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105
VST Instruments and Instrument tracks
2. When you have found the right sound, click OK to
close the dialog.
An instrument track is created with all track and/or instrument settings
that were saved in the preset.
Selecting VST Instrument presets
The previous sections focussed on selecting presets for
the creation of new instrument tracks, or for changing the
setup of an existing track. However, you can also use pre-
sets to change the settings of a VST Instrument.
To select a VST Instrument preset, proceed as follows:
1. Load a VST Instrument (either in the VST Instruments
window or via an instrument track).
2. If you use the VST Instruments window, select a MIDI
track routed to the instrument. If you use an instrument
track, select this.
3. If necessary, click on the track name at the top of the
Inspector to open the basic track settings.
4. Click in the Programs field in the Inspector.
The Presets browser is opened.
5. Step through the presets during playback to find the
sound you are looking for.
6. Double-click the desired preset to load it and close
the Presets browser.
• You can also open the Presets browser by clicking in
the preset name field in the control panel of a VST Instru-
ment or by clicking the button next to the Preset name in
the control panel and selecting “Load Preset…” from the
pop-up menu.
• Selecting another preset in the Presets browser will
load it directly, replacing the previous preset.
• When the Presets browser is open, you can still use
Project window key commands, allowing you to start/stop
playback or locate to different positions in the project.
• Clicking the Reset button below the Viewer will reload
the last loaded preset.
Saving VST Instrument presets
You can save your settings as presets for further use (e.g.
in other projects):
1. In the VST Instrument panel, click the button to the right
of the preset name and select “Save Preset…” from the
pop-up menu.
This opens a dialog where you can save the current settings as a preset.
Presets are saved into a default folder named VST3 Pre-
sets. Within this folder, there is a folder called “Steinberg
Media Technologies” where the included presets are ar-
ranged in subfolders named after each instrument.
You cannot change the default folder, but you can add fur-
ther subfolders inside the instrument’s preset folder.
• Under Windows XP, the default preset folder is in the
following location: \Documents and Settings\<user
name>\Application data\VST3 Presets.
• Under Windows Vista, the default preset folder is in the
following location: \Users\<user name>\AppData\Roam-
ing\VST3 Presets.
• Under Mac OS, the default preset folder is in the follow-
ing location: /Users/<user name>/Library/Audio/Presets/
<company>/<plug-in name>.
2. Enter a name for the new preset in the File name field
in the lower part of the dialog.
• If you wish to assign attributes to the preset, click the
Tag Editor button.
Click in the Value column to select an appropriate “tag” for one or sev-
eral of the available categories in the Attributes column.
3. Click OK to store the preset and exit the dialog.
!
Note that the following refers to the selection of VST 3
presets (.vstpreset). If you want to apply .fxp/.fxb pre-
sets to your VST 2 instruments in this way, see “About
earlier VST Instrument presets” on page 106.