This is about VST3 plugins which don’t have any internal preset managers. In the older VST2 format some plugins came with a bank of internal presets which were then made available through the host, mostly in some menu or dropdown. In VST3 format there seems to be external folders now and Renoise seems to know where the files reside for each plugin, by opening the correct folder upon import. Could this be improved, so that the files are populated into the menu of the plugin container and it’s possible to flip through them in a quicker more comfortable way?
I did a quick check how Live handles this as a comparison, for VST2 it uses a dropdown on the plugin container similar to the menu Renoise uses and for VST3 format that box is hidden, but it’s possible to quickly hotswap presets by expanding the plugin name in the file manager.
Not really a bug i think, but just a little something missing for comfort.
I’m sure this problem is a headache for any programmer who builds code to work together with VST2 and VST3. It seems that there is no well defined standard method to declare a list of presets to be able to change them and that all plugins use the same method. I guess it directly depends on the plugin design. For example, a complete list of presets inside a folder is not the same as many folders full of classified presets.
However, if it is possible to return a list of all the presets in a VST3 plugin, Renoise should improve this. It’s currently a bit of a mess not having access to presets from the presets list depending on the plugin. It’s a bit chaotic!
This also affects the creation of LUA tools. Quite simply, many plugins do not have this list defined. Renoise should find another way to create it so that all plugins apparently work the same when changing presets.
If anything about Renoise needs to be improved, this would be one of them, without a doubt. Plugins are increasingly used…