Some softsynth manufacturers name their .dll's differently for each version, for example absynth3.dll, absynth4.dll, etc.  

It would be really nice if there were some way of redirecting version n-1 to version n, so that I did not have to worry if the old version was installed.  Obviously I could do this manually but for hundreds of projects this might take a while.

Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to speed up the process?

If anyone comes up with a process, I could write some sort of C# utility program that one could run to rename things and make backup copies of pre/post changed dll's.

It's certainly easy enough to write a program to rename things, it would be the creation of the steps that the program would need to do that would be the hard part, as different vendors do things differently, and sometimes change their methodologies for naming newly-released modules from time to time.

But again, if between us forum folks we could come up with the functionality design, implementing it would not be particularly difficult.  Perhaps vendor or product 'profiles' could be created in all of this, so that the program could follow a particular set of steps depending on the vendor or specific product - per the profile.

I would think that such a utility program could as part of its functionality create a master list of all successfully scanned plugin names, and allow comparison of versions, or that sort of thing, to identify changes in installed dll's.  Such a list would be created from the VST scan path folder names.  I suppose each dll could be queried as well, as they follow the VST spec and do have imbedded information within each such dll, as well.  Just tossing out quick ideas.

Anyways, I am game to help by creating such a utility, but would certainly need to have collective input on what it would need to do.

Bob Bone

According to the NI forums, people have been able to do it with other hosts, particularly Logic and Reaper.  It seems that since Reaper's project files are XML, it is fairly easy to make that swap.

I thought Sonar had a "replace synth" option?

It will replace synth.  However, if I have a sample set loaded in Kontakt 4 I would like a quick way of replacing it with Kontakt 5 and keeping the same samples loaded.  Even better if I could do this as a batch process.

See your point. I don't think it is possible. When they release new versions they get a new VST ID or whatever. It's like a different plug. I'm not sure of the technical mumbo-jumbo, that's why I work with something that has nothing to do with programming

But I often wish for the same but when it comes to Kontact, I just save the whatever I have there as a Multi, load new Kontakt and open the Multi and reassign all the tracks to the new Kontakt. A little tedious but It rarely takes more than a couple  of minutes.
 
 
 
 ADDED!!!
 
Sorry, didn't read your first post properly
Don't think there's much to do. Personally, I tend to just leave the old version in the project and finish it with that and eventually it will phase it self out of my projects. If there's a new version I need to use a new library or whatever, I just add an instance of the new plug and load what I need, not bothering with the old version.
 
But yes, it would be awesome to just automagically replace the plugin's existence on the DAW-

Sorry to kinda Hijack this thread .. 

@Robert_e_bone: if you're good with C# and everything ... would you have any use in programming a tool that would allow us to sync VST/VSTi presets among multiple computers? 

I'd like to avoid the FXP/FSB method... I know Sonar writes Patches in specific distinct folders for each and all plugin that has custom presets. 
but simply copying these folders on a another system, does not translate the Patches, there is some kind of (simple I guess) adaptation needed. 
(folder name is cryptic)

It would also give the opportunity of :

- Possibly have presets updated when upgrading a software (as this thread suggest), 
- Have patches following when upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit version of a plugin. 
- Have a backup of all custom patches in all VST/VSTi
- have those patches sync'd among all computers running Sonar via dropbox or a file sync utility or symbolic links. 
- Have presets updated when updating Sonar (every 18 months ...we lose all presets..)

I keep myself from saving presets, but I feel my workflow would improve greatly if I knew there would be a way to preserve them better. 

Let me know what you think !

Cheers ! 

V

The thing is - when you update a soft synth, the settings might very well be different from the old version, so when you load an old project, that had the old version - it may not sound the same when you load the new version.

That's usually why the developers call the new version a different name. Usually, if a new version can read the settings from an old version, and not get confused, or make the sound different, they let you overwrite the dll with the new version.

In other words, it's for our own good that we get new versions with different named dlls. I don't think we want a utility to force an old project (with an older version of the synth) to load the newer version.

I hope this makes sense. I know what I mean but am having trouble explaining it. ;-)

Most of the soft synths I use have dedicated folders for user presets, and I just periodically merge those across the 3 computers I have, to keep all in sync.

I am not at all sure that preset management would be effectively automated, beyond what I do as above.

I quarterly go through and look for updates to synths I have, and compare versions prior to downloading anything, so that I am only updating what needs to be updated.  For those synths, I then go back and make sure the new versions can still point to the user preset folders.  It's not a particularly time-consuming or difficult exercise for me.

If any synth has changed to become a 64-bit version, then I begin using that version for any new projects, and the rest fall off over time without ever causing any issues.  If I DO decide to replace a soft synth in an older project I delete the instance, reload the newer 64-bit version, and reconnect the tracks.

I am not sure what automation in any of that would be practical.

All of my folders are part of my regular backups, so nothing to do there.

I also do not understand the comment about losing all presets every 18 months.  Please explain what you are talking about there.

Bob Bone

I think the only time I lost settings from a soft synth was when I had a primary drive failure and reinstalled the world - Kontakt 5 and Sonar included.  An in-project multi-rack I had set up was lost, because I had never actually saved the multi-rack.  It just kept loading properly when I loaded that project, so I never worried about it - until it was gone.  

From that experience, I learned that if I tweak settings for a soft synth, like creating a multi-rack in Kontakt within a project, with multiple instruments and custom output routings, that it is QUITE prudent to actually save that multi-rack.  

It then gets backed up with my regular backups, and is a matter of a simple reload, rather than a complete rebuild.
Bob Bone