Re-Arrange Synth Rack?

Is there any way to rearrange the synths in the Synth Rack?

No, not even in X1, which changed everything but that ;-)

The only workaround I can think of is  - and this a bit of a draconian workaround - delete all your existing synths, then add them back in the order you want. Obviously you'll have to either re-route all your MIDI tracks input back to the new instance, or copy your MIDI clips over to the new instance and delete the originals.

It's not perfect - especially if you're already well into the mixing phase and have added plugs, automation etc.

that's my take on it as well, Danny - I'm not sure why it would be necessary to rearrange them.  there's no "pecking order" for synths, it's all laid out in I/O.

Its an anal thing.  Top of the list should go to the top track.  Makes everything nice and neat.  It really isn't of much use, if any, but is one of those things that seems to make sense.

I've learned to ignore it.

@

It's of much use to me. (er, it would be if it was available).

Disorganization is inefficient.

But inspiration isn't exactly a planned, organized thing. So synths get added on the fly in random order, and often I wind up with one at the top and another at/near the bottom that I end up going into the most, and it's a lot of scrolling up and down the rack to get to them.

If you've ever used a whole bunch of single-voice synths in a project, the usefulness of being able to organize them becomes obvious.

To be able to group your 16 instances of Dim Pro into string, woodwind, brass and percussion groups, for example. It's also handy to be able to arrange the synths in the same order as their tracks. It's all about keeping large projects organized.

I'm sure previous to SONAR 4 there were those who questioned why on earth we would ever need track folders, too. Back then, high track counts were far less common than they are today.

There are other ways to work, and also for some projects once the synths are in the rack they never get touched again. Tracks can be rearranged. FX bins can be rearranged. Track layers can be rearranged. IMO in a GUI anything stackable should be re-arrangeable unless there's some specific reason why that would cause serious problems.

thanks, Kev999, that tip helps. That's probably one reason synth order in the Rack doesn't bother others.

I do still have to use the synth rack to rename them, though. Also, synth order in the rack determines their order in the output assignment list in the inspector. It's less confusing if all instances of the same player can appear together (1, 2, 3, etc) rather than, say 1, 3, 4, and 7, with different synths/players in between (on 2, 5 and 6).

how's about being able to print track and buss assignments and trees on a piece of paper no less!

+1000!
How about a full project report, showing track lists, aux sends and buss routing plus effects? That would be very useful. Make it a searchable database while we're at it!

For example, I recently moved my Kontakt 3 library to another disk. Now the only way to find out which projects have K3 in them is to open each one up and wait for Kontakt to complain. And even that method doesn't work if the instances have been frozen. I have libraries and plugins that I'm pretty sure have never been used, but I don't dare delete or move them because there is no way to be sure.

I guess reporting isn't something music coders think about, but it's a very big part of my software world. It would be even more important to those who bill for their project time.

This is an excellent suggestion, especially if it provided the ability to include in the report, all of the plugs assigned to a project, their settings & dll location.

I've lost count of the itmes I've had to manually write down settings to duplicate them in another project. I've tried opening up 2 projects side by side to click & drag between rpjects, but more often than not, if I'm dealing with 2 large, complex projects, I get memory problems. I've also tried naming each saved preset - but when yopu've got 50+ compressors and/or EQ's in a project, this gets as tedious as writing the settings down!