Keeping track of your files.

[at0m]

Hi,

[intro] Yesterday I had a problem with SFP, the GUI would not open. XTC worked fine (that's why I made that boot disk, remember), and SFP showed in Taskmanager with the usual amount of RAM etc, so it was active. Reinstallations didn't help, so I deceided to uninstall and reinstall.

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1. Keeping an overview of 3rd part plugins
I installed SFP, both OS and XTC mode now ran fine. Now I'm busy putting all my 3rd party plugins into the SFP/Devices folder, but I keep finding this a little messy.

3rd party developers have mono/stereo/mono-to-stereo inserts, synths, modular blocks and devices, dsp files etc. Some come with an installer, some don't. Where in '/SFP/devices/...' do we put them?

As I came by the installation of SonicTimeworks_III, I noticed to install them, all one has to do is copy it to '/SFP/', which is very easy. I'm considering making such folders for each 3rd part developer.

So, for example, instead of copying all Neutron's devices into one '/SFP/devices/N7' folder, Neutron's inserts, synths etc. could be sorted in the appropriate folders at once. The major advantage I come up with now, is that also 3rd part plugins can be loaded into MultiFx without using browsers.
MultiFX racks only look into the '/Effects/Mono' or '/Effects/Stereo' folder -not in '/devices/N7'.

Before I used to copy every device into the right folder manually, but this STW cloned installation could make things easier.

How do you organise things so have easy access?

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2. Keeping the newest versions of Devices and Presets
IMO, another hard point is to compromise between ease-of-use and latest file update.

For most stability, it's quite some job to import all your backed up Preset Lists in your (maybe updated frame of) fresh installed List, and then save the combined list.

Creamware suggests to save all used presets and devices into the Project's folder. Looks fail-safe, but it's not easy to recall presets later, using the device in a new Project. Where were all these cool sounds you once made? The preset's list has restored to factory default. One could do a search in Projects drive, for .pre files, then import them all etc.

My way of work used to be to simply overwrite .pre's with backups. This saves lots of time, immediately restoring all presets once saved -all /SFP/Presets/*.pre, only crusial ones into the project folder. I don't have much confidence in this kind of work.

The same goes for 2.04 type devices. Since they are no longer updated, it's easy to copy them into your backup folder and restore from there, including all presets and assigned CC#, which may otherwise take waaaay to much time to redo.

How do you combine ease-of-use with personalised files?

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[EDIT] Today I ordered 3rd party devices. Renamed most of them so they begin with the initials of their creators, ie. sf-, PT-, C-, N7-, WL-,...
Then I made a mirror of the /SFP/Devices folder and deleted all devices from the mirror, which left me with the SFP/Devices/*.* folder structure. I copied all 3rd party in the corresponding folder. It took some time to discover from each plugin if it worked as an insert, if it was mono or stereo, if it was a synth or a modular... Some made my system crash on deletion or did simply not have a GUI in SFP. I still need to 'merge' the preset lists, get the CC# saved devices from another boot and SFP folder, etc. etc. This is a big job.


I'm looking forward to see how you work!!

at0mic.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: at0mic on 2002-09-22 19:50 ]</font>

[Herr Voigt]

Hi at0mic,

I agree with you to make a system of all 3rd party devices and freebees. I really hate to search hours long for files.
But I don't have so much devices as you, I think.
In my Modular patches folders (1 and 2) I started to put the downloaded files and my own created files into separate folders.
The effects I've downloaded, I put into the sub-folders from the CW effects, especially to "Others".

Greetz, Thomas