Plugin presets

chinoxr · April 20, 2021, 8:53pm

Hello, iam totaly new to Zynthian and i wanted to ask someone if its possible to make patches for the engines from start (init) and save them to use with zynthian. I want to build the sounds by myself and use the builtin presets ocassionally , i cant find it anywhere. Thanks

riban · April 20, 2021, 9:15pm

Hi @chinoxr, welcome.

Some engines allow editing and saving of presets via a GUI but it can be complex to get back into Zynthian.

You can adjust settings for some synths using Zynthian UI then save as a snapshot.

chinoxr · April 20, 2021, 9:40pm

Thanks for reply @riban , what do you mean by complex, it is difficult to import the patches back? editing existing presets by ZynthUI is one thing, but i prefer to do my own sounds from scratch … like you have init patch in vsts, setting up oscillators , env, lfo etc

riban · April 21, 2021, 7:25am

Sorry for the short previous answer.

It depends on which engine. Some allow full sound editing whilst others only have limited control. Some are remote control of the full application whilst others are control of a LV2 plugin. Some allow loading of presets and others don’t. The full applications (Pianoteq, setBfree, etc.) require the presets to be saved through the application where part of the complexity comes in. LV2 plugins require presets to be saved through the LV2 host. Both require that presets are stored where Zynthian looks for them.

Some engines do have a reset feature (usually through the GUI) to allow building sounds from scratch.

Some of us have created bespoke scripts or processes to create and store presets for some engines but these are not well documented. (I am guilty of having a script for Vitalium which I shared on the forum but have not had time to describe its use in detail.)

I guess complex means that we don’t have a uniform, consistent method of resetting engines’ presets nor of building and saving them. Maybe a feature request is required. I agree that it would be advantageous to be able to reset, design and save presets in a consistent way.

jofemodo · April 21, 2021, 9:48am

I would suggest to use the VNC interface for creating the presets from scratch. You have to enable the VNC server from the admin menu and access from your browser. When VNC is enabled, you can click the link from webcon’f software menu.

Depending on the engine type, you have 2 ways of saving the preset for making it available on zynthian UI:

Standalone Engines: Use the plugin’s native format.
LV2 engines: Use the GUI window top menu for saving as a LV2 preset.

You should save your presets on the “zynthian-my-data/presets” directory.

Regards,

jofemodo · April 21, 2021, 9:58am

I remember some fellow zynthianer created a related feature request some time ago:

github.com/zynthian/zynthian-ui

Save presets

opened 10:16PM - 29 Aug 20 UTC

closed 09:42PM - 21 Feb 22 UTC

riban-bw

enhancement

**Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.** After editin…g synth parameters I would like to be able to save it as a new preset. **Describe the solution you'd like** Option to save current synth engine parameters as a new preset which will appear in the list of presets. Ability to name preset. **Describe alternatives you've considered** Editing an existing preset then saving as a snapshot may be similar but the preset retains its original name and it is not easily browsable. **Additional context** An example is to edit amsynth to create a cool lead mono synth sound. I want to save this in the preset list as "Killer mono lead". Maybe user presets could / should be stored in their own bank. Ability to edit name in webconf may be sufficient but it would be good to be able to do so in the Zynthian itself.

But this task is not a sweet cake. Having an uniform and consistent method for creating and saving presets for all engines is really challenging. Anyway, we have improved quite a bit on the last months and the current situation is “no-so-bad” with VNC. And there is room for improving VNC support …

Regards,