VST sample file portability - Morgana asks for unnecessary files

[questions]

First off, thanks for Morgana.  It's an inspiring instrument.

I have a concern about project portability.  From what I can see, all sample (wav) and settings data are stored in *.mmd bank files.  When I'm done working on a Cubase SX3 (Windows XP) project that uses Morgana, I save Morgana's current samples and settings as an *.mmd file in my Cubase project directory.  Ideally, I want to be able to open the project on a couple of different computers, and this keeps everything consolidated in one folder.

However, when I open the same project on other computer with Morgana installed, Morgana asks for a series of "Recorded*.wav" files.  If I ignore all of those requests and tell Morgana to load the *.mmd file in the project folder, everything is fine.

If I had to guess at what's happening here, it looks like Morgana retains references to missing files in:

"C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\My Documents\112dB\Recorded Wavs"

I assume that wav files saved in that area are temp files required until the user saves Morgana's current data to a bank or patch file.  However, once that's done, it looks like those references persist.

When I close my Cubase projects, I export all of Morgana's memory to an *.mmd file.  When I load that project again, I just want it to automatically reload that file - or at least not go looking for files it doesn't require.  Am I doing something incorrectly?

Again, thanks for the great product and help.

[dj!]

What's going on here is that Morgana (like all samplers) saves only references (that is, paths) to sample files in the host project.  When you save the settings as as MMD however the actual sample data is saved as well, making the MMD a portable format to carry to a different computer.

The problem is that when you re-open a saved Cubase project on a different computer the settings Morgana receives from the host (Cubase) includes the references saved in the project--it doesn't know about the MMD you saved alongside with it.  Since those files probably don't exist on the 2nd computer you get those warnings about not being able to find the samples.  The MMD on the other hand contains the sample data so Morgana knows it doesn't have to look for additional files.

So most of the behavior you witness is intended.  What's really broken here is the "Locate sample" dialog--it shd give you an option to just skip all subsequent samples as well.  That way you could simply load the project, click "Skip all" once, and then proceed to load the MMD.  I will add that in the next build.

The option that you suggest is intruiging though.  If you export an MMD file Morgana could indeed "remember" that you saved a memory dump and, when you close the Cubase project, record that fact in the project so when you load it on a different computer and it sees the MMD it just loads that instead.  Interesting.  I'll check how difficult that behavior is to implement, it would definitely make the process of transferring projects to a different computer more transparent.

Thanks for the suggestion & sorry about the confusion!

-- dj!

[questions]

Thanks for this comprehensive and thoughtful answer.

In the end, it's not a great hardship to have cancel all of those "Recorded*.wav" load requests.  Once I load the *.mmd, I'm back in business.  If you can add a "No to all" option on that first dialog, that makes life a little sweeter.

If Morgana can somewhow grab the current project directory from the VST host and look for an *.mmd there, that certainly makes things more transparent.  I also appreciate that you need to make this work with hosts other than Cubase, and I don't want to fragment your build too much.

I've been doing some tests at this end - trying to get Morgana to find the *.mmd file on its own.  Once I had copied my project folder to another computer, I added that project's folder path to Morgana's file browser.  When I reloaded the project, it didn't make a difference.  It looks like Morgana doesn't search its own browser directories for missing *.mmd files - just *.wav files.

Is this what's happening? That would explain what's happening at this end.  Cubase is saving all of Morgana's panel settings, and that prompts Morgana to look for samples.  However, if it doesn't find them in the form of *.wav files, it stops there.  If Morgana knew that the sample resources were saved in a monolith *.mmd file and looked for that, that seems like half the battle.

In any case, thanks for listening.  I can work around all of this because Morgana is too much fun.  If you can address some of these questions in future builds, that's great.

Thanks again for the time and consideration.

[dj!]

Your understanding of what's (not) going on is entirely accurate: Morgana doesn't remember saving MMD files and consequently doesn't look for them either when loading samples.

I will definitely add a "No to all" button to the next build.  Also I checked into the possibility of having Morgana remembers MMD saves and didn't spot any conceptual problems with that, so I'll start implementing something along those lines to make it easier (and perhaps entirely transparent) to carry projects to a different computer.

Thanks & take care,

-- dj!