Alchemy - searching for preset by name only

[Danny Wyatt]

As an example, if I type "Dark" in the search field, I get this list:

You can see that almost all of them do not have "dark" in the name.
I can see that these are showing because they use the tag "dark", but what if I just want to find them by name:

I tried
dark
"dark"
name:dark

No changes. Is it really impossible to search just by name...?

 

[David Nahmani]

Unfortunately I don't believe that's possible. 

[wonshu]

You can, if you use the Library tab and move the little blue triangle from the channel strip to the instrument slot, then you search those presets.

But I haven't double checked how complete those are and if they really reflect everything that is in Alchemys browser...

[David Nahmani]

2 hours ago, wonshu said:

use the Library tab and move the little blue triangle from the channel strip to the instrument slot, then you search those presets.

Yes! That works! Didn't think of just using the Library rather than the Alchemy browser, thanks for your answer. 🙂 

 

[Danny Wyatt]

Unfortunately, that's not what I was trying to achieve. I wanted to just use the plugin's search box for a few reasons

1 - Using the Library when I'm using the plugin means I have to open another window and all that, and since my screen is 13", that means moving the plugin to the right or even close it in order to find a preset

2 - If I already have a few tags selected inside the browser such as Bass, Analog, Bright, for example, I want to be able to narrow the search even more by using a keyword.

3 - Logic's library is very limited when it comes to how it finds patches and presets. If the preset/patch is called "Vintage Organ" and you type "Organ Vintage" you get no results:

If you type the exact name, you do:

Alchemy finds it no matter what:

4 - The library can't find "all" words, only if they are in order (pretty dumb...):

 

So yeah, unfortunately the library is not the solution..
I was just wondering if the search field uses some kind of "wildcards/booleans" or something like that to filter the results? I just wanted to show presets with those words in the name. 
Something similar to Finder like
name:dark

Edited December 12, 2022 by Danny Wyatt

[des99]

The only search option supported according to the manual is the minus operator:

"You can refine a text search with the minus symbol. For example, to search for all presets matching analog but not bass, use the search term analog -bass."

Edited December 12, 2022 by des99

[wonshu]

1 hour ago, des99 said:

The only search option supported according to the manual is the minus operator:

Ah, didn't know that. Thank you!

[David Nahmani]

1 hour ago, Danny Wyatt said:

The library can't find "all" words, only if they are in order

That's a real bummer. The Library definitely needs improvement in the search functionalities department!

[Danny Wyatt]

3 hours ago, des99 said:

The only search option supported according to the manual is the minus operator:

"You can refine a text search with the minus symbol. For example, to search for all presets matching analog but not bass, use the search term analog -bass."

Yeah when I saw that section I was hoping there were some hidden "gems" as well that they weren't sharing... I guess not. Too bad...

[Danny Wyatt]

1 hour ago, David Nahmani said:

That's a real bummer. The Library definitely needs improvement in the search functionalities department!

It really is. I think both the Library and the Loops section could really benefit from just a little bit of tweaking and it would be perfect enough to make them super useful. It's such a shame that sometimes these features seem to be developed enough to be there, but then they are forgotten as if they are "done". Having a Library that supports tags, just like the Loops section, and both of them supporting custom tags, would be a game changer. Still not perfect, but already a big step in the right direction in my opinion

[des99]

Agreed the library browser could do with some love - I’d particularly like a favourites feature too…

[Nunstummy]

On 12/12/2022 at 9:20 AM, Danny Wyatt said:

Having a Library that supports tags, just like the Loops section, and both of them supporting custom tags, would be a game changer. Still not perfect, but already a big step in the right direction in my opinion

Late to read this post.  I think the problem is that early Logic instruments had no standard for tagging presets, whereas Alchemy does - or appears to in the Brower section.  So, what would Apple/Logic development team have to do to make all the old synths compliant? (ES1, ES2, ESFM, Retro Synth…) How far back do you go?  Would the existing user community see this as an enhancement?  Might only appeal to new users.

Native Instruments has done a good job with standard preset tagging, then included those standards in the *.NKS documentation but not all partners comply.  I find many 3rd party Kontakt instruments might not have any tagging what-so-ever.  If you use Komplete Kontrol, with the browser and filtering, you only get NI instruments.  Most 3rd party Kontakt instruments won’t be in the search results. Also, Arturia is an NKS partner, but they have their own preset browser and their tagging system is inaccessible from Komplete Kontrol and the browser.  But, at least NI is trying to promote a standard tagging to all their partners.

Samples are easy, as the tagging is standard across all vendors.  As a result, you can use ADSR Sample Manager, Cosmos, or Logic Loop Browser regardless of where your samples came from.  But with instrument presets every vendor has a different tagging method - meaning you can’t browse presets from one vendor to the next from one library tool.

Maybe this is a case for some AI driven app?

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Nunstummy

[des99]

Alchemy has a built-in patch browser, the emagic synths do not. The ratings and favourites functions in the preset browser were all part of Alchemy prior to the Apple acquisition of Camel Audio.

What Apple should really do imo is to add some of these features to the main library browser in Logic (ratings, favourites etc), then all the features would apply across all the content types in Logic (apart from Loops, which is a separate browser).