VST Plugins not sorted into categories

[Sven]

  I'm not sure why this happens but many of my VST plugins only appear in Uncategorized instead of "Dynamics,  EQ, etc..." after scans.   Obviously, it's very convenient to find all your Reverbs or whatever quickly in one place.    I can understand that the occasional 3rd part VST might not be programmed correctly to be detected during scanning.  I see some Cakewalk,  Blue Cat,  PSP, and Lexicon plugins listed as uncategorized.

  I know I can sort them out myself in Manage Layouts but is there an easier way to remedy this?  

Thanks.

 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Right click them in the Browser and allocate to the Category you want.

Click the little + sign to add a new category

You can CTRL-Click , or SHIFT-Click to assign multiple plugins to the category  

[scook]

Category tags are part of the VST3 specification.

DX and VST2 plug-ins do not have the feature, however; Cakewalk added a way to categorize them too.

Cakewalk created a database of categories for DX and VST2 plug-ins when VST3 support was added in SONAR X3.

The database is %AppData%\Roaming\Cakewalk\Library\Library.db

AFAIK, it has not been updated since that time.

I do not recall if any or all discontinued Cakewalk plug-ins were part of the database but I doubt they were.

For more info see http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Browser.08.html#1294603

[Sven]

Is there a reason why some VST from big companies don't get categorized automatically?  It's hard to believe their programmers didn't include the tags in the VST3 specs.  It's not on the Bandlab side, right?

In any case, thanks for the suggestion on how I can categorize them manually.  For some reason I can't right-click and see Properties on the Audio FX.   It seems to work fine for MIDI and Instruments.   Any thoughts?

Also, if I take the time and categorize everything can I easily use this on configuration file on another machine later?  My custom .pgl file can be opened on another machine at some point in the future assuming I have all the same plugins installed?

Thanks.

 

[scook]

VST3 plug-in category labels are up to the plug-in manufacturer.

As noted above, Cakewalk built a database for DX and VST2 plug-ins when they released SONAR X3 in 2013. It covered a lot of plug-ins available at that time. This database is included with CbB.

Categories are maintained in the plug-in browser. In order to perform category maintenance the browser must be set to "Sort by Category." The details are in the link provided above.

To copy the categories created on one machine to another, copy Library.db. The default path is noted above. The "Sort by Category" layout is the only one reliant on Library.db.

Custom plug-in layouts may be copied between machines just like any user created files.

 

[Sven]

For some reason I can't right-click and Set Properties on the Audio FX.   It seems to work fine for MIDI and Instruments.   Any thoughts?

[Sven]

To clarify, I see the SET PROPERTIES dialog box on MIDI FX and Instruments as shown above but nothing pops up on Audio FX or REWIRE when I right-click.

[scook]

Not sure if Rewire supports the feature. I have nothing to test

If the layout is set to "Sort by Category" when displaying audio FX and category maintenance does not work as documented it is a support issue (support@cakewalk.com).

[Sven]

Hi scook,

  That was the problem.  I didn't realize it had to be in Sort by Category mode in order to organize things this way.  I thought if you could see the plugin name you wanted to categorize in any view you could just right-click it there.

 Thanks!

 

 

 

 

To clarify, I see the SET PROPERTIES dialog box on MIDI FX and Instruments as shown above but nothing pops up on Audio FX or REWIRE when I right-click.

[james rector]

Good to know, thanks!