Studio One / FSP8 FX Chain Storage Issue?

[Craig Anderton]

[Edit - Sorry, the fix didn't seem to work. The Browser's FX Chains now show a mix of presets from D:\Studio One\Presets\PreSonus\FX Chains\v3.0 FX Chains and D:\Studio One\Presets\Fender\FX Chains\v3.0 FX Chains, even though I tested with both having the same presets. So the program seems to not be treating either one as the "official" home for FX Chains. All I really want to know is what single folder will FSP recognize as the default location for FX Chains? Then in theory they'll all show up in the Browser, and if I save a new FX Chain, it will go into that folder. Until then, I'm keeping my collection of FX Chains in a folder on the desktop, and dragging them into FSP as needed.]

I found out the following solution because I had issues with FX Chains not saving where expected, new FX Chains not showing up in the Browser but showing up in the same Explorer folder as other presets in the Browser, and a variety of other annoying issues that seemed to relate to Studio One vs. FSP. Maybe I'm the only one who's experienced these kinds of issues. But if not, and you use a lot of FX Chains, hopefully the following will ensure that your S1 FX Chains and newer FSP FX Chains will show up correctly in custom Browser folders.

If you have your FX chains in a User Data folder like D:\Studio One\Presets\PreSonus\FX Chains\v3.0 FX Chains, you need to move them to a folder in D:\Studio One\Presets\Fender\FX Chains\v3.0 FX Chains. I tried simply renaming the PreSonus folder in Presets to Fender, but that didn't solve all the problems I had. It seemed the files needed to be moved to the Fender-named folder.

 

[Craig Anderton]

Maybe there's no obvious answer to this...surely there must be a preferred folder structure for User FX Chains?

 

[Stuart Welwood]

Inspired by your Huge Book of Studio One Tips and Tricks, I was planning on making up my own FX Chain to help solve my hearing problem.

An audiologist determined years ago that my left ear has a big dip in response around 12 kHz. As a result, when I switch channels on a stereo mix, I sometimes find a big L-R spectral imbalance. So I'm thinking of an FX chain that both measures and allows correction of L-R spectral imbalance.

Now, in which folder do I put it?

 

[Craig Anderton]

Ping - no one has an answer for this?

 

[Craig Anderton]

I guess in the next book, I'll not include a section about where presets should go when upgrading from a PreSonus to Fender software. I'm not the only person who's confused, I've seen multiple contradictory "solutions" online. I'll recommend that people put a folder on their desktop and drag in presets as needed. That seems pretty fail-safe.

 

[Craig Anderton]

Ok, I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to software weirdness but I think I've found out what's happening. Note that I want a way to avoid storing stuff in the Documents folder on the Windows C: drive, which is the normal default for User Data.

I'm trying to collect all the FX Chains and presets for the 3rd Edition of The Huge Book of Studio One Tips and Tricks, so I wanted to rebuild the preset file paths from scratch and have a nice, clean, FSP-specific set of preset folders on my hard drive. I created a new User Data folder in a virgin external hard drive, pointed FSP to it, and started trying to construct a new, FSP-centric set of file paths. My goal was to replace the existing User Data folder with the cleaned-up one.

FSP found my FX Chains, but I think I've figured out why no one has provided an answer to my original question. As far as I can tell, with Windows the following statements are all true. Please correct me if I'm wrong:

• FSP differentiates between FX Chains created before and after FSP was introduced. It uses the older ones from X:\StudioPro_UserData\Presets\PreSonus\FX Chains\. Meanwhile, the new ones go in X:\StudioPro_UserData\Presets\Fender\FX Chains\.
• Drag and drop no longer works as expected. Dragging an FX Chain over to FX Chains in the Browser requires that the chain be imported, then moved to the folder where you want it.
• If you drag a folder of FX Chains to the Browser, it imports them as individual files and dumps them in the PreSonus file path. Then you have to create a new folder in FSP and move the presets from where they were dumped in the browser. However, when you create the new folder, it doesn't show up in the Fender path. It shows up in the PreSonus path.
• You can't create a folder on your hard drive and have it show up in either the PreSonus or Fender file path.
• If you drag a PreSonus FX chain into a channel, then replace the FX Chain, it will store the updated FX Chain in the Fender path and leave the old version in the PreSonus path.
• Some people online have recommended changing the usual X:\StudioPro_UserData\Presets\PreSonus\FX Chains\ by replacing PreSonus with Fender. But FSP still seems to know it's not part of the Fender preset path and I don't think it addresses these inconsistencies.

It would have been nice if FSP had a migration tool that consolidated the user presets from Studio One with the new file paths in FSP. To Fender's credit, if you don't actually need to consolidate your presets or move them, FSP will probably find them. But in terms of writing a section of a book called "How FSP Stores FX Chains," I think the explanation would be too convoluted for most people.

Until I can figure out a clean way to consolidate everything, rather than using the Browser I'm keeping my files in a folder on the desktop, and dragging presets over into a Session as needed. I became nervous when storing presets saved them in more than one place. It's important that the files included in the book are the most current versions. Managing which are in the PreSonus path and which are in the Fender path will be a problem until all the various presets, multipresets, instruments, etc. can live in FSP-centric folders, without duplications.

Of course - I don't know everything! If anyone has an easy way to do this kind of preset migration, please let me know.

 

[Craig Anderton]

I guess after I get this figured out, the next task is to figure out how to be able to access the presets from either Studio One or FSP.