A process to make VST plugin presets "searchable" in Live 12's browser

[kazableton]

Dear Ableton User-Forum,

Since Live 12`s new browser functionality has vastly enhanced search options, I wanted to share with you a process which I used to make my VST plugin presets „searchable“ in the browser. The procedure described below is very manual, very time consuming (depending on the number of presets of course), but for me it is a huge workflow improvement. Here is how I went about it – and perhaps it is possible to make this more efficiently – after 10.000+ samples with 10+ synths I for one could not identify such an efficiency gain. I am on Windows.

The basic idea is to generate audio files of the presets by "freezing" which then can be evaluated by Live’s browser mechanisms:

Step 1: Generate „speaking“ preset titles for Live's browser
/Copy the file names from the directory to Excel
/Use Power Rename (a free Windows tool) to change the file names to your liking. For example:

„C:\ProgramData\UnfilteredAudio\Lion\Presets\7. FX and Atmospheric\Arctic_Robots AR.uap“ => „Lion - FX Arctic_Robots“

This is a bulk process and just a matter of minutes.

Step 2: Generate an audio file for each preset using the freeze function

/Create an empty Live file
/Copy the first line of the Excel file with the preset names into the first track of the Ableton file
/Add a midi clip into this track – I used a one bar clip with a „C3“ at 120 bpm; for bass-like sounds I changed the pitch to „C2“
/Add the Plugin in this line. Important: Use the „original“ plugin – do not use an instrument rack!!!
/Dial in the corresponding preset name (e.g. „Arctic_Robots“)
/Do not close the plugin window!
/Duplicate this track as often as you wish to (probably not more than 80 times – danger of crashing)
/Copy the names from the excel file into the tracks in the ableton file – line by line - tedious!
/Dial in the corresponding preset for each track – more or less tedious – depending on how the plugin is organised
/Now: save the file
/Then: Freeze all tracks
/Then: create an empty file or exit Ableton – do not save the file with the frozen tracks!

Step 3: Polish the „Freeze“ files

/Erase all the „doc“ files from the „Freezed“ samples folder
/Move the „wav“ files to a „buffer“ working folder
/Use „Power Rename“ (see above“) to rename the „Freeze“ files in the „buffer“ folder to you liking

This is just a matter of minutes

Step 4: Copy the preset audio files to a „Plugin samples“ folder of your liking

/I was pleasantly surprised how well the similarity search worked!
/Manually tagging the preset files is easy if you renamed your files in a way that the preset types ("Lead", "Keys", "Pad", etc.) can be easily browsed.

For music production, I use a „Synth testbed“ to try different presets. Here is how:

/Generate an Instrument Rack with all your Synth Plugins
/Route the midi of a given track to that track
/Browse through your preset samples and test them side by side once you found one that fits into your track

Some observations:

In my view, the results are well worth the rather tedious and time-consuming work. My workflow is much faster and more fun and intuitive.
On average, I would say you could do 250 to 300 preset samples per hour.

Hope this more or less clear and helpful– if not please be in touch.

All the best, k