Plugin Manager Customization Setting Save location?

Rednroll wrote on 5/27/2021, 10:50 AM

Recently my PC was acting glitchy, so I restored my system to a HDD image backup prior to having Vegas installed.

After HDD image restore, I did a new install of VP17 and VP18. These new installs reminded me of all the customization I performed inside of each version of Vegas since they were no longer present with the new installs.

The most time consuming customization I performed was categorizing all my audio plugins in the Vegas plugin-in manager by creating sub folder categories, under the "ALL" main folder and then moving each plugin into it's categorized sub folder. It seems the developers have performed a similar task for Video plugins, unlike the audio plugins which all just get thrown into the "All" folder.

What compounded this effort even more is that I also use Sound Forge Pro and Acid Pro which also have a plugin manager and go through the same time intensive efforts in those programs as well. I do this so when I use those programs, I am able to look into the same plugin categorized folders and know where to look and find a particular plugin regardless of which program I'm using.

I have to assume Vegas saves this information for recall when Vegas gets launched, but where?

What I'm trying to achieve is that if Vegas saves this plugin manager customization information into a particular configuration file, then I would like to backup those particular config files after I perform these efforts and then once I perform a refresh new install, copy that configuration file over to the new Vegas installation location and not have to go through and redo the entire categorization plugin manager efforts. This effort takes me hours to complete, so it would definitely be nice to not go through those efforts again after I've done it the first time. VP18 now has Preference menu settings save and recall which is a welcome addition, but honestly that has always been a 10-15 minute customization effort for me to complete, unlike the plugin manager organization efforts which I do for 3 programs, and sometimes different versions as well which all have a similar plugin manager and are developed by Magix.

Here's an example image describing what I'm referring to. Is there some way for me to be able to recall that custom organization of my audio plugins?

Under the "Video" plugins folder, you can see where Video plugins have been categorized by the Vegas developers into categories of "media generators, FX, Transitions, Compositors" which is nice and can be further customized by the user. However under the Audio ALL plugins, I created those sub folders(channel strips, Choruses, Delays, etc) and then manually drag each plugin into those labeled sub-folders. Very time consuming but makes my life easier once it's complete.

Comments

walter-i. wrote on 5/28/2021, 2:42 AM

I like @Rednroll 's suggestion of categorising audio FX, and think it should be implemented by the Vegas development team in a future update, similar to @set's suggestion at the time regarding the categorisation of video FX.
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/de/tutorials/magix-vegas-pro-14-videofx-guide--106009/

Rednroll wrote on 6/5/2021, 11:48 PM

I like @Rednroll 's suggestion of categorising audio FX, and think it should be implemented by the Vegas development team in a future update, similar to @set's suggestion at the time regarding the categorisation of video FX.
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/de/tutorials/magix-vegas-pro-14-videofx-guide--106009/

It would definitely be a welcome addition.

What's kind of frustrating is that I've been using Vegas, Acid Pro and Sound Forge since their early conception days. Sonic Foundry and then when it moved to Sony, always made a concerted effort to keep a common theme between similar features of these programs. In this case, since we're discussing the Plugin Manager window. All 3 programs have a plugin manger window, and it always looked and functioned the same between all 3 programs. I look at them now since Magix has taken ownership and they all now have different functionalities in them. For example, Acid Pro has an auto category feature for audio plugins. SF and Vegas? Nope. When you view an audio plugin in SF, it will display if it's VST2, VST3, 32bit, or 64bit version. Vegas? If you have a VST2/32bit and VST2/64 bit installed, they will both have the same name and you're left guessing which one is the 32bit and 64bit version. Acid and Sound Forge both support the latest VST3 plugin format where some plugins I own are only being released in VST3 format. Vegas? No VST3 plugin support.

Ian-MLC helped me out in finding where Vegas stores the plugin manager configuration. I go looking for a similar file for Acid and Sound Forge? Nope...doesn't exist or if it does it's stored under a different location. I asked this question on the SF forums, learned it's stored in the Windows Registry...so good luck retrieving that saved data.

It certainly seems like Magix totally separated the code base of all these apps, although they all share common functionality features. Seems like a lot of wasted development effort instead of having one code base for the same feature/function which code base could be shared between all 3 programs. Update one, they all get updated. Fix a bug in one, the same bug gets fixed in all 3 programs since they're all sharing and pulling in the same code.

However, I am thankful they've been making updates to all 3 programs which is much welcome over what was going on under the Sony umbrella. It just doesn't seem like they're using those development resources very efficiently when looking at these programs from a user perspective and it confuses the user such as myself if I'm interested in using their suite of programs for different tasks.

I could go on for days on similar features in all 3 programs which are now different. Color themes? Sound Forge and Vegas share user color theme adjustments. Open up Acid, you get a choice of a black or white theme....no shades of grey selection inbetween like SF and Vegas.