What I really want: Industry-standard Cataloging

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

We live in a great era. We have incredible software synthesizers coupled with analog reissues and big-polyphony workstations and digital pianos.

 

But one thing drives me crazy, and it's fixable with some industry cooperation...

 

Most software sequencers come with a cataloging feature for virtual instrument patches, samples, and loops (think of Steinberg's Media Bay). Most soft synths also include a built-in cataloging feature. These catalog setups are great in that you can rate patches, add descriptive meta data, and easily find different types of sounds. But the drawback of these librarians is that you often don't know where the actual sounds are stored (on your hard drive), and every librarian is different. Some soft synths play nice with the host sequencer's librarian, and others don't play ball.

 

I would love to see the music software industry adopt a single standard for these catalog/librarian features, and make it a standard across the industry.

 

It would be ideal if the librarian was setup for easy archival, so that migrating from one version of software to another (or from one manufacturer to another) is painless.

 

Right now, I would love to upgrade to Cubase 9.5 (I'm currently at 6.5), but I don't want the headache of trying to untangle the media bay and all of my softsynth-specific patches. When I do an update it's a complete wipe (I would start from a clean windows install), so all or the archival and recovery is a big chore.

 

I know this is a pipe dream, but I would love to see Steinberg, MOTU, Apple, etc. agree on a standard format for sorting and tagging sounds, which could then be used in every sequencer and instrument.

 

Just a thought...