A Really Depressing Question (Yes it's Synth Related..)

You've all known me for sometime and know that I'm somewhat of any expert on the Roland synths (and other synths). I also happen to be very familiar with working with computers (i.e. Pro-Tools, Emagic, Cubase).

The thing is however, as many studios as I've been in and worked in, I've never had to use a Patch Librarian. Why? Well, I've always been familiar with how to operate synths (From the Korgs to the Kurzweils) and have been familiar with their sequencers and patch layouts.

In my studio, my Roland XP60 and S760 are making me fed up (dare I say this) because of the sheer number of sounds. This aint like the DX7 days when you'd have 32 patches per bank. My board is expanded and has something like 1500 +/- patches.

I'm tired of scrolling through looking for inspiration for my next track. I've read up on programs like Sound Diver, etc. but would like some advice from you all (who may be more experienced with librarians) on how a librarian would help me, and if I could organize patches by instrument category (The Roland JV2080 and later synths could do this, I'm not quite sure why Roland left it out of the XP60, which came out a year later than the JV2080).

All I'm saying is that I have this old PII350/64MB PC laying around and thought it would be cool if I used this (or this old PII266 laptop I have) for a program like Sound Diver.

Is getting program like this going to help me make better use of my MIDI setup?

Thanks - The Infamous Epu.

Well, I think I downloaded 10000+ programs/combis and they are all pretty much the same. I know Cakewalk has its own librarian. I use to use Unisyn but haven't reloaded it to newer PC.

Scrolling through presets looking for inspiration is the worst way of working. I used to do that when I had just bought the K2000R and downloaded 100 billion sounds.

Try to make patches in your head and then recreate them on the synth. I do that alot with the micromod. You'll also find that once you start doing that, in most cases the synth is located where you are not, work, a forest or some ladies underwear department.

-tek

I really love to use that kind of music patches


Serious though;
Epu you should have tried sonar/cpa as well!!
Works excellent with any roland including sysx dumps..and easy to name the patches.

About storing and control where;
I personally save everything om my PC.
Just with different directories and subdirectories..
f.i. d:\Instruments\RolandG800\etc....

For editing/control/change params etc.. I use sounddiver 3.0 (supports K 2600 as well.)

Using a computer editor/librarian has the advantage that most computer programs offer over using the LCD to sequence or edit patches, and that is the abilty to see multiple parameters simultaneously onscreen. It simply saves a lot of button pressing on your keyboard to get the same result. And one ability of a good librarian is to store patches into a database and sort them into banks based on keyword. It makes patch management a lot easier plus saves wear and tear on your keyboard buttons.

maybe I should shut my mouth cuz I am just a "newbie" ... however, I feel the same: while browsing through the huuuuundreds of presets all my inspiration goes down the drain very quickly (even though I only have 3 synths and just got started a few months ago). Meanwhile, whenever I think of a cool sound or get inspired from a track I've listened to, I just sit down and try to CREATE that sound from scatch on my synths. That's fun! Just my humble opinion, of course ;-)