Working with Presets

A Preset (also referred as instrument) in Virtual Sampler is a set of splits. A Preset can contain an unlimited number of splits, that means you can stack splits to create layered instruments (Presets). Presets are organized in banks. The banks are numbered from 0..31. Each bank can contain up to 64 Presets which are numbered from 1..64. This is called a program (preset) number for the current bank. This means that a preset is identified by its bank number and its program number. When in Virtual Sampler Multi mode, banks and program numbers for the current multi can also be changed by ordinary MIDI commands.

The Presets Grid

The Presets Grid holds information on names as well as bank numbers and program numbers for all Presets that are currently available. The Presets Grid is located on the Presets page. You can navigate through the Presets grid with the mouse or with the cursor keys. Presets can be empty or can hold an instrument with split definitions. Once a preset is activated, its splits will be displayed within the Split Control Panel (see "Working with Splits" for details) and the sound becomes available for playing with the OnScreen keyboard or via MIDI when in Virtual Sampler Preset mode.

The selected preset (instrument) has a red frame. Once you've selected a preset entry, you can perform operations on that preset (for example delete it, create a new preset, rename preset). When you have selected a preset and you click once again on it with the left mouse, the presets grid switches into edit mode, where you can edit the name of the selected preset. You leave the edit mode by clicking on another preset or by pressing the <Return> key.  You also can switch back to edit mode with the <Return> key. Note that you also can change the name of the current preset with the edit control in the toolbar of Virtual Sampler.

Inside the preset grid you also can move or duplicate presets to another presets. This is done by a drag & drop operation. To perform drag&drop inside the presets grid do the following:

You can cancel a drag&drop operation by moving the mouse until a stop symbol is displayed, release the right mouse button and press the left mouse button.

The "Action on drop" controls on the Presets page are used to define the operation when a preset is dropped. See "Presets page" for possible values and meaning.

The Context-Menu for the Presets Grid

When you click the right mouse button on the Presets grid, a context-menu appears where you can select several operations for the preset. The available commands are:

Note: All of these commands are also available with buttons on the presets page or with commands from the main menu. Each clipboard copy operation erases the old data. Also clipboard data is cleared when you delete the associated preset or split !

Selecting and deselecting an instrument for a Preset

Initially all Presets of Virtual Sampler are empty. You can select an instrument for a preset by performing one of the following tasks:

To erase an instrument for a preset, you can use the "Delete" button. Note that all splits for the preset are erased from memory. If the associated sample data is not part of another preset or split, it will be lost.

To rearrange Preset locations, use drag&drop operations on the presets grid with the appropriate "Action on drop" value set. Sett the "Presets page" for details on "Action on drop".

To activate a preset, click on the preset in the presets grid on the presets page or doubleclick onto the appropriate entry in the bank viewer on the right side of the Virtual Sampler Main window.

No77te: Instruments or even splits that have equal data bytes in their sample data will only be stored once. That means if you have 2 or more instruments or 2 or more splits (in the same or in another instrument) that access the same sample, this sample will only be stored once. This prevents from a waste of sample memory. The integrity of the samples is maintained by the sampler. If you modify a shared sample (for example by changing its sample rate), you will be asked to copy the sample or to perform the action on all shared samples for all instruments or splits that access this sample.

Virtual Sampler "Preset" and "Multi" mode

Virtual Sampler knows two modes of MIDI operation: Preset and Multi mode. This is set in the toolbar of the Virtual Sampler Main window with the appropriate switch.

In Preset mode

In Multi mode

The Virtual Sampler load mechanism for Presets

By default Virtual Sampler loads splits into memory when the first note inside the split's key range is played with the OnScreen keyboard. This can result in a delay when you have large splits, but it is suitable for edit mode where the latency is not so important. For real operation you can select the "Load Preset on selection" checkbox on the Presets page. If selected, all split data for a preset is loaded when the preset is selected. This will result in a delay depending on the size of the preset, but once a preset is loaded into memory, access to the splits is very fast without a noticeable delay.

Note: When selecting a preset for a multi in the "Multi page", the preset is always loaded to memory no matter of the settings of "Load Preset on selection". This switch is only important when working with the presets grid.