Zen features requests

[Big Tick]

Oh and btw... today's update will add support for daHornet... nice little synth with plenty of gritt...

[EvilDragon]

Or maybe it's better if we have another list with the soundsets - not linked to the designers list. Both are possible, and quite easy actually, but we must get it right because it will be hard to change afterward.

This. It would be better to use more columns for various types of tags. I think that NI has done it extremely well with their system, providing columns for:

Instrument
Source
Timbre
Articulation
Genre
(for instruments)

Type
Mode
Characteristic
Application
(for effects)

And then they added Meta info for every preset, with fields for:

Author
Company
Bank name
Rating
Comment
Color

This is based on Absynth 5 and FM8, and I presume Kore has the same thing as well (this system originates from Kore, right?)

It wouldn't be amiss to do it something like that in Zen (that could practically mean out of the box compatibility with NI products perhaps?)

[Big Tick]

It wouldn't be amiss to do it something like that in Zen (that could practically mean out of the box compatibility with NI products perhaps?)

or more likely, a cease & desist letter from NI !

I also am not convinced about the "genre" classification, that I find too subjective/restrictive.

[EvilDragon]

Argh, we wouldn't want that, would we?

True about genre classification. Well, how about this: a voting system for new tags. User tags (local) get sent online, and everyone can see from whom it originates. If there are more users that uploaded the same tag (caps insensitive), they are all listed under the name of that tag. Users vote for the tag's "usefulness". When enough votes is reached, tag becomes global and everyone can use it to tag their presets.

Feasible?

[Big Tick]

Argh, we wouldn't want that, would we?

True about genre classification. Well, how about this: a voting system for new tags. User tags (local) get sent online, and everyone can see from whom it originates. If there are more users that uploaded the same tag (caps insensitive), they are all listed under the name of that tag. Users vote for the tag's "usefulness". When enough votes is reached, tag becomes global and everyone can use it to tag their presets.

Feasible?

Yes - but because a lot of users will be anonymous, you can't really tell from whom it originates. It's not really required, though.

The other thing is, maybe you don't want your user tags to be public. Who knows... So the way I see it, it would be a different list - where everyone could propose tags, and click on tags proposed by others to say, "This would be useful to me". The top requested tags would become global.

Pushing it further, you could have feature requests, or requests for supported synths, following the same system.

[EvilDragon]

The other thing is, maybe you don't want your user tags to be public. Who knows... So the way I see it, it would be a different list - where everyone could propose tags, and click on tags proposed by others to say, "This would be useful to me". The top requested tags would become global.

Pushing it further, you could have feature requests, or requests for supported synths, following the same system.

Good (great!) thinking! You see, only a spark is needed to ensure a constant flow of new ideas


Good luck with this, I sincerely hope people will recognize the importance of this!



(BTW - and I guess this would come at a much later time - support for effects along with instruments? There are much MUCH more effects than one might want to support, so where's the end to it all, really?)

[Big Tick]

Yes - the Reaper crowd already asked for FX support too. The classification would probably be very different, though.

[EvilDragon]

the Reaper crowd

Hehe, I'm one of those!

[SJ_Digriz]

I think you need to start sorting the synth list.

[aMUSEd]

It wouldn't be amiss to do it something like that in Zen (that could practically mean out of the box compatibility with NI products perhaps?)

or more likely, a cease & desist letter from NI !

I also am not convinced about the "genre" classification, that I find too subjective/restrictive.

Not necessarily - look at Virsyn's Poseidon - they have done something very similar. I doubt NI would complain. I do (as I said in the other thread) agree about genres - hard to think of sounds that could not potentially be used in most genres. Timbre can also be problematic (e.g. what is "fat" or "warm"?) but it does have its uses sometimes if used carefully and restricted to tonal qualities rather than subjective aspects (e.g. detuned, rhythmic, wooden, metallic, high, low)

[EvilDragon]

but it does have its uses sometimes if used carefully and restricted to tonal qualities rather than subjective aspects (e.g. detuned, rhythmic, wooden, metallic, high, low)

This is correct, those would be very useful!

[bM3w]

new feature requests:

1) indicate untagged presets in the list view with a symbol, e.g. asterix

2) when selecting the tag MINE it should rule out to additionally select PUBLIC

PS: Absynth crashes ZEN here, too

[Big Tick]

Regarding tags, I want to look into this, I think maybe I could allow users to create their own tags in the instruments section too - these tags would be published but other users could chose to hide them if they don't fit with the way they work.

[swampmonster50]

hi thanks for the free gift, heres a couple of pointers i think would make it more user friendly....


1. categorys are static, in alphabetical order.... they keep jumping around and its hard to stay on top of


2. clicking one category, releases another. if the user wants to see more than one category, use control click

3. definable user folder (so i could save it on my audio drive instead of the default location

4. imported user presets are named the same way as the original .fxp

5. right click on preset/tag to rename/delete

6. as a musician, im less focused on the preset author or the bank it came from, i just need to know what sound im looking for. so how about let the user decide which tags he wants to see? id be happy with just the category and plugin column. maybe the columns could be colapsible, so there is more room for the columns the user wished to see


7. a user definable plugin folder in the options that zen scans, so the user dosnt have to select each plugin


8. a preset rescan option, to remove deleted presets from the results



thanks for your time and effort

[Big Tick]

1. categorys are static, in alphabetical order.... they keep jumping around and its hard to stay on top of

Disable the "autosort tags" option.

clicking one category, releases another. if the user wants to see more than one category, use control click

control-click actually tags the current preset with this category - and distributes the change to all users, so don't control-click erratically

Clicking a category adds it to the current search. It's a "AND" combination, so when you click more categories, the number of results is reduced. However, for plugins or authors or bank, there is no sense in having a "AND" combination because a preset only belongs to one of these. This is why, for these columns, clicking a new item deselects the previous one.

definable user folder (so i could save it on my audio drive instead of the default location

You already can, actually, by manually editing the zen.properties file

imported user presets are named the same way as the original .fxp

More accurately, they are named the same way as the preset in the original .fxp.

5. right click on preset/tag to rename/delete

I'm not sure why you would want to rename a preset in Zen ?

6. as a musician, im less focused on the preset author or the bank it came from, i just need to know what sound im looking for. so how about let the user decide which tags he wants to see? id be happy with just the category and plugin column. maybe the columns could be colapsible, so there is more room for the columns the user wished to see

Agreed. At the moment the easiest way to adapt it to your needs it to make a customized skin.

7. a user definable plugin folder in the options that zen scans, so the user doesnt have to select each plugin

Actually, manually selecting the plugin is quite nice - makes it a breeze to try new versions. But why not...

8. a preset rescan option, to remove deleted presets from the results

Normally deleted presets disappear from the results anyway. Don't they ?