Feature Request - Loading/saving of VST banks

Diamond · June 16, 2006, 23:21:47

Hey Rewbs, I know it's already on the "todo", but do you think there's a chance that you might look into adding support for loading/saving of .fxb banks anytime soon? Unfortunately the facility which VSTs have built into their gui for doing so is completely unusable for me, so being able to do this from the file menu in MPT's VST editor would be extremely useful.

LPChip · June 17, 2006, 00:09:18

How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

Diamond · June 17, 2006, 00:16:58

Quote from: "LPChip"How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

No, unfortunately you can only save individual presets this way, which is why I'm asking.

LPChip · June 17, 2006, 09:09:32

Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

No, unfortunately you can only save individual presets this way, which is why I'm asking.

Thats odd, because this feature should save the entire state of that VST(i) to a file. If that doesn't happen, then I wonder at all if its possible to save an entire bank. If I use V2 Synthesizer from farbrausch, and save a preset, it saves the entire bank.

What plugin causes this?

Diamond · June 17, 2006, 18:23:39

Quote from: "LPChip"
Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

No, unfortunately you can only save individual presets this way, which is why I'm asking.

Thats odd, because this feature should save the entire state of that VST(i) to a file. If that doesn't happen, then I wonder at all if its possible to save an entire bank. If I use V2 Synthesizer from farbrausch, and save a preset, it saves the entire bank.

What plugin causes this?

No this is not a bug. It's simply that there are two different types of files. .fxp files are for saving individual presets, which is what MPT currently supports. .fxb files are for saving banks and although MPT doesn't currently support this most VSTs have this capability already built-in to their GUI. Are you sure that you're not using the save bank function built-in to V2 instead of MPT's save feature? This would explain why you're able to save entire banks.

LPChip · June 17, 2006, 18:26:24

Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"
Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

No, unfortunately you can only save individual presets this way, which is why I'm asking.

Thats odd, because this feature should save the entire state of that VST(i) to a file. If that doesn't happen, then I wonder at all if its possible to save an entire bank. If I use V2 Synthesizer from farbrausch, and save a preset, it saves the entire bank.

What plugin causes this?

No this is not a bug. It's simply that there are two different types of files. .fxp files are for saving individual presets, which is what MPT currently supports. .fxb files are for saving banks and although MPT doesn't currently support this most VSTs have this capability already built-in to their GUI. Are you sure that you're not using the save bank function built-in to V2 instead of MPT's save feature? This would explain why you're able to save entire banks.

I'm most positive, that i save the entire bank when saving as preset from OpenMPT.

Diamond · June 17, 2006, 18:33:09

Quote from: "LPChip"
Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"
Quote from: "Diamond"
Quote from: "LPChip"How about using the load/save preset? They save entire banks i believe?

No, unfortunately you can only save individual presets this way, which is why I'm asking.

Thats odd, because this feature should save the entire state of that VST(i) to a file. If that doesn't happen, then I wonder at all if its possible to save an entire bank. If I use V2 Synthesizer from farbrausch, and save a preset, it saves the entire bank.

What plugin causes this?

No this is not a bug. It's simply that there are two different types of files. .fxp files are for saving individual presets, which is what MPT currently supports. .fxb files are for saving banks and although MPT doesn't currently support this most VSTs have this capability already built-in to their GUI. Are you sure that you're not using the save bank function built-in to V2 instead of MPT's save feature? This would explain why you're able to save entire banks.

I'm most positive, that i save the entire bank when saving as preset from OpenMPT.

Well it's always possible I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that .fxp files are only for saving individual presets and not banks. Rewbs any comments on this?

Diamond · June 17, 2006, 19:32:15

Just to clarify, when you save a preset only the currently selected slot is saved. Try modifying multiple slots and you'll see what I mean. If you load a preset all the other presets which are part of the currently loaded bank are left intact, which might be why it seems as if the entire bank was saved. This is how it's always worked for me with every VST and I have never seen the behavior you're describing.

LPChip · June 17, 2006, 22:34:10

Quote from: "Diamond"Just to clarify, when you save a preset only the currently selected slot is saved. Try modifying multiple slots and you'll see what I mean. If you load a preset all the other presets which are part of the currently loaded bank are left intact, which might be why it seems as if the entire bank was saved. This is how it's always worked for me with every VST and I have never seen the behavior you're describing.

I've asked rewbs.

The preset will save anything that is saved with the song. Some plugins save entire banks, where others save only the selected patch as you described. So its a matter of the plugin. Why do you wish to save an entire bank anyway?

Diamond · June 17, 2006, 23:07:43

Quote from: "LPChip"
Quote from: "Diamond"Just to clarify, when you save a preset only the currently selected slot is saved. Try modifying multiple slots and you'll see what I mean. If you load a preset all the other presets which are part of the currently loaded bank are left intact, which might be why it seems as if the entire bank was saved. This is how it's always worked for me with every VST and I have never seen the behavior you're describing.

I've asked rewbs.

The preset will save anything that is saved with the song. Some plugins save entire banks, where others save only the selected patch as you described. So its a matter of the plugin. Why do you wish to save an entire bank anyway?

Well all the plugins which I've seen so far will only save the selected patch in a preset and I've played with quite a few, so I suspect that those which will save the entire bank must be somewhat uncommon. It's part of the VST spec and sometimes it's useful if you have multiple presets for an instrument especially to have the ability to save them as a collection in a bank instead of having to save/load them each individually. Also, in addition to the factory defaults other presets are often available for instruments at KVR, the website of the plug-in or sometimes included in the package with the VST and these extra presets are almost always distributed as .fxb bank files.

rewbs · June 18, 2006, 11:41:02

Quote from: "LPChip"The preset will save anything that is saved with the song. Some plugins save entire banks, where others save only the selected patch as you described. So its a matter of the plugin. Why do you wish to save an entire bank anyway?

The statement "the preset will save anything that is saved with the song" is not necessarily true. Some plugs save banks within the song and support saving individual presets (.fxp) or whole banks (.fxb) to file. The plugin v2 seems like a bit of an exception where saving a .fxp file actually saves the whole bank. I totally agree with Diamond that .fxb support would be great. It's not a big job but I don't know when I'll get around to it.