Track Presets

Introduction

Track presets are templates that you can create from audio, MIDI or instrument tracks – or several of these tracks. With these track presets, you can then create new tracks or apply them to existing tracks of the same type.

The idea behind track presets is:

•To allow you to quickly access, browse, select, change and preview sounds.

•To give you an easy way to reuse channel settings across projects.

Track presets are part of the VST Sound concept (see “VST Sound” on page 311) and organized in the Sound Browser (a view of the MediaBay, see “The MediaBay” on page 314). This allows you to categorize track presets with tags like “EPiano” or “Jazz” and search for these tags.

Related topics

Nuendo offers a variety of related functions that allow you to handle presets of program settings:

•You can save and load channel settings in the mixer (not for MIDI), see “Saving mixer settings” on page 146.

•You can save and load inserts rack and EQ presets, see “Inserts and EQ settings from track presets” on page 337.

•You can export and import tracks as track archives , see “Exporting and importing tracks” on page 500.

Types of track presets

There are four kinds of track presets:

•Audio

•Instrument (this also includes certain VST3 presets, see “VST (Instrument) presets” on page 330)

•MIDI

•Multi (any number of the three preset types above in any sequence)

Since the purpose of track presets is to make sound handling easier, only parameters are saved that are relevant for the sound of a certain track.

Audio track presets

Track presets for audio tracks include all inserts and effects that “define” the sound. Since there are big differences between the typical settings for a trumpet and a human voice, for example, audio track presets are a quick way to optimize your track.

For example, you can:

•Easily audition your audio track with the factory presets.

•Use the factory presets as a starting point for your own editing.

•Save the audio settings that you optimized for an artist with which you often work and use the resulting audio track preset for future recordings.

Data saved in audio track presets

•Insert FX settings

•EQ settings (including VST effect presets)

•Volume + Pan

•Input Gain + Phase

Ö Note that volume, pan, input gain and input phase will be restored only when creating a new track from a track preset.

Instrument track presets

Instrument track presets are best choice when handling sounds of simple, mono-timbral VST Instruments. Like the instrument track, they offer both MIDI and audio features.

•You can use instrument track presets like the audio track presets above for auditioning your tracks, inspiration, or saving your preferred sound settings.

•In addition, you can directly extract sounds from instrument track presets and VST presets for use in instrument tracks.

VST presets also behave like instrument track presets, see “VST (Instrument) presets” on page 330.

Data saved in instrument track presets

•Audio Insert FX

•Audio EQ

•Audio Volume + Pan

•Audio Input Gain + Phase

•MIDI Insert FX

•MIDI Track Parameters

•Input Transformer

•VST Instrument

And also:

•Staff settings

•Color settings

Ö Volume, pan, input gain and input phase will be restored only when creating a new track from a track preset.

MIDI track presets

MIDI tracks offer more possibilities than instrument tracks; therefore, they should be used for multi-timbral VST Instruments and external instruments.

Due to the resulting complex settings, more details have to be taken into account when working with MIDI track presets, to ensure that the saved settings are really usable as presets for new tracks.

• To ensure that saved MIDI track presets for external instruments will work again with the same instrument later, install the instrument as MIDI device, because in this case the MIDI interface and the connecting ports are irrelevant. (For this to work, the MIDI device has to have exactly the same name as in the original setup.) For more information about this, see the separate pdf document “MIDI Devices”.

Include MIDI Channel or MIDI Patch

There is an additional Include option when creating MIDI track presets:

•Choose “MIDI Patch” if you want to save the MIDI track preset with the currently set patch. This is useful if your external MIDI device offers sounds as certain patches but does not require any specific channel settings.

•Choose “MIDI Channel” if you want to save the MIDI track preset with the currently set channel. This is useful if you have the sounds of an external device always on the same channel, e.g. strings on channel 12, trumpets on channel 13.

Ö The choice is exclusive – you can either save the channel or the patch, but not both.

Example 1: Multi-timbral external instrument

Assume you have a multi-timbral external instrument (for example, a MIDI Expander), with all sounds available on all channels, but the sounds (patches) might change.

In this case, set it up as an external instrument, open a MIDI track and select it as output. In the Programs List, select a patch. Then save the MIDI track preset with the patch included.

Example 2: Multi-timbral external instrument with preconfigured setup

In a rarer case we have a multi-timbral external instrument (for example, a Sampler) which is completely pre-config- ured. There is no sound (patch) to configure, but only the device and the MIDI channel to know.

In this case, include the channel in the MIDI track preset so that the correct channel will be called up.

Example 3: VSTi as pre-configured setup

If you want to use a MIDI track preset for a pre-configured VST Instrument setup, the following conditions have to be met:

•The VST Instrument(s) are installed in the VST Instruments window.

•The VST Instrument patches have not been changed since the track preset was saved (that means for example that no other FXP/FXB was installed in the meantime).

To ensure this, use a template project with the VSTi setup included and put the sounds (track presets) of this template project into specific subfolders, as they only work within this setup.

Data saved in MIDI track presets

•MIDI Modifiers (Transpose etc.)

•MIDI Inserts (FX)

•Output + Channel or Program Change

•Input Transformer

•Volume + Pan

And also:

•Staff settings

•Color settings

Ö Note that volume and pan will be restored only when creating a new track from a track preset.

Multi track presets

If you select more than one track when creating a track preset, the settings of all selected tracks will be saved as one multi track preset. Since you can apply a multi track preset only if the target tracks are of the same type, number and sequence as the tracks in the track preset, multi track presets are useful when you have a reoccurring situation with very similar tracks and settings.

For example, this would be the case for:

•Recording setups that require several microphones, e.g. when recording a drum set or a choir, where you

record always under the same conditions and have to edit the resulting tracks in a similar way.

•Layered tracks, where you use several tracks to generate a certain sound instead of manipulating only one track.

Data saved in multi track presets

For each track type, the respective track preset parameters are saved in the same sequence as the tracks in the Project window.

VST presets

As of VST3, VST presets make it easy for you to work with VST plug-ins and instruments, substituting the .fxp and

.fxb files of the VST2 standard.

There are two kinds of VST presets:

•VST presets based on effect plug-ins

•VST presets based on VST Instrument plug-ins

Ö In this manual, the wording “VST presets” stands for VST3 Instrument presets, unless stated otherwise.

VST effect plug-in presets

VST effect plug-ins are available in VST3 and VST2 format, for example as insert effects like Expander or Limiter. Therefore, VST effect presets can be part of audio track presets, see also “VST Sound” on page 311.

VST (Instrument) presets

VST3 (Instrument) presets (extension .vstpreset) are media files that can be managed in the Sound Browser and to which you can assign tags. VST presets are also listed in dialogs like the “Add Track” dialog, see below.

The VST presets behave like instrument track presets in the context of the Project window and contain a VST Instrument and its settings but no modifiers, MIDI inserts, inserts or EQ settings:

•You can create instrument tracks from VST presets just like from instrument track presets, see “Creating tracks from track presets or VST presets” on page 333.

In the Inspector of the new instrument track, the VST Instrument, the selected program and the name of the applied VST preset are displayed.

•You can apply VST presets to instrument tracks just like instrument track presets, see “Applying audio, MIDI and instrument track presets” on page 334.

•When selecting VST presets in the Browse presets section or the Sound Browser, you can preview them like instrument track presets, see “Creating tracks from track presets or VST presets” on page 333.

•Like with instrument tracks presets, you can extract the “sound” of VST presets, see “Extracting sound from an instrument track or VST preset” on page 335.