

This. I was really disappointed to find that you only get the 7, and no reuse of colors is allowed. I may end up adopting a similar setup as to what you have pictured, despite the fact I was previously using them to sort genres of drum racks. There's a lot of racks in Suite.

Anyway, in reference to OP's question, I've gone through about a million different ways of doing it, but I'm currently trying to cut back on my plugins and only install what I know I'll use - therefore, I just have all my plugins in one folder. I used to have a ridiculous amount of plugins installed, all organized into a bunch of different types of effects and instruments, but this got to be a bit frustrating when I had to open a folder to get out a plugin I want to use. Seems minor, but I found it annoying.

[2:43AM]

Thanks for all the votes and replies to my thread/poll! Personally, I believe Method #3, though "unsupported by Ableton Support," is the easiest and best way to go. The master VST folder can be somewhat organized, i.e. containing a folder containing loose plugins and another for installed plugins. Furthermore, plugins from more than one VST folder can be included into the organized, shortcut/alias folder, including 32-bit plugins bridged by JBridge. As long as Live continues to support shortcut/alias paths, this is a solid method to organize plugins, IMO.

If anyone's curious, here are my various "master" plugin directories:

C:\VST64
C:\VST32_Bridged
C:\VST32
C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\WaveShells V9
C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\WaveShells V10
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins

And here is a snippet of how my shortcut/alias folder is organized:

1 - FX
-- Amp - Cabinet Sim
-- Bass Enhancer
-- Channel
-- Delay
-- Distortion - Saturation - Exciter
-- Dynamics
---- Compressor
---- De-Esser
---- Gate
---- Limiter
---- Multi-Band
---- Peak Trimming
---- Transient Shaper
-- EQ
-- Glitch - Stutter
-- Granular
-- LoFi
-- Mastering
-- Modulation
-- Multi-FX - Combos
-- Pedals
-- Pitch
-- Reverb
-- Spatial
-- Time Correction
2 - Utility
-- Check M+S, Mono, Freq
-- Headphone Reference
-- Loudness & Dynamic Range
-- Misc
-- Scopes & Spectrum
-- Stereo Field
-- Test Signals
-- Tuner & Chord
3 - Instruments
4 - Waves

[whyterabbyt]

Thanks for all the votes and replies to my thread/poll! Personally, I believe Method #3, though "unsupported by Ableton Support," is the easiest and best way to go. The master VST folder can be somewhat organized, i.e. containing a folder containing loose plugins and another for installed plugins. Furthermore, plugins from more than one VST folder can be included into the organized, shortcut/alias folder, including 32-bit plugins bridged by JBridge. As long as Live continues to support shortcut/alias paths, this is a solid method to organize plugins, IMO.

If anyone's curious, here are my various "master" plugin directories:

C:\VST64
C:\VST32_Bridged
C:\VST32
C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\WaveShells V9
C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\WaveShells V10
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins

And here is a snippet of how my shortcut/alias folder is organized:

1 - FX
-- Amp - Cabinet Sim
-- Bass Enhancer
-- Channel
-- Delay
-- Distortion - Saturation - Exciter
-- Dynamics
---- Compressor
---- De-Esser
---- Gate
---- Limiter
---- Multi-Band
---- Peak Trimming
---- Transient Shaper
-- EQ
-- Glitch - Stutter
-- Granular
-- LoFi
-- Mastering
-- Modulation
-- Multi-FX - Combos
-- Pedals
-- Pitch
-- Reverb
-- Spatial
-- Time Correction
2 - Utility
-- Check M+S, Mono, Freq
-- Headphone Reference
-- Loudness & Dynamic Range
-- Misc
-- Scopes & Spectrum
-- Stereo Field
-- Test Signals
-- Tuner & Chord
3 - Instruments
4 - Waves

If you want your Waves plugins under the hierachic structure of the rest of your plugin, Xlutop shell2vst (which creates a .dll per plugin from your waveshellxxx.dll ) works well with Live.

[mutantdog]

I've been using method #3 for years now. Never had any problems with it, there are advantages too in that you can have several shortcuts to the same plugin which may be useful if you want to stick something in multiple categories.

I've recently been experimenting with creating default instrument racks for plugins and using the colour favourites thing to put all of my VST, native and M4L instruments in one place. There is advantages to this, such as having individual Reaktor instruments listed alongside other plugins although I'm moving towards using Komplete Kontrol for all NI stuff so this is less useful to me now than before. I also find long lists to be counter-productive when i'm actually in the creative process though so I may stick with method #3.

Having said that my categorisation system is far more vague and imprecise than that listed above, mainly due to so many of my favourite plugins being difficult to pigeonhole.

[Gamma-UT]

I just do it by manufacturer name, which has the advantage that Waves stuff doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. As it's pretty easy to store commonly used recipes as racks or presets in the user library, I just use categories there. For me it also avoids the need to slavishly categorise everything (and work out what to do with, say, Valhalla Ubermod - is it a delay, a chorus, a bird, a plane?) in some master list.

[mutantdog]

I've been considering doing that for a couple of manufacturers, it seems quite logical for me to put all my Tokyo Dawn stuff together, less so for the many devs that i have only one plugin by. Perhaps this is an example of the advantages of multiple shortcuts to a single .dll.

[aMUSEd]

I tend to use both - manufacturer name for a few that I consider to be a 'suite' - eg GRM, Soundtoys, Arturia, u-he, but the rest go in folders by type - I keep those general enough not to have to worry too much about pigeonholing and plugins that use multiple synthesis methods or fx types go in a 'multifx' or 'hybrid synth' folder.

Been doing this years now

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 3#p6593473

I do like the Komplete Kontrol method of tags though too, this allows for greater complexity and accuracy as plugins can have multiple and shared tags - of course that only works if you load the plugin within KK (which does have the advantage also of controlling the thing and patch browsing). Tracktion Waveform has a similar system though that I have used to categorise plugins in that host (also used it to organise my Reaktor ensembles).

[DJ Warmonger]

I arrange plugins in line with my workflow. Synthesis -> FX -> mix ->master.

So I have these categories:
- Synth
- FX (like, special FX)
- Mix
- Mastering
- Favouirites
- Drums
- DJ

Also, it's important to keep the list short and make sure it contains actually useful things. Sometimes I explore my library in search for inspiration, but do not inlude all the packs and samples I've ever got in my toolbox.

[2:43AM]

If you want your Waves plugins under the hierachic structure of the rest of your plugin, Xlutop shell2vst (which creates a .dll per plugin from your waveshellxxx.dll ) works well with Live.

Thanks, I may look into this. I've read that breaking apart the WaveShell would interfere with updates. My V9 plugins are never going to be updated, so I may try it with the V9 plugs at least.

I've been using method #3 for years now. Never had any problems with it, there are advantages too in that you can have several shortcuts to the same plugin which may be useful if you want to stick something in multiple categories.

+1 to this!

[whyterabbyt]

If you want your Waves plugins under the hierachic structure of the rest of your plugin, Xlutop shell2vst (which creates a .dll per plugin from your waveshellxxx.dll ) works well with Live.

Thanks, I may look into this. I've read that breaking apart the WaveShell would interfere with updates. My V9 plugins are never going to be updated, so I may try it with the V9 plugs at least.

No, the created .dll files are just 5Kb 'stubs' that point at the Waves installation. Updates are to the shell, not the stubs, so it doesnt matter if you do (or dont) update. And it also works perfectly well with mixed v9 and v10 shells.