Every time I open up the plugin browser in Reaper, I spend several seconds staring at it uselessly before I begin to find what I’m looking for. It’s not that the plugins aren’t organized well–they have folders for each of the brands, and then I have my own folders with things like EQs, compressors, etc. But it’s all just so tiny and hard to read. I open up my folder of SoundToys plugins to look for MicroShift and it’s like… every single time it takes me forever to find it, even with alphabetical order! I wish that there were little picture previews or icons or something. Maybe just larger text? I don’t know. I find myself just dragging plugins from other tracks whenever I can, to avoid having to use the browser.
Does anybody else have this problem? It’s something that’s been bothering me for a while.
There are some other ways to work with this. For one, if you use certain plugins frequently, if you right-click on the green FX button on a track, you’ll see a list of recently used plugins, and also the same list of folders you see in the browser. Also, if you use sets of plugins on similar tracks often, you can create Plugin Chains and save them with a name that makes sense to you. Just right-click in the plugin browser and choose your Plugin Chain. Also, you can save Track Templates which is kind of similar, though using a set of tracks (say lead vocal, backing vocal 1, backing vocal 2) but with any plugins you want on them also. Just right-click on an open/unused part of the track list and “Insert track from template” (it can be more than one track though).
Huh, I didn’t know about the recently used plugins thing. That might help actually. I’ll try it out. I did know about plugin chains, but I’m not sure I’d get much use out of them. Maybe someday when I have more of an idea what I’m doing. I’ve created some track presets with various instruments loaded up and some settings to make that happen faster, which is nice.
Haha, well I’ve been judicious about buying plugins for the most part, so I hope I don’t have too many! Something about the window just does not work for my eyes/brain. I’ve used the filter feature before, but I’m not in the mood to type when I am looking for a plugin. Plus the text stays there the next time you open up the browser… I don’t know. It’s a good idea, but I just haven’t liked it.
What I’m really hoping is that it’s possible to create a new skin for it, and maybe someone already has, or something like that. Maybe I could make one. I haven’t done anything like that in Reaper before though and wouldn’t know where to start.
Yep, I just type the first few letters in the search bar too, like Ingolee said. I nearly always knwo what i am after so that’s my way of quickly finding it.
I plead guilty on that charge
And I certainly recognise the problem Christina! I sometimes look for plugins using the search option, but you miss some if you can’t think of the specific name of the plugin. Typing in “comp” usually gets you a long list of compressors but you’ll miss some because they don’t have “comp” in their name (Klanghelm MJUC for instance). I guess you’d have to rename those so that they do. But then that still leaves me with 40 or compressor plugins to choose from…
I know: way too many compressors (and the rest) but they all have something special and many were free. I just can’t choose which I should throw out.
Also, slightly of topic, a nice thing about saving plugin chains, even if you only save one plugin in the chain, is that it’ll save all of your settings as well.
I’ve created some track presets with various instruments loaded up and some settings to make that happen faster, which is nice.