Transfer settings when replacing DXi with VSTi equivalent

Kev999
Is this feasible? I don't know but I'm guessing that there is no difference in the way that the parameter settings for DX and VST for a given softsynth are stored in the project file, so retrieving them and applying them to the replacement synth would not be a problem.

Either the settings are the same is plug-in dependent. There is no standards for saving settings and there are "black box" for DAWs.

Kev999

azslow3
Either the settings are the same is plug-in dependent. There is no standards for saving settings and there are "black box" for DAWs.

That should not really matter. I just meant that there would not be any difference for any individual synth. For example, parameter settings that were saved and stored within the cwp file for Dimension Pro DXi could be applied to Dimension Pro VSTi when it is loaded as a replacement.

Either that matters or not is relatively easy to check... I do not have DXi and VSTi versions of some plug-in, but you can check yourself.
 
In the Cakewalk Plug-in manager (Utilities menu) export 2 SPP files, one from DSi and one from VSTi, with single what you think equivalent preset (I know you can not make presets absolutely identical, there are too many parameters, but may be there are some factory presets which should be the same...). Now compare these 2 binary files. If your theory is true, apart from some bytes at the beginning they should be equivalent.
 
If you find them more or less equivalent, next step will be conversation from one SPP to another. I can try to do this (if you upload both files somewhere). If after importing converted DXi preset VSTi version will be able to load it, than you are right, at least for that plug-in.
 
The next step will then be hacking CWP files or convince CW to do this. With the proof it is possible with SPP, CW can not answer like me in my first reply.
 
But I am skeptical at the moment 

You are right with the good way to create perfectly the same presets, I am away from away synth and forgot that option
 
But the rest is still true. The "Program" you save inside plug-in is the way to transfer settings between plug-in incarnations and versions, so logically plug-ins are prepared to deal with that. MS Word is able to read many versions of .doc files, but that does not mean all of them have the same format.
 
What you get as "Cakewalk preset" and save as .spp in Plug-in Manager is how Sonar (or any other DAW) see the settings. I do not say it IS different. But it CAN be different since the plug-in can assume a DAW will not mix presets for any 2 plug-ins with different IDs (and DXi has different schema for such IDs then VSTi). Using MS Word analogy, nowhere is written that some internal auto-saving format can be understood by other Word version.
 
But as I wrote before, please create 2 spp with the same Program and we can have a look.

azslow3
...In the Cakewalk Plug-in manager (Utilities menu) export 2 SPP files, one from DSi and one from VSTi...

 
I'm not sure how to proceed. The Export button is greyed out for almost all of the softsynths. And I've searched all the drives for .spp files and found none at all.

I don't really know anything about this Import/Export Presets feature, so I went to look it up in the Sonar manual. But I couldn't find any mention of it there.

azslow3
...you should first save at least one "Preset" (the top of plug-in UI window), then it should appear available for "Export...".

 
I tried this. Unfortunately these presets have a different file extension, i.e. FXP rather than SPP. Also, the drop down menu with the save & load options is only present in the VST versions and doesn't exist the the DX versions.

azslow3
May be you are using VST menu? Cakewalk preset management is on the left side of it, with the name, next/previous, save and delete buttons.

 
Yes I was using the VST menu earlier.
 
On clicking the save button, there is no indication that it has saved anything or where it has been saved to. Clicking it again brings up the message "Overwrite existing preset?" with no option to rename the preset.
 
Anyway I have now managed to export an ssp file from both the DXi and VSTi versions of DimPro v1.2 (although the name of each preset was called "No Preset" and I couldn't change this). Unfortunately my attempts to export/import from one to the other were unsuccessful. Message dialog box said: "The file does not contain valid presets for the selected plug-in(s)". This doesn't look promising.
 

Before all you non-DX users dismiss this proposal, please consider that DXi to VSTi migration is not the only situation where a plugin's settings need to be transferred. There is also:

• 32-bit VST to 64-bit VST
• VST2 to VST3