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Topic: VST Preset auto-track assign plugin? (Read 4891 times) previous topic - next topic
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VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Does anyone know if there is a VST plugin or a plugin that works with the current VST plugins and allow one to assign a current preset setting to a track or tracks?

This would be a really wonderful functionality to have in FB2K!

Anyone agree?

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #1 –
As far as I know, there is no way for 3-rd party developers to control VST plug-ins no matter which wrapper you choose (of course I can only be sure about my implmentation - it doesn't expose any interface for this - but others don't seem to use Foobar presets infrastructure anyway).

If I was to make some sort of track-dependent processing then it'd be a separate DSP service. So you would basically have a secondary track-dependent chain in the Foobar's main DSP chain. It'd be universal, not just for VST plug-ins. I don't think it's difficult to make but I just don't see the point. Why on earth would anybody tag separate tracks to process them in a different way? Am I missing something and that's what people actually do? Don't get me wrong, I do realize there are many poorly mixed or mastered recordings. But is tagging every such track an acceptable solution?

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Yegor on
As far as I know, there is no way for 3-rd party developers to control VST plug-ins no matter which wrapper you choose (of course I can only be sure about my implmentation - it doesn't expose any interface for this - but others don't seem to use Foobar presets infrastructure anyway).

If I was to make some sort of track-dependent processing then it'd be a separate DSP service. So you would basically have a secondary track-dependent chain in the Foobar's main DSP chain. It'd be universal, not just for VST plug-ins. I don't think it's difficult to make but I just don't see the point. Why on earth would anybody tag separate tracks to process them in a different way? Am I missing something and that's what people actually do? Don't get me wrong, I do realize there are many poorly mixed or mastered recordings. But is tagging every such track an acceptable solution?


Without this capability you would have to manually set your preferred settings for each track you played.  When you use VST plugin like Ozone 4 you either tweak for your room or tweak for the cut you are playing.  I do both.  I noticed that all plugins using VST have a "preset" checkbox and window that opens up and allows you to save your own presets outside of the actual plugin code.  So there must be a way of sending a message to the plugin remotely to load a specific preset.  If that is possible, then all that is needed is a context menu item "Set to current VST Preset" - on all selected tracks - and a way to save this as a specific tag in either the media library or track tag or both.

Then it should be a simple matter of sending the message out at the start of each track if there is a preset set and if not sending out a specified default preset setting if not.


It would be nice if other people added their 2 cents in this discussion.


If you have a good sound system, you should try Ozone 4 out and see how you can vastly improve your sound - especially if you listen in a good surround environment.

 

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #3 –
Quote
I noticed that all plugins using VST have a "preset" checkbox and window that opens up and allows you to save your own presets outside of the actual plugin code. So there must be a way of sending a message to the plugin remotely to load a specific preset.
Do you mean the adapter's Preset Pane? Well, it doesn't belong to plug-ins themself. It's the adapter's preset manager which doesn't even exist in computer's memory until you open the plug-in's editor. Only the author of a wrapper/adapter has control over plug-ins I/O. And VST plug-ins don't (and can't) know anything about their host, hence it's impossible for them to implement this. So as long as VST is concerned it's pointless to ask anyone else but me (or George Yohng, or whoever is the author of another wrapper) to extend it like this. I'm not trying to enhance my reputation. Just pointing out that you should ask for that feature in the wrapper's context if you want VST plug-ins to do that.

BUT... there is no need to stick with VST. Anyone can make a generic component for that feature and it'll handle all Foobar's DSPs, not just VSTs that are encapsulated inside of a wrapper and thus can only be controlled in a way the wrapper allows you. Once again, it doesn't seem to be difficult to make. I just need to get my graduation paper done next week, and I'll have free time then (I was quite busy for several weeks). And yes, I do have more or less acceptable sound and I apply some EQ to fix my room's acoustics. But I'm wondering if it will be easy to tag every track like this.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #4 –

Well first off, good luck on your graduation!  If this can be done in a general mode, that would be great.  We had this discussion awhile back - and yes you are the perfect person to implement this.
I am not sure how it can be generalized - let me detail for you what I think are the steps needed:

1 - capture the current dsp plugin settings and assign them to a track or tracks.
      This is where I thought it would be much easier to just use the preset manager that is already part of the VST window it seems for must VST plugins as doing an add creates a .vst file in the appdata/roaming/foobar2000/vst-plugins/plugin  folder - so all that the runtime needs to do is load up that plugin when a track starts.
The trick is to figure out what preset is currently active - from a manual settings.

2 - activate the saved preset at the start of a track if one is specified or activate a specified default preset if not already active.


How it can be done generically is a mystery to me as you would have to know what preset to use for any plugin or somehow track every single plugins settings - which would seem much harder to do.


VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #5 –
Well, there are some helpers in the SDK. It wasn't a big deal to import/export whole DSP chain, for example. The way I see it is like this:



You put track-dependent DSP in the list of Active DSPs.
Then you select tracks you need to process in the playlist and open the context menu to call a command for opening per-track DSP dialog.
In that dialog you can build DSP chains the same way you do it in the Foobar's main DSP manager (except for per-track DSPs — you could end up in recursion).
Finally you assign either particular state or a preset to tracks you selected earlier. If that's a state then you have your chain immediately assigned to tracks and that's it — you won't be able to edit this chain in a centralized manner. If that's a preset, then you have an opportunity to edit the chain later for all tracks you have assigned it to.

Of course, this is not an exact rendition of the final UI. Feel free to make suggestions and ask questions.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Yegor on
Well, there are some helpers in the SDK. It wasn't a big deal to import/export whole DSP chain, for example. The way I see it is like this:



You put track-dependent DSP in the list of Active DSPs.
Then you select tracks you need to process in the playlist and open the context menu to call a command for opening per-track DSP dialog.
In that dialog you can build DSP chains the same way you do it in the Foobar's main DSP manager (except for per-track DSPs — you could end up in recursion).
Finally you assign either particular state or a preset to tracks you selected earlier. If that's a state then you have your chain immediately assigned to tracks and that's it — you won't be able to edit this chain in a centralized manner. If that's a preset, then you have an opportunity to edit the chain later for all tracks you have assigned it to.

Of course, this is not an exact rendition of the final UI. Feel free to make suggestions and ask questions.


I understand what you are saying here - my only question is how will this actually change the values that have been setup in the VST app itself?  As a simple example lets say that on song a I want a 6db boost at 6k and on song B I want a 3db boost - so I create presets called boost6db and boost3db in the VST app (say a simple eq app).

So I want to assign certain tracks to toe boost6db and other tracks to the boost3db - all the same VST app - but different settings within the app. 

If your idea can handle this, then go for it - if not then we are talking about 2 different issues.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #7 –
Do you see that list with "More Bass" item inside it? That's where you could add your volume boosting presets and apply them on a per-track basis. So there answer is yes, it would be able to handle that.

I think I made my previous posting a little bit messy by describing an additional level of flexibility. The idea is that there two ways doing the job: you can either create a preset and assign it to as many tracks as you want (so you will be able to edit that preset later and it will affect all tracks), or you can apply a preset to a track without naming it.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Yegor on
Do you see that list with "More Bass" item inside it? That's where you could add your volume boosting presets and apply them on a per-track basis. So there answer is yes, it would be able to handle that.

I think I made my previous posting a little bit messy by describing an additional level of flexibility. The idea is that there two ways doing the job: you can either create a preset and assign it to as many tracks as you want (so you will be able to edit that preset later and it will affect all tracks), or you can apply a preset to a track without naming it.



I like the 1st idea - be able to assign a preset to a set of tracks and if you want to mod it later it would affect all the tracks if you kept the preset name the same.

It still seems to me that using the standard system already in place to save and set presets within the VST wrapper is the easier way to go. Then all that is needed is a simple way of selecting which preset to assign to which tracks.  All the other stuff would not be needed.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #9 –
From a user's point of view I would consider three fields of applications desirable for a component like this one: the ability to apply VST presets to
  • individual tracks, manually selected in a playlist
  • all tracks that belong to the same album as the selected one
  • tracks, based on filename and/or file-type rules.
c) would make sense especially for Podcast listeners (and be the most important element for me), for example apply the preset "VLevel/Advanced Limiter" to all filenames which meet the pattern rule "Les?vendredis?de?la?musique*.mp3;today_*.*;ukranianenglish_*.mp3
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #10 –
It would be natural to use fb2k's queries for such purposes. I gotta find out if it's possible.

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #11 –
Anything happening on this?

VST Preset auto-track assign plugin?

Reply #12 –
This is exactly what I've been after for many, many years.  I have a lot of old LAME encoded CDs that were either mastered poorly, or for whatever reasons (maybe shortcomings in my own hifi system and/or damaged ears) lack the punch in bass and crispness of highs that I really enjoy.  Over the years I've ripped LPs to MP3s poorly without applying the kind of EQ I later realized I should have. 

Many times I'll be listening to a new album I've just ripped with EAC, and end up tweaking FB2K's EQ to make the audio more pleasant to my ears.  And I always wish there was some method of saving those settings for that specific album or track so that the next time I play it I wouldn't have to go through the whole process again.

Recently I put together a mix of tracks from various sources, CDs, Internet Radio, old tape cassettes & LPs, and ended up transcoding several to WAV files, applying EQ to a number of them with SoundForge, and then burning the results to a CD to play in the car.  I've found FB2K to be fantastic for applying RG and DSP settings to tracks when burning CDs.  It would be great if I could have FB2K apply track/album specific EQ to tracks when burning CDs, as well as in day to day playback through the hifi.

I know nothing about what it takes to create FB2K components, but it'd be fantastic if something like this could be put together.

That's my 2¢
Thx
TS
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man