Wishlist - ability to transfer .bnk, .prj, and .sng files too
Other wishlist threads for NanoStudio as a whole have pointed out the desire to sync/backup your entire project folders to your PC other than indirectly as part of iTune's app data backup (which we can't easily get to).
This is asking for something similar but perhaps is an easier triage "fix" to roll out than a full-scale project sync/backup feature.
If you look at the section -------- Understanding/Managing the Eden Synth presets ---------------- in my Newbie Guide (http://forums.blipinteractive.co.uk/node/108), you'll see that a current problem is how to copy any custom Eden presets I've created from one project into another. I can't see any way to actually do that unless you either implement a more granular and robust library utility for Eden presets, or else you do the simple thing and just enable us to somehow copy the Eden.bnk file from one project into another project. You could do this in two ways, the first way probably being more difficult and taking longer:
A) Modify the Project UI to enable browsing to Eden.bnk files and then choosing "Load Copy" similar to your workflow for copying samples into a project folder.
B) Modify NanoSync to "see" and let you transfer *all* file types in a project folder rather than hardcoding a filter that displays only the .wav files. This would temporarily give us a "project backup" solution until you get some more robust project sync/transfer functionality in place.
I saw the files by looking at the five factory demo projects in the Mac OSX version of NS. Using the special "Finder" button that appears only in the desktop versions of NS. ;-)
Ya, the sample mapping for some custom patches/presets can be a toughie for pretty much any workstation unless somebody has written a very powerful librarian utility specifically for a given architecture that can keep track of all the bits and pieces automagically for you. I had to write entire sets of *long* wiki articles for the Korg M3 to explain how to keep all your program and combi banks for that workstation in good shape. Neither Korg nor anyone else has (to my knowledge) written a *good* librarian utility for it.
Ya, using a slot or two from GLOBAL A or GLOBAL B could work for copying custom presets around, I'm just loathe to ever remove patches that somebody developed. You never know when you'll finally need a sound "just like that one", lol.
Updating that section of the Newbie Guide now to mention that staging in and out of a GLOBAL bank is the workaround for now. Cheers!
Eden patches (when including no sample data) should be quite small... Small enough to just email them off the device? Then you could reimport them to another project...
D.
would it not be possible to have say an "EdenSamples" folder within the app directory that everyone can use as the basis for their sample locations for Eden?
eg /EdenSamples/jmp909/korg/blah.wav
then maybe use NanoSync to put the samples there, so when I share a patch the user makes sure they put the samples in that location. (obviously an "import" tool would in NanoSync which could take say a zip of the NSP and the WAVS and then create the folders for you would be great (assuming the user wanted to put the samples to the EdenSamples bank rather than keep them within the project)
maybe not explaining this properly, but you probabaly get the idea.
basically:
* select "import file" (BNK, NSP etc)
* import process recognizes file contains references to the /EdenSamples folder
* have a "use shared folder?" option..ticking this recreates the relevant structure below "/EdenSamples" (otherwise it copies samples to project folder..or leaves them in the BNK or whatever..not sure how this currently works)
also a .EDN file format for single Eden patches would be great (again adhering to the system above for patches using samples)
just an idea anyway..
thanks
j
My original itention was to allow users to put Eden samples where they like - this way, shared samples don't take up extra space and unique samples can be, well, unique. The trouble is that this makes import, export and general management much more complex.
I think the best solution is to go a step further and have a sample folder per Eden bank, more like the TRG banks. Each folder would contain a bank/preset file plus the samples it uses.
my suggestion was really to be able to use a folder local to the bank & a shared folder if required.
that way different people can also make different presets from a common set of samples..
ie
/UserSamples/jmp909/korg/
well everyone could use my korg samples in their patches now. without needing another copy of the samples. In fact it would be good if the /UserSamples folder could be shared between both TRG and Eden...
and as responsible community members we would only make samples within our own folders, not create patches that overwrite other people's ;)
but essentially my kit could be made up of
/UserSamples/jmp909/beats/kit1/bd.wav
/UserSamples/Blip/Shakers/shaker1.wav
/Samples/EdenFactory/BassA.wav
(current EdenBank)/samples/sn.wav
you could then have an option to package the whole kit up with all the samples in, *but* when importing it back to another device (through NanoSync etc), it would know that the samples referenced with /UserSamples should be moved out of the bank file that I am importing and into the shared folder.
therefore once on my device and inside NanoStudio the bank file would only actually finally contain the /samples/sn.wav file within it. All other samples would be just references to the shared locations (which I presume happens when creating banks with Factory sounds in them at the moment anyway?)
Alternatively (and simpler) it could just warn/inform me that I need the samples from "/UserSamples/jmp909" and it's up to me to download them from jmp909's site (or wherever) and copy them to the device myself.
well just an idea anyway.
thanks
j
Eden could definitely do with a bank utility screen to do all sorts of copying/restoring/moving.
In the interim, I really saw the global banks as the way to do this. So when you've got some project presets you like which you want to use elsewhere, write them to the global bank. In your new project, you can use them from there or copy them over to the new project.
Originally I was going to have a load of empty global presets for doing this, but I ended up filling them up anway. I figured that people could just overwrite their least favourites and keep a few around for copying between projects.
It's really very easy to modify NanoSync to allow you to see all the files (easier than the hardcoded filter) but I'm concerned about people doing damage to the file system and then falsely giving the app a bad reputation for supposedly 'losing my data' (in fact, I know this will happen). I'd prefer some sort of protection but I don't want to nanny people iTunes-style either.
A second and more subtle issue is that some presets can't just simply be moved around (not between different installs anyway), because they may refer to samples which aren't present on the destination device.
So how are you seeing these files? Are you using the PC build or do you have a Jailbroken device?