VeeSTeeEx

It would be a killer option if this wrapper offered a randomize button to be able to get random synth patches. Also a nice feature would be to be able to lock certain parameters that we would not like to be changed, and maybe set a range of randomization per parameter.

Yep, plans to do so are mentioned in the 'What's next?' section of the readme that comes with the zip file. :-)
But probably not in the near future - at least not with the features you asked for (which for sure all make totally sense).
May I ask which plugins you already tried to warp with VeeSTeeEx?
What's your overall experience so far - given the fact that there is no manual...

"Yep, plans to do so are mentioned in the 'What's next?'"

You'll be on your way into killer app territory if you do that.

I'm already leaning towards sticking this on half of my quirky found instruments just for consistant app management.

I guess it never got its randomizer. :(.

No, not yet, but I still have it in my mind.
But I have to admit, that my motivation isn't that high anymore, because so far not a single cent was donated to me for a beer. :(.

That's a shame, I'm sorry you never got any donations.

Hi there.

Can this wrapper help to use 32-bit plugins in 64-bit DAW environment? Thank you for your response and time.

Have a great day ahead.

No - the concept of this wrapper is totally different. Aren't such already existing? Never tried any of those though.

Hello and thank you for making this. I am trying with V-Station x64 and the wrapper doesn't show in my VST list. I've checked that I've followed the instructions correctly. Studio One.

Hmmm, not sure when and how Studio One scans plugins, but I'm quite sure that the wrapper should be recognized as a valid VST by it.
I used it sometimes in my testing. Which version of Studio One are you using and what Windows version do you have?
Will have a look in the evening in some hours when I'm back from work.

I have tried resetting my black list numerous times just to try random things. That's where I am at. StudioOne scans the "regular" V-Station.dll normally - that is to say, it shows up in my list of VSTi's. I have your file, renamed to V-StationEx.dll, sitting right next to it in the same directory. Everything here is 64-bit. Also, believe it or not, I actually saw V-StationEx appear lightning quick (as they all do) during the Studio One startup scan of the VST / VSTi folders. I am running StudioOne5 on Win11. I'd like to convey magnanimous thanks for working on this wrapper. V-Station SORELY needs it. And V-Station just became free and has enough Supernova II DNA to make it essential. I am going to retrace all my steps right now, because I was really tired when I tried this yesterday. I really hope it will work for me.

Hmm. I started again from zero and it won't work. My system wont load the V-StationEx.dll
V-Station.dll sitting right next to it loads fine.

My system loads wrappers. I've use jBridge and also another called VST MIDI Control Extension successfully. I've actually wrapped wrapped VSTi's.

Thanks for all the details!
Very helpful!
I'll see if I can reproduce and hopefully find a fix for it.

ok and thank you for your effort big time.

Oh no!
I've Studio One version 4 and the shortcut for it - which I have on my desktop - says 'Studio One 4 - NO VSTs POSSIBLE!!!!'
Just looked it up in the Internet and to my understanding the demo version doesn't support it. Also not in versions 5 or 6...
Seems my last testing occurred, when I still had version 3? - I can remember that I liked its look and workflow better than those in most other DAWs.
So far I can only say that its 64-bit version loads fine in SAVIHost, energyXT 64-bit, MuLab, Cantabile 4 and Ableton Live 11 on my Windows 7 machine...
Maybe Window 7 vs? Window 11? I actually only tested a bit in Windows 10 (earlier - with other VSTs wrapped) - but never did so under Windows 11.
On the other hand - from my understanding it should be Windows 11 compatible if it can be loaded under Windows 10.
Or a Studio One issue, but that one I cannot verify under these circumstances unfortunately.
You are 100% sure that you really use the 64-bit wrapper variant and not the 32-bit VeeSTeeEx?

Yes indeed, and you can ask ANY questions --> I won't be offended. I did use the 64-bit variant of your file on a known x64 VST2 instrument.

Okay then! :-)
Could you please try with free - not to be installed - Savihost?
Here is the direct DL link: https://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihostx64.zip
Just put the extracted executable 'savihost.exe' into the directory where you have 'V-Station.dll' as well as 'V-StationEx.dll' located and see what happens, if you load 'V-StationEx.dll' with it.
BTW: Do you have lots of banks for V-Station?

I hope I HAVE made a mistake so that it can be made to work.

And one more thing to ask:
Do you see a folder called 'V-StationEx' under the directory where you have your 2 V-Station dlls? Does it have some files in it?
Could it be you have some permission restrictions there like not allowing sub directories.
Because this is something the wrapper tries to do to but some files (lke e.g the GUI xml file as well as the presets file into).
Although I think I should detect such an issue and then try to create that directory somewhere under 'C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\ZonderP\VeeSTeeEx...

Indeed that folder exists, with a *.vld file present in it. I am running StudioOne in admin mode for the time being. I also have the folder where the dll's reside set to no security whatsoever.

Is there a chance they're competing for the same VST id or whatever?

Yes, the wrapper uses the exactly same VST id as the wrapped VST.
Seems to not be a problem in the other DAWs I tried, but maybe if a Studio One project uses an original AND the wrapper?
But I'm 100% sure - I just (re)tested it - that this also works in the above mentioned DAWs (except SAVIHost, since it only loads a single VST)
Seems Studio One is trying to do some magic...
Might be worth to try out what happens, when you start a new project there and only use 'V-StationEx'?

Yes they are competing for the same VST ID. I just renamed V-Station.dll to V-Station.2dll, re-started StudioOne, and V-StationEx NOW APPEARS for the first time in my VSTi list. However it doesn't work because it needs V-Station.dll (I assume).

.

For sure the "problem" is StudioOne. I am currently reading how it observes VST ID numbers and file names, both, where most other DAWs do not. Can I chance the VST ID of V-StationEx.dll somehow?

No, it gets assigned dynamically the VST ID of the wrapped VST upon loading the wrapped VST - it only has its own VST ID (which also can't be changed), when it doesn't find the VST it is supposed to wrap (which happens, when renaming is not done properly as expected)...
During a scan, e.g. when a VeeSTeeEx get's scanned, then the scan is done by all DAWs in a way that the VST get's loaded, which means in case of a wrapper (I assume that might be valid for all such kind of wrappers) also the wrapped VST gets loaded.
Unfortunately no way of fixing something here in VeeSTeeEx - it's totally based on that idea that it pretends to be the 'original'. The associated database based preset file has that VST ID burnt it to make sure no presets from another VST can be imported to it. And so on...

I need to correct myself here...;-)
Starting from version 1.1.0.835, VeeSTeeEx comes in 2 flavors (besides 32 and 64-bit), where the one with the '-U-' in its filename is a flavor, which reports its own unique ID to the host (an ID different from the one of the wrapped VST plugin).
This helps for usage in DAWs like Presonus StudioOne.

If I remove V-Station.dll from that folder entirely, I can get V-StationEx.dll to appear in my VST list, in the same manner as if I has renamed "V-Station.dll", to "V-Station.2dll". If I dram V-StationEx to the timeline / work area, nothing happens. Nothing appears and no new track is made.

drag*.

That's also a bit strange!
It should show a GUI and a blank window with a text, indicating that no wrapped plugin was found...

Thank you for your patience. Perhaps the ID cannot be changed.

HEY! I tried only the V-StationEx.dll in savihost - it works! But in the big picture I am not any further ahead, because I cant us the setup in my DAW. I can't recall the VeeSTeeEx sounds when I go back to my DAW (I assume).

Wait a minute. I can import and export FXP and FXB freely? And jumble them all around? I might be all fixed here. I just want to organize my patches and let them all have names.

Self-made or collected? I'd like to have them;-)
So I could make them at least available for other users of VeeSTeeEx who don't use Studio One.

'I can import and export FXP and FXB freely?'
Yes, but you should be able to do so also with Savihost or energyXT. All proper DAWs should offer that possibility.
But VeeSTeeEx might make it a bit easier, if you first import all fxb and fxp.
Then you have them all there, even with reference to the bank where the presets come from and so on.
But then if you want to somehow create custom banks out of what you have, then it becomes a bit trickier.
It means switching to internal view and selecting the position where you want to have a preset. Then switching to database view and selecting the preset you want to have at that internal bank position, then switching back to internal view and select the next position and so on...
I have the idea of 'virtual' banks in my mind - there is already somewhat a 'prove of concept' ready - and this could make that process dramatically easier, but this might easily take some months...

And when the internal bank then is filled with presets to your liking, then you would use 'Save bank', which does exactly the same as e.g. Savihost and energyXT do when this command is used. It stores the current internal bank to a fxb file. But only the internal bank. That is a VST mechanism.
With support for virtual banks I could allow to freely drag'n'drop any preset in the preset picker to it and then possibly also allow rearrangement within it. And the something like 'Export' would auto fill the internal bank with the content of the virtual bank and then save it,

Those are not good news, that VeeSTeeEx can't work in Studio One...
Please let me know in case you find a setting there or some trick how it could be made to work.
Thanks.

I am referring to home made presets. Contact me at jwt0bos@hotmail.com and identify yourself somehow. I will mess around with the above procedure you describe. Yeah. I think I was hoping for drag n drop. Anyway now I have some tools I didn't have before, and am grateful.

As per conversation, it runs fine inside IL Mini Host which is running in Studio One. Hallajiuyah. IL Mini Host has always been free, and seems to be available on the archive https://archive.org/details/minihost_install

My wood end V-StationEx.dll running inside IL Mini Host running inside Studio One 5 x64 https://images4.imagebam.com/ac/15/f5/MEMK8HI_o.jpg IL MiniHost doesn't observe VST ID numbers.

Hello
I've just read on the Audiofanzine website that for better stability, Studio One 4 uses a different VST scanner than Studio One 3.
I'm using Windows 8.1 on my music computer and recent versions of Studio One only work on Windows 10 and 11. That's why I'm not upgrading to the higher version of Studio One, which is enough for my retired hobby.
The VSTs your application works with on my computer are from
Full Bucket Music (who produce some very good VSTs) : Bloo64 - Kern 64 - Pecs- Scroo64
Superwave P8 by Christopher Gill
It doesn't work with Full Bucket Music VSTs: BucketOne - Monofury - Ragnarok - Tricent - Whispair
With Datsound's OBX VST I can't tag sounds, and it's the same with MLVST's PG8X, which is a shame because in the 1980s I used these synthesizers when I was a young composer.
Thanks to these VST programmers who share their work with music enthusiasts by bringing these musical instruments back to life.

Hi Paoloconte!
How does it not work with the other Full Bucket Music VSTs? Not at all? Or problems with (correctly) loading already imported presets into it?
'With Datsound's OBX VST I can't tag sounds, and it's the same with MLVST's PG8X'. This I don't understand. I've never seen a problem with tagging already imported presets.
Once 'wrapping' works and presets got imported successfully and are available in the preset picker, then I would have hoped that tagging or whatever other actions are possible in the preset picker in 'Maintenance mode' should work equally well for all wrapped VSTs, since those actions are 'only' database actions and do no direct interaction with the wrapped VST plugin.
Looks we have equal preferences regarding VSTs. I mostly use(d) Full Bucket Music VSTs for testing, but it all started with Datsound's OB-Xd, and PG8X was also a VST I regularly tested with some years ago...
But all VSTs are written slightly different when it comes to how they react to preset loading/switching and some somehow seem to do it all right and others have some kind of 'flaws'.
It is / was really hard to find out what would work for the majority of VSTs, but for some it seems I cannot come up with a solution which works.
But I have the feeling it should somehow work for OB-Xd, PG8X and the other Full Bucket Music synths. But can't remember which kind of 'smaller' problems the one or the other of them would have out of my head...

Dear Patrick,
Working VSTs appear in the VST list below the VST for which I added and renamed the file VeeSTeeEx-64-R-1.0.1.777 (Release)-20230703-045239.dll.
VSTs that don't work simply don't appear in Studio One.
For OB-Xd and PG8X, VSTs with the suffix Ex appear, but I can't tag the sounds.
I've tried renaming with the new VeeSTeeEx-64-R-1.0.2.786.dll file but it doesn't make any difference.
When I'm in maintenance mode, after selecting a sound I stay on the sounds page. If I'm not in maintenance mode, after selecting a sound, the sounds page disappears and I'm back on the VST settings page.
I'm in the process of writing a short summary of how to use the software. Would this be of interest to you?
If so, how can I send a message with an attachment?

Thanks Paoloconte!
Then it looks a bit like Studio One also in version 3 behaves a bit erratic? Not sure if you would like to try if loading e.g. Ragnarok64Ex.dll or WhispAir64Ex.dll with SaviHost (https://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihostx64.zip) does work for you. (It should!)
For OB-Xd and PG8X: what do you mean with tagging here: You already mean the first step of importing presets for them? Or after importing the tagging like assigning to an author or to a category or an expression? Could it be that - if the latter is the case -, that you missed, that there is a 'Internal presets view' and a 'Database presets view'? Tagging is only possible in the 'Database presets view'. You can switch between both views in the preset picker title area at the top.
With which view VeeSTeeEx starts up depends on some circumstances - it tries to find the actually loaded patch in its database, and - if lucky - would present the 'Database presets view' with that preset already selected/active. If not, well, then you initially get the 'Internal presets view' presented.
I really hope, that this is your issue!

Yes, I totally would be interested in your short summary of how to use 'VeeSTeeEx'!
I'm totally aware that this is something which is completely missing and I really need/want to write such a manual (and be it only a mini manual initially) as soon as possible and deliver it with a next release. I'm 100% sure that what you write would give me at least an invaluable insight what might be important to let users know!

Wanted to send you a private message, but it seems you do (not yet) have the permission to receive or read private messages for whatever reason?
Maybe you never posted a public message on any topic... Or it's some kind of setting you could do in your member area?
You could try to post me a private message first.
If communication would work via private message, this would be the best/easiest way I could let you know my email address.

That's a pitty...
Then probably you will also not be able to somewhere here in KVRAudio post an attachment...

Maybe you could try to send a private message to me?
There would be hope that this somehow might unlock this restriction at least for the communication between us two?

I found the Reply button on the right side.

I don't have enough posts on the forum to read private messages.
This is what I read when I click on my profile.

Savihost cannot be installed on my PC. Error message when launching the executable.

I guess for SaviHost you then would need this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26368

The presets appear in the main view, but when I switch to the database presets view there's an error message and the list is empty.

Perhaps the Log file for OB-Xd would help you understand the problem.

I don't know how to attach my little summary, I know how to do it with outlook but not with the software we were exchanging with.

Yep, that would be interesting.
Maybe you could read the complete error message yourself in the GUI by pointing to the right side of the header column of the error log window and dragging it much more to the right?
Or use 'Reveal in explorer' -> 'Log file' and then open the log file to see what the complete error message is.

I do now have a support email-address;.)
ZonderP.Productions@gmail.com
Please send me your short introduction and - if possible - the last OB-Xd log file ('Menu' -> 'Reveal in file explorer' -> 'Log file').
Thanks,
Patrik.

Please change keys from shortcut.

Save preset as = alt+S
Next preset key. +
Previous preset. -

For vsthost users who use the keyboard computer can be hard to handle.

What an amazing tool dreamed of something like this. thank you.

I guess I need to make this configurable somehow...
I expected this request at some point!
On the To-Do list!
Thank you for appreciating the wrapper!

When moving any plugin added to VeeSTeeEx to another folder, it stops working. Is it possible to fix this?

Increase the size of the veesteeex menu bar for better viewing on monitors with more resolution, especially the < > buttons.

thank you.

When moving any plugin added to VeeSTeeEx to another folder, it stops working. Is it possible to fix this?
No sure what you mean with that.
For sure you have to move both dlls - how should the ....Ex.dll know where to you moved the wrapped plugin dll?
This is how wrapping works - the (accordingly renamed) VeeSTeeEx dll and the dll of the wrapped plugin must be in the same folder.

Increase the size of the veesteeex menu bar for better viewing on monitors with more resolution, especially the < > buttons.
You mean especially the width of those?
Generally spoken, VeeSTeeEx has the concept, that it should work for all VST 2 plugins, such with only a total width of 200 pixels and such with a width of 2600 pixels.
Thus the defaults are rather small, especially since the most important fields - the two which display the filter/bank name and especially the preset name can have as much space as possible.
You can totally change the look of the 'Pilot' (how I call this area) by manually editing the file which will be selected in Windows Explorer if you use 'Menu'->'Reveal in file explorer'->'GUI file'.
Unfortunately I didn't find the time yet to give instructions/tips on how to do that.

Thank you, it works as you said.

I forgot to mention that, when moving a VeeSTeeEx wrapped plugin, then also the automatically created sub-folder should be moved, especially when one has already imported presets and did some manual tagging.
This sub-folder (automatically created when first loading a VeeSTeeExtified plugin in any host) contains (by default) 3 files:

• The presets database file ('[PluginName]Ex.VeeSTeeExPresets').
• The main GUI file ('[PluginName]Ex-GUI.xml').
• The settings file('[PluginName]Ex.vld').

And this sub-folder itself is named '[PluginName]Ex'.

The sub-folder as well as the mentioned 3 files will be automatically created, if the do not exist, but used as they are, in case they already exist.

Thus if you already VeeSTeeExified a plugin - let's say 'Dexed' - you will have something like this structure:
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Dexed.dll
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx.dll
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx.VeeSTeeExPresets
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx-GUI.xml
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx.vld

Now if you want to move D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Dexed.dll resp. D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx.dll to e.g. 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Digital Suburbs\Dexed':
Move 'Dexed.dll', 'DexedEx.dll' as well as the 'DexedEx' sub-folder from 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs' to 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Digital Suburbs\Dexed'.

It gets a bit more complicated, when you have your plugins in a write protected folder like 'C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins', because then, VeeSTeeEx cannot (usually) auto-create the sub-folder under this location and instead will create it under 'C:\Users\[UserName]\Documents\ZonderP\VeeSTeeEx'.
And for this case the sub-folder created there will not be just 'DexedEx', but instead 'DexedEx-[SomeNumber].
I'll describe this behavior and how to move a plugin located in a write protected folder in more details in a later version of the manual.

Fantastic, this thing can give life to so many plugins out there that people end up using less because of the lack fo a proper preset manager...

A question to the developer: i accidently during a session turned on the "dark mode" for the preset pop up window, and i really enjoyed it, but unfortunaly after closing the pluginthe menu got white again as default... how do i use the dark mode? i searched for information and options in the menu, but couldn't found it...

either way, great job.

(found some issues on reaper though, per example my reaper is automated to latch the plugins with touch, so every time i want to automate a parameter i just click on the button and after touching the knob, reaper recognizes it and opens an envelop lane for automation design... this doesn't happen when using your wrapper, other than this, its stable and it works in most DAWs i tried.

Thanks!
A dark mode is planned, but why you get something like this currently - I have no idea and I never saw this behavior.
I PM'd you regarding the latch/touch/automation problem in Reaper, since I have no idea about how that works.

@Mr_meee:
Newly released version 1.3.0 now supports dark mode.

I discovered this app yesterday and I'm really liking it. It's incredibly useful, it gives a new life to old VST plugins. Many congratulations and thank you.

I have a question about future updates. Due to the manual way wrappers are currently created, i.e. one by one, if new revisions of VeeSTeeEx appear in the future we will have to re-create and rename them all again to benefit from possible new features. Are you planning to replace this method with one where, for example, the individual wrappers simply point to a common dll for each architecture (32 and 64-bit), so that by updating those two dlls each wrapper will automatically benefit from it?

Thanks Sahul!
I know that upgrading is annoying, but the approach you mentioned unfortunately doesn't work at all. For sure I tried this, but using whatever kind of links (symbolic, shortcut, whatever) just doesn't work at all. This is due how loading dll files works on Windows. It seems it might work, if you have just a project with one VeeSTeeEx wrapped plugin, but if you have several wrapped plugins, then you will encounter very strange behavior. Try it yourself to see.
I have written a basic application, which should be able to make 'VeeSTeeExtifying' of plugins and later on upgrading of those 'installations' easier, but it currently is not yet in a releasable state.
In fact I didn't look into it for at least half a year. I would need to finish it and then also write a manual for it. I hope I can find some time to do so, but it will not be anytime soon.

No rush, take your time. I see VeeSTeeEx is not updated in short cycles, so it is not a big problem to redo the wrappers every x months. In any case, that upcoming Dark Mode you mention seems like a great and worthwhile addition.

As I said above, I think VeeSTeeEx is a clever idea. For different reasons, I use daily several wrappers (32 to 64-bit, VST2 to VST3...), even combined, and it is surprising that almost none of them pay attention to preset management. Even something as simple as adding two buttons for "next preset" and "previous preset" is not usually present (i.e. Bluecat Patchwork or Kushview Element). So your plug-in really fills a niche. And the centralized preset database is the icing on the cake.

I converted some cobolt banks, and got a bunch of "<empty>" and "blank" presets, mixed in with the good ones.

I have not had this problem on anything else so far, and I dont see a way to manually delete them, or hide them, from the database and list.

Hi!
If you import an original bank, which comes as fxb file, has a lot of empty patches in it, then, when you select the bank in the bank filter on the left (In the preset picker in database presets view), it is normal, that the bank is shown exactly the way it was, thus with a lot of empty presets (e.g. the bank by grymmjack which can be found as download for Cobalt here on KVR).
The problem with this bank seems to be, that all the empty patches - although they all seem to not produce any sound - seem to be somewhat different regarding the values of the parameters.
Because VeeSTeeEx is able to identify absolutely identical presets and if they all were absolutely identical then VeeSTeeEx would only show exactly one '<empty> preset in the preset picker, when no bank would be selected in the bank filter.
One way to get rid of the lots of empty presets is - with the disadvantage to loose the connection to a bank, also for the good presets - to use the context menu in the bank filter and choose 'Remove bank...' (not the flavor of it which says '...and all its presets...').
With this, the bank will be removed and therefore there will no longer be a connection of the presets to that bank.
In this case you should then be able to delete the empty presets..
To do so, go into 'Maintenance mode' and now select all the empty presets and choose 'Delete' from the right click context menu.
If you wouldn't want to loose connection to a bank, then it will be more work:
That is - clean up the bank prior to importing it by means of regular editing it which would be something like saving one empty preset as fxp and then loading (not importing!) that fxp to the other positions in the internal bank which are occupied with empty presets. After this is done, save the internal bank as fxb and then import it.
This should work, unless the Cobalt VST has some flaky behavior when it comes to saving/loading presets (which it hopefully doesn't have).
Hope this help!

BTW:
Do you have more banks for Cobalt than the one which is available here on KVR?
If so, could you please give me a hint where they could be downloaded?

I tried the 'more work' approach!
Unfortunately this didn't work as I would have hoped.
Is seems Cobalt VST indeed has some flaky behavior when it comes to saving/loading presets...

I ended up cleaning the .fxb first, by seperating it out into single .fxp's with vsthost by Herman Seib.

I plucked all the dead ones out, and then imported all the good patches as singles.

It was a little bit of work, right clicking delete from inside the new .VeeSTeeExPresets would be prime.

But when I tried that, the "delete" function was greyed out and would not select.

Thank you so much for this wonderful app. I've been spending all night fixing up all the really nice FX and instrument VST's that I never used, because loading and digging through presets was so much trouble. With vsthost, we can even take patches in weird proprietary formats, save them out into .fxp, and create a portable unified .veesteex bank out of them.

Just wonderful! :).

Some KHsONE banks.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ehzpMQer

If you would add the authors of the banks and maybe change 'Your display name', this would be a prefect candidate to be provided in the download section like e.g:

Bucket ONE VeeSTeeEx presets
for VeeSTeeEx [Show all for]
by ZonderP [Show all by] on 3 July 2023

->
KiloHearts ONE VeeSTeeEx presets
for VeeSTeeEx [Show all for]
byTorresBob88 [Show all by] on 1 June 2024

;-).

Okay, well - the bank names in this case more or less seem to reflect their authors...

I definitely didn't create them. :).

Thats whats so wonderful about this library app you have made,

I need people more talented then me to make all these great presets.

And then somebody to make an app that makes them accessible.

I could add the bank name as author, which like you said would reflect their credit.

"Remove the bank first from the banks list on the filter pane,

left of the presets table via right click context menu,

(Don't use the variant which says '... and all its presets...'),

since this step cuts the connection between presets imported thru a bank to that bank"

And then delete becomes selectable in the right click menu.

AHA, Fantastic! Thank you.

Usually this should not be done, since usually it is nice to have banks.
I gave this tip only for a bank which contained a lot of 'empty' presets and it is not possible to delete presets which belong to an imported bank.
You can only delete presets, if they are 'free', which means not belonging to a bank.
And with "Remove bank '[bank name]'..." one can just do that.
Make all the related presets 'free' aka not belonging to a bank anymore.

Great!
Yep, that's exactly what the new 'quick' modes are for.
If one wouldn't need the presets as '.fxp' files for whatever reasons, one can also use the 'Quick import internal presets mode',
which allows to directly import the internal presets into the presets database - in this case by pressing the 'Import ('I')' button - or maybe even easier by using the keyboard shortcut 'I'.
In the current version the pair of the two new quick modes (for importing and saving) are a bit buggy.
I will soon (probably within a few days) release a hotfix version with some fixes and improvements (visual feedback about if saving/importing was successful or not etc.).

Thanks for the updates. This is really becoming into a standard on its own. Quick question: as this is based on JUCE, do you have something in mind regarding VST3 support? Not so much VeeSTeeEx wrapping VST3 plugins, but presenting itself as a VST3 plugin to the host.

Thanks!
Never thought about that idea so far and it somehow sounds nice.
Not sure though what would be the use-case to justifying the effort.
Make VST 2 plugins available in DAWs which would only support VST 3?
Are there already DAWs which do not support VST 2 anymore?

Well, Steinberg has recently changed again the legal agreements regarding the VST2 format, making it impossible in practice to even publish new effects in this format from now on. In addition, they also announced months ago that upcoming versions of Cubase and Nuendo will no longer support VST2 plugins. So maybe supporting the VST3 format at some point could be a way to ensure the longevity of VeeSTeeEX in the long run.

I hope that other DAW developers don't follow the example of Steinbergs approach to drop support for VST 2 in their DAWs.
And that they don't get forced to do so at some point soon by Steinberg.
Another problem is, that I signed a contract with Steinberg the last minute where it was possible to still be able to build VST 2 plugins.
As far as I understood, I must not sign any newer contract with them to not loose this possibility - which I think means I would need to stick to a quite old and outdated VST 3 SDK.
Might work (or not) but probably rather bad - at least this is my feeling when I watched the VST 3 development...
But yeah, maybe - but probably only very late in the development of VeeSTeeEx - I could try to come up with a VST 3 solution to ensure the longevity of VeeSTeeEx.

How about an "Update internal preset" function?

If I load a preset, make a few adjustments, I can "Import internal preset", which makes 2 of them.

Which is a good safety function and should be an option.

But if I only want the updated version, I have to go into the bank and delete the old one, that has the same name.

It may be minor, but if somebody is using VeeeSteeEx while sound designing,

that might help to shave a few extra steps out of things.

Also how about a little blip sound, maybe optional, when saving or completing a function successfully.

I just used the quick save function to plow through 5000 presets in Vital,

and you have to visually monitor the folder to make sure everything is saving out without a verify sound.

A little bleep or bloop could be another small quality of life helper.

Both good suggestions!
Thanks - very much appreciated.
The fist one would really be nice, but unfortunately is very hard to implement, because there cannot be - and therefore isn't - a direct connection between internal presets and presets in the database.The only thing which is unique for a preset in the database is its hash of parameter values, because it cannot be the name, since multiple presets with the same name - but sounding different - is a prerequisite for the proper functionality of the wrapper. Not sure, if I could find a user-friendly way to implement such a functionality for the case that only a single preset with the same name would exist in the database.
And yes, the second suggestion is also totally valid, and actually immediately after the previous release I started implementing something like this (just with visual feedback instead of a short sound) and intended to release more or less a hotfix for that previous release.
But then you mentioned in a PM, that you have problems with multi-selection of presets in the Preset Picker and so I also started implementing selection by mouse drag.
And due to a lot of private stuff currently going on in my life, I was still not able to release this new version.
So long story short:
A version with the latter of your suggestions will come within some shorter time (but still could be some weeks), and your suggestion about an update mechanism is noted for the future (but no promises that it will come anytime soon of even at all).

Actually - after having a 2nd thought on the update preset suggestion - it now seems to me, that - in contrast to what I stated above - it shouldn't be that hard to offer this functionality.
At least not under the use-case I consider to be the most likely one.
So this feature will be prioritized - but still not come in the next version, which I still see more or less as a hotfix release to the previously released version.

Awesome! No hurry about anything. Take care of business first. I'm still absolutely thrilled with everything this can do already. Did I tell you I made a VeeSteeEx for Vital, 5 gigs large? :) I think its storing the waveforms in the Fxp, and then into the VeeSteeEx.

"...for the case that only a single preset with the same name would exist in the database."

Am I explaining what I mean by update preset correctly? Multiple presets with the same name doesn't bother me. What I'm trying to say is if I load a preset, from the VeeSteeEx into the Vst, and then make some adjustments to some parameters, like decay or attack, and then all I want to do is save the adjustments I made, back to the SAME preset, inside of the VeeSteeEx. Just update that one preset. Right now I'm saving it as a new Fxp, through VeeSteeEx, and then reimporting it, and deleting the original one. But I have no idea whats possible or not or how these things are made. :).

Aha.

"Updating" a preset is actually easier then I was making it.

You dont have to export a new preset and re-import, thats just silly.

After you make adjustments to a preset, that you want to alter, update, upgrade, part two, whatever,

you just press the SECOND "Import internal preset" option, the one without three "..." after it, and it saves what you just made into the VeeSteeEx.

Now you can decide if you want to delete the old one, which is in the bank above the new one, and has the same name,

or rename one of them and keep both. The options are limitless.

I just noticed that you got drag to multi-select to work, control+Left Click+drag.

Very cool! :).

Drag and drop with many presets to a catagory? It's not possible.

It's a nice program. Hope, you will work on it to make it better.

Obviously it should mainly be the manual I should work more on.
Maintenance mode does the trick - multi-selection is only available in maintenance mode and therefore dragging multiple presets onto any tag can only be done if in that mode.

dazu dann gleich die kurze Frage:

Wie komme ich ganz einfach in den "Wartungsmodus"?

I try it with Synth 1: No Maintenance mode? Where could I find it?

Please have a look at the manual - Tagging.
It's not massivly long and the looping videos in it should give you a feeling.
In short: The preset picker consists of 3 panels.
On the left is the filter panel, in the middle is the preset area and on the right side is miscellaneous stuff - most importantly quite on its top some main options related to the preset picker.
The top one option there is 'Maintenance mode'.
The concept behind it:
In Normal mode, the preset picker is mainly intended to allow to quickly select a preset for use.
In Maintenance mode, it doesn't immediately select a preset and close itself when clicking on preset, but instead it allows to select multiple presets to tag them, assign them to an author, rate them and so on - maintenance work...
The next version will have some small improvements in the area of multi-selection.

From your manual: "Preset Picker is in 'Database presets view' AND 'Maintenance mode' is checked."

Sorry, I don't find it in the right picker.

There ist: reveal in file explorer, Key mappings, Your display name, Options, Details to, Legal, About....

Nothing like Database presets view.

Everything is there.
Please study the manual and toy around with VeeSTeeEx.
I'm sure, you'll find the checkbox, where you can set the Preset Picker into Maintenance mode.

Now I found it. It was not in the right picker. Very comfortable to sort the presets. Well done job.

Thanks!
Glad you found it.
I guess you first looked in what I call the 'Pilot', which is the 'toolbar' which displays on top of the GUI of the wrapped VST.
This is in contrast to the 'Preset Picker', which opens, when you click on the name of the actual preset in that 'Pilot'.
The 'Preset Picker' comes in 2 modes:
The 'Internal presets view'.where internal presets can be seen and 'picked' and the 'Database presets view' which shows the presets in the database and allows you to either just select one for usage (Picker mode) or to do maintenance work on those presets in the database (Maintenance mode).
By clicking on the center title bar of the Preset Picker, one can switch between 'Database presets view' and 'Internal presets view'.

Thanks for sharing!
Indeed a little gem which slipped thru my attention.

Hello, GR-8 from Phuturetone is available in a new version with new presets and new functions.

But unfortunately only in VST2 so far. A user had already provided the data for Veesteex and GR-8.

It would be so great if Veesteex also worked for VST3, as this great synth unfortunately

doesn't have a good preset manager.

Is there a time frame as to when we might expect the VST3 version?

Hello!
As mentioned earlier in this discussion (7.June 2024), this will not come anytime soon, if at all.
There is no time frame for it, since I have no clue about VST3 and am only allowed to use a rather old VST3 software developer kit (Agreement with Steinberg that needed to be signed).
Therefore right now I have no idea if it would work at all and to check this out would require a lot of time which I just don't have.
So please do no wait for this feature.
As far as I know, so far its only Cubase 12+ (Steinberg!) which dropped support for VST2, so maybe trying alternative DAWs would be an option?
Sorry that I can't be of more help here.

Okay...
What I described in my above response is about the possibility to offer VeeSTeeEx as VST3, but still only wrapping VST2 plugins.
What I can guarantee though is, that there will NEVER be something similar to wrap VST3 plugins!
This is due to the fact, that VST3 specification is very different to VST2 specification in regards to bank and preset handling and just offers absolutely no way to do something similar to what was possible for VST2 plugins.
It's a pity, but this is how it is.

In my opinion, having VeeSTeeEx as a VST3 would be incredibly useful in its own right, as it would give the application a great longevity over time. Even as a wrapper to convert VST2 plugins to VST3, as there aren't many options currently that do this function in a simple way. In fact, I think this is the way some developers like Korg have chosen to implement the VST3 versions of their plugins: creating a "dummy" JUCE VST3 that directly references their old VST2 versions.

Yep, in the meantime I'm able to produce VeeSTeeEx as VST3 wrapping VST2 plugins.
Basically this seems to work - in the sense that VST3 version of VeeSTeeEx is able to load VST2 plugins and that sound gets produced out of it.
But I didn't check further and I'm quite sure that a whole lot of functionality VeeSTeeEx offers, will not (yet) work as expected.
The devil usually is in the details.
Again, I'm not in a hurry with this part of the project - despite the poor users of Cubase 12+ (I hope you're not;-)) which cannot work with VST2 plugins anymore.
If Ableton Live, Bitwig and so on are forced to stop supporting VST2, then I probably will invest time into this.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I just wanted to say amazing job on this.

Thanks, Ardura.

Thanks for those, Rob!
I love many of those sounds!
These instruments all have a very unique character.
Although I already had them on my hard drive and probably checked them out shortly at some point, I guess I gave up very quickly because how cumbersome the preset loading in them is.
VeeSTeeEx serves them well.

VeeSteex is an elixer. :).

Me too.

I had seen these Synths around before, but after an initial experiment with them, I set them aside. Because they where difficult to navigate, as far as quick access to good sounds. You want it to be as fast and effortless as possible, to let your inspiration lead the way. VeeSteex fixes that.

Arguably charming Oddball, NUSofting psicogramma_key.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xfbhMjU4

A good tone, lots of effects. For reverses and swirls, jon brion style.

Portable-ized, through VeeSTeeEx.