Problem: Hot-swapping… have to navigate to all these different folders. Wah! So annoying. End up neglecting certain folders of presets due to their unfortunate locations. Presets get sad and lonely, and begin to wither.

Solution:
Ableton 9 has a built-in secret “Folder Architecture”. Fiddling around with how things appear in the browser i discovered that if you make a folder with the same name as one of the built-in categories (for instance: “Amp Simulation”) in your User Library Presets folders, any presets in that folder will appear in the respective folder of the same name in the “Categories” pane of the browser (instrument, drum, audio effect, or midi effect racks). Customizing this way provides more unified access to all factory and user-created content in the same location, which makes my life easier. If i want an amp coloration effect preset, for instance, i have one single folder i can open up where i see all user AND factory presets (and even vst and max for live presets) all in one nice list together, easy to hot-swap and preview amongst. How to do this? Simply save files in your user library, organized however you like, but in folders with specific names. That’s all! The text has to be verbatim. There are only certain folder names you can use, which i figured out with experimentation.  Continue reading →