u-he refurbished Preset Browser discussion

[Urs]

Ok, here's the point.

Of course NI's categories are first and foremost influenced by sample libraries, and obviously orchestral ones.

We don't need to copy NI's tagging system to keep compatibility with their stuff. We have an internal table that maps any of our categories to whatever they have. Our Whatever:Strings category will map to their Strings:Whatever category. No problem if Waldorf or anyone adheres to orchestral denomination in their own system.

I spoke to the guys and the point about omitting "strings" ans "brass" as main category is that these are not specific synth categories. There are synthesizer sounds which sound "like" strings or brass, but really they are neither. The decision was made to have the top categories be like "what function does this sound have?" while the sub categories are like "what does it sound like". (We'll probably rename Keys to Poly for that reason)

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Hi Urs, if you guys go that route, please include a sub-category under Poly that indicates Brass. You currently have things like bowed, mallet, piano, organ, bells, but nothing that would currently cover a poly brass patch. I'm sure any weaknesses in the current patching system will be discovered as you actually go through and actually do the tagging. I'm confident you guys will figure out something that works.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Double-post.

[EvilDragon]

Of course NI's categories are first and foremost influenced by sample libraries, and obviously orchestral ones.

But no, that is not true, at all. Orchestral products are minority of NI's product range, so it's not the case of catering to that area either.

[aMUSEd]

And those additional libraries were non existent, except for Kontakt's factory library, when Kore first came out. The categories were just an attempt to make something that catered for everything potentially (as much as possible, obviously it's not perfect by any means and can be improved on)

[EvilDragon]

Exactly.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Of course NI's categories are first and foremost influenced by sample libraries, and obviously orchestral ones.

But no, that is not true, at all. Orchestral products are minority of NI's product range, so it's not the case of catering to that area either.

I know absolutely NOTHING about NKS. Never used an NI controller; could care less. I look at the list EvilDragon posted and go, "good list - I can work with that with some tweaks" (like removing the word Synth from Synth Pad).

My honest guess is that NI did some research and came up with categories based on the lowest common denominator after looking at how their customers interact with their products. "How would a customer navigate this content? Well, they'd be looking for a synth brass sound in Massive or they may need an Orchestral Brass patch in Kontakt - so we need a 'Brass' category that could cover both." And so on.

I could live with the "Category = Function" approach, but I honestly think you guys are looking at it through the lens of U-he employees/developers/synth-masters, whereas I'm just a dumb customer trying to find a Brass or Strings patch. NI's tagging system makes it easier by making those high-level categories because that's how my brain is wired about thinking of patches from literally every synth on the market (which categorizes presets this way). Go talk to Joe-blow preset user and ask them how they'd categories a string patch. They'll say, "duh, Strings." Not "Poly synth."

From that perspective, I'd ask you guys to consider this question, "if pretty much every synth on the market, including yours (in your own sub-folders), categorizes Brass and Strings patches separately, why are you looking to re-invent the wheel by going with a completely different paradigm in your browser?" There's an old design principle from the US Navy that says, "keep it simple, stupid." Simple in this case would be Categories that match the folder structure of the Factory Content and basically every other synth product on the market. What's not simple? Having to consider the musical function of a synth Brass as just a polyphonic sound with some brass-like characteristics to locate it. 'Brass' is simple. 'Polyphonic synth sound with brass-like characteristics' is not.

[spunkmuffin]

Maybe it would be a good thing if u-he created a new paradigm. Maybe even a great thing. About time.

[Urs]

Of course NI's categories are first and foremost influenced by sample libraries, and obviously orchestral ones.

But no, that is not true, at all. Orchestral products are minority of NI's product range, so it's not the case of catering to that area either.

It's not about their own libraries, it's about the gazillion of libraries that use Kontakt

[EvilDragon]

Yes, but as aMUSEd said, categories used by NKS (previously Kore) weren't created to cater categorizing of solely Kontakt libraries, since Kore was a hybrid approach that merged samplers and synths and effects. It was over a decade ago (Kore 1 appeared in 2006), when Kontakt wasn't THAT popular as it is today (it was on the rise, though)!

[EvilDragon]

Maybe it would be a good thing if u-he created a new paradigm. Maybe even a great thing. About time.

Eh.

[noiseboyuk]

The decision was made to have the top categories be like "what function does this sound have?" while the sub categories are like "what does it sound like".

I realise this is a deluge of opinionated and conflicting advice from all quarters, but I'm not sure what is there now is really reflecting your overall aim, with a lot of overlapping and duplicated tags. Perhaps "what does it sound like" is just too similar to Character. IMO, to avoid exactly this, ideally a subcategory should be a subset of nouns rather than verbs.

Let's take Pads. We have an Evolving subcategory, even though there's already an Evolving character. Ditto Distorted. Ditto Acoustic. Chords is also a Feature. There is a PWM subcategory here but nowhere else, whereas it might be a useful Feature alongside CrossMod or OscSync.

Meanwhile, If Keys becomes Poly (and presumably Leads mono) than I guess Mono and Poly in Features is redundant.

Phew.

I think duplication would forever mean a confusing browsing experience - do you search for Evolving in Pads or Character? The patch designer will probably only have chosen one or the other. So I'd rather see far fewer duplicated tags and thus far fewer subcategories - but maybe a few more Characters.

FWIW, here's a list of Pads subcategories and where imo they might be better placed (and in many cases already are):

Any - removed (defaults to this with nothing else selected)
Pads - removed
Acoustic - Character (already there)
Atonal - Character (Tonal / Atonal)
Breathy - keep (or Character Bold / Breathy)
Chords - Features (already there)
Distorted - Character (already there)
Drones - keep
Evolving - - Character (already there)
PWM - Features
Rhythmic - Features
Soundscape - keep
Strings - keep (add this to some other categories too)
Vocal - keep
Lo-Fi - keep (or add to Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi character)

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Just for fun and to add some more data into the debate, here's the Arturia list: Bass, Brass, FM, Guitar, Keys, Lead, Organ, Pad, Percussive, Sequence, SFX, Strings, Template. Very similar to the Factory Content folder structure with some slight variations.

Pretty good list. Of the countless complaints I've heard about Arturia software on the net, their preset browser categories have never been one.

Lot of passion around this topic. Too bad it wasn't a survey question:

How would you like Presets to be categorized in the browser? 1) by type of sound (bass, lead, brass, pads, strings), or by function (bass, lead, poly, pad).

[Urs]

Sorry, but we won't clutter our preset browser with either the General MIDI standard descriptors, or XG or any other company which has hundreds of cute category names for sounds that don't apply to our stuff. The NI ones simply don't fit our needs (Reeds? really?), neither do the Arturia ones (Guitars? really?) so please stop insisting that there's any sense in copying any of their system

[Urs]

(someone wondered why there were heated debates? )