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KEVORKIAN wrote:I don't believe that what you are looking for is possible with AU effects. Certainly MAS (and VST) will allow you to do this. I have my motu MAS plugins organized in a similar fashion to what you described.

Thanks Kev, you just confirmed what I was suspecting...
So we've got to live with it, anyway it's no big deal.

Cheers
Arceo

Arceo wrote:

KEVORKIAN wrote:I don't believe that what you are looking for is possible with AU effects. Certainly MAS (and VST) will allow you to do this. I have my motu MAS plugins organized in a similar fashion to what you described.

Thanks Kev, you just confirmed what I was suspecting...
So we've got to live with it, anyway it's no big deal.

But this would definitely be a very nice feature for MOTU to impliment. I don't mind the automatic grouping of plugins into their developer folder, but it would also be nice to be able to create aliases of plugins which would be accessible from within their own folders. I would love to have a folder with ALL my compressors, and another with ALL my reverbs, etc.

That would be a great DP product enhancement, imo. (I'm adding it to my list of suggestions to send to MOTU).

zed wrote: But this would definitely be a very nice feature for MOTU to impliment. I don't mind the automatic grouping of plugins into their developer folder, but it would also be nice to be able to create aliases of plugins which would be accessible from within their own folders. I would love to have a folder with ALL my compressors, and another with ALL my reverbs, etc.

That would be a great DP product enhancement, imo. (I'm adding it to my list of suggestions to send to MOTU).

I agree. I'm not sure why, but somehow this must all go back to a limitation in the AU spec as Apple does not allow you to group plugins in logic and I have not seen this ability within any other AU host. It would seem that it could be worked around rather easily, so there must be some reason why we don't see the workaround and I would assume that it goes back to Apple.

I do wish that DP would at least create a folder for individual AU plugins as most other hosts appear to do, and not list them separately. I kind of hate having 2 alphabetical lists to consult and I would rather see the MAS plugins at the top and folders of AU plugins at the bottom. This is not big deal but it's something I wish could be changed.

I can tell you that I've bent the ear of many a MOTU person about having the ability to better organize AU plug ins. My personal feeling is MOTU should add to the Audio Plug-Ins window a drop down menu that would contain user created categories. It would appear as a column in the list of plug ins. The last menu item might be "Create new category...".

There would probably have to be a special prefs file for plug categories that would keep track of the categories and which plugs were associate with each. If you added or updated a plug, you might have to re-assign it, but the bottom line for me is that once you start having a large number of plugs, the sorting by manufacturer (which doesn't always work correctly anyway) just doesn't make much sense. Seems like it would make vastly more sense to sort by WHAT THE PLUG DOES rather than who makes it.

I also have tried to make the point that sorting plugs this way has another benefit. Say I want a compressor on a track. I have to remember the manufactuer of a particular plug first, and then look for the plug. But, imagine I had set up my own "compressor" category and all compression type plugs were listed, regardless of manufacturer. I know that in my case, I would look down the list and probably see options that might be a better fit for that particular track that I might not have thought of if I had to remember the manufacturer before I looked at it.

If some plugs do organize themselves and others do not, then there must be some code in the file that does this. Unless it requires a compiler to implement it would seem that users might find a way to get that info into their plugs.

How do you read and edit those plist files again...

James Steele wrote: I also have tried to make the point that sorting plugs this way has another benefit. Say I want a compressor on a track. I have to remember the manufactuer of a particular plug first, and then look for the plug. But, imagine I had set up my own "compressor" category and all compression type plugs were listed, regardless of manufacturer. I know that in my case, I would look down the list and probably see options that might be a better fit for that particular track that I might not have thought of if I had to remember the manufacturer before I looked at it.

******Can of worms alert******

VST plugins can be sorted in just this way, and this is one of the reasons why I wish DP also supported VST. When I use Ableton Live, this benefit becomes very apparent as I often run VST versions of effects because I am able to organize them into folders like "Compressor" etc...

The lack of the ability to sort AU effects must be due to developers waiting on Apple to add the feature and I think that this is annoying. In MOTU's case they would need to develop code to organize the AUs in DP and then, if/when Apple simply adds the subfolder sorting ability to AU effects down the line, all that development effort on MOTU's part would be for naught.

******Can of worms alert end.******

Well, if it can be of some use, here it is my workaround for not being able to "custom-organize" plugins: namely clippings!

I made a new clipping window and I dragged my plugins and I ordered them by type.
The same I did, in another clipping window, with Virtual Instruments.

Now I have two clipping windows from where I just drag the plug or VI I need. It helps a lot my workflow and it spares me to dig between menus and "mono/mono to stereo" VIs which I'll never need.

Hope it helps
Cheers
Arceo

Arceo wrote:Well, if it can be of some use, here it is my workaround for not being able to "custom-organize" plugins: namely clippings!

I made a new clipping window and I dragged my plugins and I ordered them by type.
The same I did, in another clipping window, with Virtual Instruments.

Now I have two clipping windows from where I just drag the plug or VI I need. It helps a lot my workflow and it spares me to dig between menus and "mono/mono to stereo" VIs which I'll never need.

Hope it helps
Cheers
Arceo

Hey... what a GREAT idea!! I need to investigate it, but that's pretty darned brilliant! Nice!!

James Steele wrote:

Arceo wrote:Well, if it can be of some use, here it is my workaround for not being able to "custom-organize" plugins: namely clippings!

I made a new clipping window and I dragged my plugins and I ordered them by type.
The same I did, in another clipping window, with Virtual Instruments.

Now I have two clipping windows from where I just drag the plug or VI I need. It helps a lot my workflow and it spares me to dig between menus and "mono/mono to stereo" VIs which I'll never need.

Hope it helps
Cheers
Arceo

Hey... what a GREAT idea!! I need to investigate it, but that's pretty darned brilliant! Nice!!

+1

That is a really cool idea!
(clippings un DP may be the coolest feature in any daw... I there anything like clippings in another daw????)

KEVORKIAN wrote:That is a really cool idea!
(clippings un DP may be the coolest feature in any daw... I there anything like clippings in another daw????)

Similarly, Reaper has the ability to store fx chains with settings, which is the equivalent. You can also store them offline so when you insert them, they won't hit your CPU until to activate them.

DP Clippings are pretty cool though for not being limited to just plugins and settings.

James Steele wrote:Hey... what a GREAT idea!! I need to investigate it, but that's pretty darned brilliant! Nice!!

KEVORKIAN wrote:+1

Glad you liked it, thanks!
Cheers
Arceo

I just used the De-Esser on Nomad Factory ESPackage's E-Channel Strip to take some crunchy transients off of a 'clean' rhythm guitar part. Thank you Nomad!

Arceo wrote:Well, if it can be of some use, here it is my workaround for not being able to "custom-organize" plugins: namely clippings!

I made a new clipping window and I dragged my plugins and I ordered them by type.
The same I did, in another clipping window, with Virtual Instruments.

Now I have two clipping windows from where I just drag the plug or VI I need. It helps a lot my workflow and it spares me to dig between menus and "mono/mono to stereo" VIs which I'll never need.

Hope it helps
Cheers
Arceo

I grab the plugin from the track insert and move it to the desktop where I name it and drag it to my compressors file or... file best bass EQ or whatever on a drive file called my DP plugins. I then drag them back into any project or any track I want and not even look at the plugin's menu. It saves all the settings exactly as I had them.

dosuna11 wrote:
I grab the plugin from the track insert and move it to the desktop where I name it and drag it to my compressors file or... file best bass EQ or whatever on a drive file called my DP plugins. I then drag them back into any project or any track I want and not even look at the plugin's menu. It saves all the settings exactly as I had them.

I had no idea you could do that! That's kind of cool!

Yes, very cool! Gonna try that.