Importing .glos into Absynth 4

I've seen some confusion about importing .glos both here and on other forums. Here's how to do it;

First of all, if your .glo needs samples, the samples need to be in the sample folder you set in the first page of your options. If you're still using Absynth 2 or 3 for any projects, I'd advise you either copy the contents of the A2 and/or A3 sample folder to the folder you set in A4's options, or set the A4 sample location to the A2/A3 sample folder and move the newsamples there. If the samples are in a folder with the bank (such as the biolabs banks) and not in the sample folder, copy them to the designated A4 sample folder. Otherwise, if you just move them, you'll get a "sample not found" flag when loading banks into A2 or A3.

When you first choose to import a .glo, you'll get a popup window that lets you choose the source folder. You'll ALSO get one for the destination folder. If you don't get the destination folder popup after selecting the source bank, the window's being covered. Move the Absynth GUI until you see it.

For the destination, choose the location that appears in the database path in your options (on Windows, it's My Documents/Native Instruments/Shared Content/Sounds/Absynth 4). You can have subfolders if you wish- I'd recommend using them myself. If you save them to the factory Absynth 3 or Absynth 4 .ksd locations that the Absynth 4 installer creates (on Windows, it's C:/Program Files/Common Files/Native Instruments/Shared Content/Sounds), you WILL NOT be able to save them to the same location if you edit- the sounds that are in that location CANNOT be overwritten. You'd end up with a bunch of duplicate entries in the database because you'd need to resave to a different location, and there'd be multiple copies.

ew

 

Thanks, ew, that's very helpful information.

It's too bad that NI have used a non-standard file dialog for the destination folder -- and it's also too bad that this dialog isn't labeled as "destination," as it's unusual for an app to ask for two folders in a row without any prompting.

I'll put in a feature request for the IMPORT operation to be a little more user-friendly. For one thing, each file dialog should remember the last folder used for that context. I have a LOT of glo's to import, and it's really tedious to keep re-navigating from the import folder to the destination folder.

ac

 

The next update will remember the destination folder, which should help a bit.

I'll agree that it could be a lot more streamlined and user friendly than it is.

ew

 

Thanks!

ac

 

Come to think of it, I might have spoken too quick here.

The people I know of who've tried the new version have Absynth remembering the destination folder. However, they're using the default for user content (the My Documents location). It could be that it remembers the default. This is STILL an improvement over how it stands now.

ew

 

Yes, remembering ANY location that's valid for storing patches would be an improvement! Right now, it remembers a useless location, which is worse than just popping a collapsed directory tree.

I've noticed that the AB4 browser keeps up to date when I modify KSD files in a folder, after importing. (Often the file names begin with leading spaces, which I then remove.)

With respect to imported ksd's, when (if ever) is it necessary to rebuild the db? Or is the "db" just the patches in the official "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Native Instruments\Shared Content\Sounds\Absynth 4" folders? (and not the patches in "My Sounds", etc.)

Thx,

ac

 

The only time I've gotten a rebuild database flag is after an install, and there it's a good idea to do so anyways.

I also do it to avoid duplicate patches. Because you can't extract single patches out of .glos, sometimes you have to import a bunch of duplicate patches to get the one you want imported if you have some .glos that were made from a bunch of different .glos. Even if you delete them afterwards, sometimes the main database (the one that lists all the patches) remembers them being there. So, I rebuild the database there, too.

ew

 

Hm, I have to say that importing is a huge mess! Apart from what has been said, here are 2 more things:

If there are duplicate names in a bank, A4 will append version numbers, but it'll "forget" to add the .ksd extension then. You have to go through and rename manually. Could be considered a bug, eh?

What irks me even more is the way how MIDI control assignments import into A4. On patches with MIDI-controlled (mc) breakpoints, ALL "0" values within mc-enabled envelopes will get an entry in the mod assignments list. They cannot be deleted, the only way to get rid of them is to set each and every breakpoint to "not assigned". Sometimes the assignment is "hidden", namely if the env had mc breakpoints before it was set to link mode. The reason may be due to the fact that in former Aby versions there was no "not assigned" entry in the controller list. So, even if both values of a breakpoint were left alone, it still said CC#1. A4 imports that "faithfully" - Arrgh!

I really hope these annoyances will get ironed out soon.

werner

PS: There's a lot more to say about the upgrade. I'm in the process of taking notes and will post my findings soon.

 

One more to be aware of:

Patch names in .glo banks can contain characters that are not allowed in file names (at least on PC), such as backslash, asterisk or question mark. Those patches WILL NOT be imported, nor will they be reported as failed. So if you miss patches from previous banks, check if their original names are valid filenames - or better: rename before importing.

EDIT: Sometimes those patches will import with stripped names, like "test3 /// -3" as "-3". But "test1 *** -1" didn't import at all.

 

I'm using A4 and A3 on a Mac

A lot of the Glo files have to be re-opened in A3 and re-saved before A4 will recognise them for conversion. Any idea why? I thought it was just because they were missing the .glo extension, but it's not that.

 

Also some Glo banks that open happly in A3 are crashing A4 on import.

Isn't this fun...

 

I haven't run into that. Which .glos?

ew

 

A great deal of the banks need to be resaved. Several of the the ones that were installed with A3 (or was it 2?) that were organised into thematic folders and started with a •

It's not a big deal as I have to open each bank in A3 anyway to check for non-standard characters (sigh) and edit and resave if there are any.

 

?

Why do you have to do that? The A2/A3 factory content's all been converted... that's all in the folder named Absynth 3 in your browser.

ew

 

Good point. Ho hum - I do feel stupid.

 

minority report

Don't... I ran into that very same problem for my own sounds: NI doesn't give a damn about user programmed banks. After all, they're only a minority!

 

Jym

Good to see you here.

Actually, it's done for cross-platform purposes. Windows will occasionally choke on non-standard names, and this is just to prevent that from happening.

ew

 

Any chance that someone who's already done the hassle of importing the freely available patches from Yahoo Groups, etc. post a zip file of them so others don't have to go through the hassle of the importing process?

If not, I may do that if no one else has done it.

dB

 

Well. I've done the importing job, but I think I made something of a mess of it - lots of duplication and a rather stupid folder organisation. I also did a lot of mild renaming / capitalisation - so what I've got may not be the best that can be done. It will also include stray patches from other places, Oh and no database attributes as yet.

If no one else offers anything better, I can try and post a zip somewhere - although I'll need someone to give me advice as to what to do. The zip is 38.6 MB when it's all wrapped up

 

It's the attributes that are going to take the longest. I'm rather dreading it tbh - so far I've just been using what came with all 3 of the KORE enabled versions plugins and using the old versions to play old banks - problem is as soon as you import say a bank of 128 presets it's going to convert into 128 different sounds scattered throughout the library - all 128 needing attributes setting and then resaving- and for Absynth and FM7/8 there are dozens of banks out there. Is there a way to keep them together in order to tag them? - can you import them into a seperate "imports" folder pending tagging for example?