loading Zebra2 presets into Kore2

[NothanUmber]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to find a fast way how to get the Zebra2 sounds into Kore2. I have already converted all those h2p presets into fxp and renamed the original preset folder with the h2ps so that Zebra should only find the fxps now. Unfortunately the "import plugin presets" function is still only importing the sound that is currently loaded, so I would have to convert the sounds one by one - a little bit tedious for so many sounds... (The function seems to work for most other plugins I tried, just Zebra seems to have a problem with the Kore sound import function - or vice versa.) Btw.: Is it possible to e.g. keep the original topmost folder name as bank so that it is easier to "batch categorize" the sounds (e.g. set the "lead sound" attribute for all lead sounds etc.)?

Would be glad if someone could give me a tip (if there is any...)

Greetings,
NothanUmber

[NothanUmber]

the kore moderator posted an answer to a similar question at the NI forum that will probably also be the explanation for the Zebra case: The batch import function of Kore imports all patches of the current bank of an instrument. The exported Zebra sounds are single fxp patches and not part of a bank, so they can only be imported one by one. Does Zebra support the bank concept in general and if yes, is there a way to combine fxp patches into a fxb bank that can be loaded by Zebra?

NothanUmber

[Urs]

Hehe, sorry, but the concept of "banks" has never appealed to me as it just doesn't make sense (doesn't work properly with complex patch formats such as Zebra's). It is only supported by VST2 but not by any other plugin format (not in VST3 for example). That's why none of my plugins support it.

Unfortunately I can also not support any proprietary extensions to plugin formats that any host developer comes up with, no matter how useful they are or not. It occurrs to be way more useful to me if the according host developer would add the functionality that you are missing.

On a side note, I also find it fairly difficult to tag sounds into categories and havn't seen any working system yet (including the categorised names of patch folders that come with my plugs). One could say, I don't believe in preset categories.

I do however believe that my recent developments (ultra fast midi program changes, descriptive meta data rather than keywords) make sense and should be used to browse presets instead. This is the main area of interest and this is where improvements are happening.

Urs

[koalaboy]

I really wish the audio world would start using XML for preset/document data a bit more. It's extremely easy to process/edit and there's little overhead these days.

This would give plenty of built in support for annotation/metadata and also still allow proprietary extensions and ugly compressed binary data

I do agree with losing the concept of banks though - a plugin/utility should be capable of reading every preset file that's defined and presenting them all with whatever browsing/sorting mechanism is available. Banks were a midi construct and the sooner we lose them (and other MIDI legacy constraints in VSTs) the better.

Keep going how you are Urs. ( Just consider XML instead of #-delimited property files )

[NothanUmber]

That's why none of my plugins support it.

Ok, that's comprehensible. Hopefully Kore will e.g. support the batch import of fxps in the future - or even better - NI documents the ksd format so that converters can be written. (Unfortunately the appearence of the free Kore Player and NI's soundpacks business approach made the latter option rather unlikely. That's a pity as imho a metapatch format that allows composite patches (as ksd) that is an open standard (unlike ksd) and thus implemented by many instruments could bring the integration of various software instruments a huge step forward)

I don't believe in preset categories.

I was also sceptical but the combination of attributes and free text search works surprisingly well. (Ok, I already know many of the indexed sounds so it was easier to find what I search for in many cases)

descriptive meta data rather than keywords

As long as I can use the descriptive meta data as keywords...

I'm with koalaboy, xml could be a good choice as there are many sophisticated tools and libraries available that can greatly simplify the transformation of xml files from one schema to another, so we would not have to invent the wheel twice in many cases.

Greetings,
NothanUmber

[aMUSEd]

While KORE 2's batch import won't work with Zebra 2 it's actually less useful than it first appears anyway. OK you can import a hundred or so patches in one go - you still have to then go through each of them and create some meaningful attributes and then resave them if you want them to be really usable in the library (otherwise you will find you end up with a huge collection of untagged sounds but can't easily find anything). Also in Zebra's case, since it's modular, each patch has a radically different architecture so even if import did work you would find it hard to use them with the KORE controller as each one needs a different configuration matching the modules used in each patch.

What I do with instruments like Zebra is make the best of not being able to import the whole lot and instead individually create really usable KORESounds out of my favourites with all the tags etc in place. That way you can also be creative and add extra fx or create multi sounds too if you want. I created my own template for Zebra 2 for use in KORE that enables a person to quickly create a custom configuration for each KORESound so it will have controller mappings individually matched to the modules used for each patch. See the tutorial I posted here with the template on how to use it:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 98#3226798

I'm gradually converting all my favourite Zebra patches using this method - it takes longer but the benefit from a musical and usefulness standpoint is far greater than a batch import could realistically ever offer.

[aMUSEd]

On a side note, I also find it fairly difficult to tag sounds into categories and havn't seen any working system yet (including the categorised names of patch folders that come with my plugs). One could say, I don't believe in preset categories.

I do however believe that my recent developments (ultra fast midi program changes, descriptive meta data rather than keywords) make sense and should be used to browse presets instead. This is the main area of interest and this is where improvements are happening.

Urs

I agree that it's quite hard to create meaningful metatags for sounds. For some instruments it's fairly straightforward for simple things like "it's a nylon guitar" duh but once you get into imprecise subjective categories like "genre" or even worse, timbre ("fat", "warm", "dissonant" all that nonsense) it gets very hard. However to be fair KORE does offer more than just keywords - first you can create your own custom tags so you can change the system to suit your own way of thinking or better match the instrument, secondly it also has a free text comments area where you can add pretty much any descriptive comment or user notes or anything you want and all of this is searchable too (which is the key thing I think).