Portable drum VST plugin?

[mabian]

Hello,

I would like to have a plugin that I can carry on a removable drive and use it from whatever PC I have at the moment.

Provided I have my sample library - grooves and single hits, is there a good plugin around that can work this way, with usual features and good workflow?

Examples of what I have but cannot use in this mode:
Slate Digital SSD5 Free - not portable
All Native Instruments drum-oriented plugins around - not portable
FXPansion/ROLI Geist - not portable
XLN XO = not portable
XLN Addictive Drums 2 - not portable
BFD3 - not portable
MT Powerdrum Kit - not portable (not 100% sure but...)
TAL Drum = ?
Sitala = ?
Poise = ?

Any info on the above marked with "?" or further suggestions?

I need acoustic and - most important - electronic sounds, but the latter with my sample/groove library could be covered already.

Thanks,
Mario

[MJACau]

I'm sure Tal-Drum can do it, it's nice and tiny.

[mabian]

I'm sure Tal-Drum can do it, it's nice and tiny.

Interesting, do you also know if it can slice a groove in its pads and export the MIDI needed to play that groove slice by slice? Also, does it support REX grooves?

EDIT: I see there's a demo... WIll try it.

Thanks!

- Mario

[mixyguy2]

I give up, why can't you do this with ANY plugin?

[yul]

Electronic or natural drums? I am sure that a SFXZ drumkit would work easily

[BONES]

If you point your DAW to your removable drive as a location for VST plugins, I imagine any VST plugin on the removable drive will work. Similarly, if you point your plugins to the removable drive as the source of their content, that should also work, although it will likely require you to set it up beforehand.

[SoundPorn]

But have you tried Reaper?

[mabian]

I give up, why can't you do this with ANY plugin?

Is it aimed at me or at plugin developers? Try doing that with any plugin that has a manager (Native Instruments, XLN, Slate Digital, etc.) and you'll see it doesn't work at all.
Same with others that don't have a plugin manager, like MeldaProduction.

U-he and ToneBoosters for example work instead.

- Mario

[mabian]

Electronic or natural drums? I am sure that a SFXZ drumkit would work easily

Which plugin should I use with SFXZ that is portable? I don't think Sforzando is portable... maybe Decent Sampler?

- Mario

[mabian]

If you point your DAW to your removable drive as a location for VST plugins, I imagine any VST plugin on the removable drive will work. Similarly, if you point your plugins to the removable drive as the source of their content, that should also work, although it will likely require you to set it up beforehand.

Please check my answers below. In many cases, it works only if you install (and authorize if needed) the plugin on any computer you use it. Which is exactly what I want to avoid (I'm carrying around the hard drive, not necessarily the PC)

Thanks,
Mario

[mabian]

But have you tried Reaper?

Actually, I use REAPER (I got the joke )

- Mario

[BONES]

In many cases, it works only if you install (and authorize if needed) the plugin on any computer you use it. Which is exactly what I want to avoid (I'm carrying around the hard drive, not necessarily the PC)

So you just need something that has a serial no. for authorisation? What about something you can sign into and authorise on-line? Because Ujam have a tonne of drum VSTi and they all work like that.

Otherwise you'll probably get the best mileage out of something like DECENT SAMPLER or PIANOBOOK. You might have to make your own kits but it would almost certainly work for you.

There's also this for Zampler, which is free.

[maxym.srpl]

Portability mostly depends on resources the plugin uses. Normally all plugins which deploy single file during installation (their vst, vst3 file) should be portable.

There are things to remember:
- plugins may use shared libraries (ie VisualC or so). Such a libraries may be installed on one computer (if missing delivered by installation program) while not on other. Though knowing them it should be doable to install such on any computer manually.
- plugins might deploy more than one file. Especially today lot of them them deploy graphical resources and other things during installation. Often those files end up scattered into various system directiories (roaming, user dir etc) instead of being installed in plugin dir. it makes harder to make such a plugin portable. In some cases apps look for those files into own directory first. then falling back to system directories. But it must not be true always
- vst3 plugins have fixed location defined by Stainberg. Don’t know if the standard covers multiple locations (incl removable device). But filesystem tools should allow to merge more locations into one. it requires some knowledge, reorganizing vst3 dir using hardlinks etc

[NikkiA]

Speedrum Lite is portable ('just a dll'), the full version probably isn't (at least technically), since it'll need to store the serial number somewhere.

Sitala comes as a msi installer, but it might be possible that once installed the dll can just be copied wherever, since I believe I remember it being just a zipped dll file at one point.

(both will load/save presets to/from anywhere you choose, which also implies portable use might be possible)

[mabian]

Portability mostly depends on resources the plugin uses. Normally all plugins which deploy single file during installation (their vst, vst3 file) should be portable.

There are things to remember:
- plugins may use shared libraries (ie VisualC or so). Such a libraries may be installed on one computer (if missing delivered by installation program) while not on other. Though knowing them it should be doable to install such on any computer manually.
- plugins might deploy more than one file. Especially today lot of them them deploy graphical resources and other things during installation. Often those files end up scattered into various system directiories (roaming, user dir etc) instead of being installed in plugin dir. it makes harder to make such a plugin portable. In some cases apps look for those files into own directory first. then falling back to system directories. But it must not be true always
- vst3 plugins have fixed location defined by Stainberg. Don’t know if the standard covers multiple locations (incl removable device). But filesystem tools should allow to merge more locations into one. it requires some knowledge, reorganizing vst3 dir using hardlinks etc

- Shared libraries: yes that's correct unless they link them statically
- Multiple files: yes, but many plugins have smart file system organization (ex. U-he); NI and Melda Production are kind of a mess instead in this regard, just to make a couple of examples
- Fixed location: kinda, Surge XT has a portable mode which allows to put everything in a single folder, and it works in REAPER - just have to add the folder in which it is - or a parent folder of course - to its plugin paths.

So yes, it's not only about the authorization (Toneboosters for ex. have key files, others store somewhere the auth data); so it's not easy to find one, especially for drums, for synths, there are more possibilities.

- Mario