Understanding the 2 types of "Preset" in Sonitus plugins in Sonar or Cakewalk

[Edward Allen]

Hi there

I'm using the Sonitus EQ, Gate etc. in Sonar, and although I'm comfortable using the tools themselves, I cannot for the life of me understand how the 2 different types of "save" feature interrelate! So if you know can you  help clarify please? For example:

 

When I develop particular Gate setting I save it using this feature, so far so good.

BUT THEN

What role do these presets below play in relation the ones above?!

 

(Also, any general thoughts on ideal locations to save all these different "presets" also welcome, as it seems that different plugins save them in different locations, which kinda feels a bit random, although it does work, I wonder what will happen  if I need to replace my PC etc., will I be able to track them all down?!)

 

Many thanks in advance for your help with this niggling issue!

 

[Colin Nicholls]

Some VST plugins manage their own presets and have their own locations.

Cakewalk's VST subsystem has its own way of saving presets, available from the VST window header, which works for ALL plugins and of course which works great for plugins that don't do their own preset management and rely on the host's capabilities.

Yeah, preset management is a pain, I feel you

[azslow3]

6 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Some VST plugins manage their own presets and have their own locations.

Cakewalk's VST subsystem has its own way of saving presets, available from the VST window header, which works for ALL plugins and of course which works great for plugins that don't do their own preset management and rely on the host's capabilities.

Yeah, preset management is a pain, I feel you

Everything is right, except the word "VST" should be removed. That is true for all types of plug-ins.  In particular, all Sonitus effects are DX, not VST.

Using top-bar preset management is better option as long as you stay with Cakewalk. You can review / export / import these presets centrally from Cakewalk Plug-in Manager (Utilities menu). To be on safe side, backup from there (I mean don't try to find and backup related existing files).

If you need to save preset which should work in another DAW, it is better to use plug-in own preset management. That is plug-in specific (there is no standard), but saved by Cakewalk presets are not usable in other DAWs.

For VST plug-ins (so, not for Sonitus) there is yet another option for saving presets, also available from the top-bar. You can save presets in standard formats defined by VST developer (Steinberg). They are (supposed to be) usable in any DAW. In practice, there is no warrantee that will work.

Also note that even in case you save preset using one of these 3 methods, it can happened it will not work on different computer or after full re-installation. Better to have full system backup. And when computer change is planned, check all important projects are playing there as desired, before abandoning (giving away/reformatting/etc.) the old one.

PS. there is still no universal, user friendly and standard preset system. Major players have tried to introduce such systems, but somehow they work inside "own world" only. And so in most cases there are 3 formats: plug-in type specific (VST2, VST3, etc.), host specific and plug-in specific. Host can be a DAW (f.e. Sonar) or plug-in wrapper (f.e. NI NKS). So, depending from the method you use to instantiate plug-ins, you can have presets in more then 3 formats (even when you are working in one DAW).