Topic: FRITS, WE NEED YOUR INPUT!

The current thing I’m working on is a revision of the plugin loading system. As mentioned in other threads, plugins that take a long time to load (such as NI Kontakt with large samplesets) can cause the Podium UI to momentarily block, leading to other related problems. I don’t know how long that will take. I’ve purchased the Spitfire Audio Albion1 orchestral library for Kontakt to have a large sampleset to experiment with, and I’ll continue to work on the plugin handling until all problems have been sorted. Don’t know how long that will take.

Beyond that, I have not made a decision on what the next step will be. Things like improved project/sound file handling (automatic sound ifle import etc.) is high on my list. I know you’re interested in time-stretching, but I unfortunately cannot give a timeline for that feature.

@Zynewave wrote:

The current thing I’m working on is a revision of the plugin loading system..

@alex wrote:

– Plugin scan – adding new and removing deleted plugins (from the list) at every launch.

Would it be a problem to take care of this when you’re already at it? 😉

Cheers, Alex

@Zynewave wrote:

Things like improved project/sound file handling (automatic sound ifle import etc.) is high on my list.

Good! Thanks. 8) Really looking forward to seeing that (when you are ready). 🙂

@alex wrote:

Plugin scan – adding new and removing deleted plugins (from the list) at every launch.

Preferably, this would be optional behaviour, as the Telenator suggests. I like that Podium loads fast. A plugin scan at each launch would be stifling. With the current device list, it would also mean a scan would occur each time a project was open (within the same session of Podium).

@The Telenator wrote:

… time maintaining my plugin database and then having to load the most recently updated list into every current project and template.

I do the same. The template I maintain is updated each time I install a plugin to my system. It also has a customised hierarchy, grouping plugins by type, for easier selection in the arrangement.

The pull down menu for prescribing the desired device list, on the project start page, used to include project templates.

One problem I have with automatic removal of plugins and so on is in cases where older songs are loaded, and the VST has since been deleted. I have had this occur.

Podium is the first host I’ve used that actually keeps it there, along with the data, even if it can’t actually use the plugin, because it’s not there. That means I can go and try to source it again, and plug it back into the project. I believe (?? though I haven’t tested it much at all?) that I can edit and save the project and it will retain that data regardless if the plugin is missing or not, until I actually remove that from the project. Please correct me if I’m wrong, though, for my own peace of mind if nothing else. :S

I like automation, and I think it’s a balance. But, as a sporadic user of music software (and quite possibly a minority), I sometimes have stuff I’ve worked on from a long time ago that I want to load … but I’ve renamed VST files (yes I’m obsessive), or deleted them, and hadn’t realised I’d used them in something, and then … other hosts I’ve used just remove it and then instead of having a chance at fixing it up, I’m left with nothing, to try to work out how to get back there again.

Automatic plugin scanning at the start is trickier than it sounds, too, in my opinion. How does Podium know whether a plugin has been updated or not, whether it exists or not, and so on? You can look at files … but updated VSTs with the same filename, does it bother to check them? If so, it needs to read at least some of the VST to check version or other data. Or, you could use the file system’s last date modified, but then what if it’s not correct? What if it’s the same, and Podium skips it, and it turns out to have added parameters that you’ll miss because it wasn’t reimported?

Just some thoughts. Having to read the VSTs to check if they’re updated or not may increase loading time enough to make it not a lot less than just reloading them all, though only programmers with experience would be able to know whether this is truly the case or not (I’m not one, I only suggest this is the case).

O.K. I knew some of these questions would be asked 🙂

Automatic scanning for new plugis is not a problem – that’s what everybody’s doing manually now and I’m convinced that should be solved.

The other part is trickier:

@druid wrote:

Automatic plugin scanning at the start is trickier than it sounds, too, in my opinion. How does Podium know whether a plugin has been updated or not, whether it exists or not, and so on? .

It knows whether it exists or not because it’s in the VST folder or not

But, as The Telenator has already mentioned, Podium will not know If some plugin is the updated version of the old one, sometimes. On the other hand, that’s already the problem, ain’t it? If you want to use a new version of your favorite plugin you’re gonna do it, don’t matter what, aye?

@druid wrote:

One problem I have with automatic removal of plugins and so on is in cases where older songs are loaded, and the VST has since been deleted. I have had this occur.

Why would you delete the plugin that you use (have used) in projects unless you have the newer version?

What’s possible, for sure, is that if you load the old plugins back, Podium will put them right where they were before, with all your settings, of coarse (I know that works in other software). The other thing I’ve noticed (accidentally) is that if you have two .dll files in your folder(s) that represent the same plugin (that was the same version in my case), Podium will load both of them (maybe it should stay that way(?)). I remember that I’ve read somewhere that the x software, while scanning (when building plugin database for the first time) will, if you have two versions of the same plugin, load the first one and skip the other don’t matter if it’s the newer or the older one (that means it recognizes it’s the same plugin, but doesn’t care).

I would like that Podium lists only what’s in the VST folder (what kingtubby described), but I am aware of the problems. On the other hand, some of them already exist. Finally, I have to say that I know absolutely nothing about programming, so I can only talk about things I’ve seen in other apps.

Maybe, Frits has the solution.

P.S. Another thing that should (and can) be solved – new plugins should be usable in all old projects as soon as they’re loaded.

Cheers, Alex

I’ve done it, too — forgot I’d used some plugin long ago, never had a chance to finish the project, etc.

Plugins all have a unique identifier (e.g., j7X1), except for a freakish few, a perfect example is the Arturia minimoog V original, that one they were giving away free in honor of Bob Moog the day their server also caught on fire from too many requests. (I grabbed mine at 4 a.m. because that is the best virtual software clone of the Minimoog ever made, and I saw that the demand was going to be overwhelming. You should have read the whining, threats and cussing over at KVR forums from the spoiled Entitlement Generation who weren’t able to get theirs immediately that day. Utterly disgraceful.)

Now, some makers give major updates a new ID and some don’t. DAWs read these IDs to know one VST from another. Also, Podium does not always load two or more of the same ID’ed dll without going in and using the renaming trick on any copies, although occasionally it will. I run both V1 and V2 of TyrellN6 — the V1 has no FX and uses some other preset banks, but both versions have the same ID. I added ‘V1’ to the older dll because it wouldn’t load alongside V2 otherwise.

Remember that Podium is one of those hosts that normally uses ‘relative’ plugin paths unless you tell it otherwise. And it can still find a plug if moved to one folder away usually, as long as the item is still inside the parent VSTPlugins folder. A very helpful feature for those of us who reshuffle or house clean once a year!

I basically like the whole construct, except for one big problem. If you have 20-30 ongoing projects as I do, If you update your PluginDatabase, maybe because a new and awesome VST or VSTi has just been released, you then have to click ‘Load PluginDatabase’ and click Save on every one of the unfinished projects, if you want the new plug available for use in those 20-30. This, mates, is totally nuts. I like the setup otherwise, as I said, but there really needs to be a global loading option, New instruments and numerous updates that Podium will not necassarily recognise are released every couple of days lately. After I had collected a good half-dozen new and needed to update my database, I then had to spend a maddening hour-plus updating each project from the updated database. It’s a complete pain and time waster.