Note that the 'Pilot' shown here has been 'styled' to look a bit like Charlatan's original editor.
To import banks, click on the 'Bank' menu button on the 'Pilot' and choose 'Import banks...', like shown above.
A Windows Explorer file browser dialog will open.
Navigate to a folder where you have one or more '.fxb' files for the wrapped VST 2 plugin and select the one(s) you want to import.
In the image below an example is shown, where in one folder multiple bank files for Charlatan are selected for import.
Expert tip:
You can also import multiple banks from multiple folders by using the search functionality of the Windows Explorer file browser dialog.
The image below shows you how this can be done.
After you have selected the bank(s) you want to import, press the 'Open' button on the Windows Explorer file browser dialog.
This will lead you to the 'Import dialog', where you can tweak some import settings before you start the import by pressing the 'Start' button on it.
Importing banks is the easiest way of importing presets into the database.
Unfortunately there are several VST 2 plugins for which this is not possible, because they don't support banks.
Most of those are a bit newer and for many of them probably the main reason to make this decision was,
that they implemented their own internal preset browser to not be dependent on the different implementation of the hosts
resp. to be able to offer more then what the VST 2 specification would allow, like e.g. allow categorizing and/or rating and what not.
This means, that for such plugins saving of banks doesn't work (or it might work, but a bank would just represent a single preset) and thus
no '.fxb' files for them are available which could be imported.
The good thing is, that - luckily - VeeSTeeEx also allows to import multiple single presets.
Note that the 'Pilot' shown here has been 'styled' to look a bit like Charlatan's original editor.
To import banks, click on the 'Preset' menu button on the 'Pilot', like shown above.
A Windows Explorer file browser dialog will open.
Navigate to a folder where you have one or more '.fxp' files for the wrapped VST 2 plugin and select the one(s) you want to import.
In the image below an example is shown, where in one folder multiple preset files for Charlatan are selected for import.
Expert tip:
You can also import multiple presets from multiple folders by using the search functionality of the Windows Explorer file browser dialog.
The image below shows you how this can be done.
After you have selected the preset(s) you want to import, press the 'Open' button on the Windows Explorer file browser dialog.
This will lead you to the 'Import dialog', where you can tweak some import settings before you start the import by pressing the 'Start' button on it.
Mahh, that's all annoying!
I want to import all existing bank and preset files which I have for my VST 2 plugin all at once!
Also this can be done! See next section.
To import bank and preset files in one step, a slightly different approach must be used.
It works by dragging a selection of '.fxb' and '.fxp' files from the Windows Explorer and dropping it onto the 'Preset Picker'.
To do so, first open the 'Preset Picker' (e.g. by clicking on the 'Preset display field' in the 'Pilot') and then on the
'Preset Picker' windows's title to switch to 'Database presets view' (if not already in that view).
Then check 'Maintenance mode?' in it's right panel under 'Options' to avoid that the 'Preset Picker' automatically closes itself when clicking outside of it.
Now open a Windows Explorer and navigate to a folder where the bank and presets files for you VST 2 plugin are located.
Either select the files you want to import in it or use the Windows Explore's search functionality similar to what was described further above.
Search for '*.fx*' to find bank and preset files.
Once you've selected the files you want to import, drag this selection onto the 'Preset Picker' and drop it there.
Now again the 'Import dialog' will open, where you fist could tweak some import settings before you click on the 'Start' button to start the import.
Before an import actually starts, the import dialog window will open.
On this import dialog you can tweak some options before you click on the 'Start' button to actually start the import process.
The import dialog then will stay open for the duration of the import and show the progress.
When the import is finshed, the import dialog will close itself.
The checkbox 'Auto assign category?' is checked by default.
When it is checked, then the import will try to automatically assign a category like 'Organ' to an imported preset,
if the name of the imported presets gives an indication that it would fit into one of the built-in categories.
This is a relatively simple mechanism and for sure this way not all presets will be tagged with a category.
And for some presets it might even be the case that they get categorized wrongly.
But most of the time this auto assigning of a category works quite good and saves quite some time of manual categorizing.
But there might be occassions, where you do not want this feature, e.g. if you import presets from a folder called like 'Pads'
In such a case, one would assume that all the presets which can be found under this folder actually are 'Pads'.
Then you would just uncheck 'Auto assign category?' and then choose 'Pads' from the dropdown below.
In the dropdown for 'Author', you can choose the author of the presets that you import.
This way, all imported banks and presets will automatically already be assigned to that author during import and again
you wouldn't need to do that then manually later on.
It is easy to create a new author immediately before the import by just selecting '<new author>' from the dropdown.
Making use of this feature to automatically assign an author to imported presets for sure only makes good sense,
if the selection of banks and presets was already planned with this feature in mind, so that you only selected such which were created by that author.
During import, VeeSTeeEx automatically suspends the audio processing of the wrapped plugin.
It is nonetheless recommended to not have the sequencer running during an import.
At least when banks get imported, those banks will first be loaded into the plugins memory before their single presets can be imported and
this might lead to very unpleasant audio artefacts, in case the mechanism for suspending the audio processing wouldn't work properly for some reason.
Duplicates (sounds which were saved to bank and preset files with exactly the same parameter values/data) will only be stored once in the database.
It is not rare, that such duplicates exist in several different bank files (prominent here would be sounds called like 'Init' or 'Default',
but often also regular sounds appear in different banks - sometimes even with different names).
Let's assume we have 'Sound xyz' appear as duplicate in 3 different banks 'Bank 1', 'Bank 2' and 'Bank 3':
The sound data of it will only be stored once in the database.
But for sure all 3 banks will display that preset.
And if you delete let's say 'Bank 2' and all its presets, then 'Sound xyz' will not be deleted,
since it is still a preset which belongs to banks 'Bank 1' and 'Bank 3'.
If you want to share the presets file later, please honor the authors of the presets.
The easiest way to do so is by importing banks (and single presets) in a way, that you always only select banks and presets from one specific author.
Then in the 'Import dialog' set the approriate author (you can even create a new author there on the fly, before starting the import.)
This way the banks as well as all their presets all are already tagged with the author after the import.
You can't do much wrong with importing presets.
For sure VeeSTeeEx only imports banks and presets which are compatible with the wrapped VST 2 plugin.
If you try to import '.fxb' or '.fxp' files which belong to a different VST 2 plugin, this will not work
and you'll be informed about the error(s) in a log window, which will automatically show up in the 'Preset Picker'.