Export preset as reversible hash?

Save the preset with a name that references the track and firmware version. Add the saved preset and , heck why not, the binary for the required firmware to your DAW session. Viola!
Yeah, thats what I implied. He wants to just click a button and it all be automated.
 
I don't think this is a worthwhile place for Fractal to focus tbh. Just save your presets and keep copies of them, making sure you use a good labelling and hierarchical storage solution.
 
Save the preset with a name that references the track

Yes, that's the current workaround. That can even work for simple projects. For real-world projects with many tracks and tracks that get renamed, copied, deleted, etc. that can become a pain. That's why there have been many wish threads proposing a better way to do it.
 
Isn't the whole point of "standard" plugin formats to avoid that?
"minimize" might be a better word than "avoid", but you're right that standards mean a team isn't required in order to write, maintain, and support a trivial plugin. I believe I'm living proof that even sophisticated plugins can be written by one person :).

But the bigger point here is that some effort is always required to improve products, and the OP is simply saying that this is an area that deserves some effort.
 
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I wish that Fractal would provide a very simple api for doing some common things even if to use it you'd be required to have the editor and hardware online. The ability to send/receive a preset in a human readable format like json would go a LONG way and probably address a ton of automation scenarios. I started trying to dissect the the midi files but quickly got burned out on it. I might take another stab as I think I've figured out where I was getting stuck. Still this requires keeping track of what is saved in the preset as new firmware is released and the schema changes over time which they don't seem to make publicly available so you'd have to learn by observation/comparison.

Fractool will let you do a csv export of a preset if you want a text representation of the preset and it looks like most of those are around 75-100k. Not sure what the limits are for storing notes on the individual tracks.
 
Honestly all I'm asking for is some sort of text version of the preset that can be recorded in a text area and recovered later. A plugin would be great but I really do think that's beyond any expectations that I have for the Fractal crew.

I've tried a base64 encoding but for some reason the output wasn't reversible back to an object that the AF understood. I'll keep plugging at it.
 
  1. Save the preset bundle in the project folder or a common folder of presets used in various presets.
  2. Save the preset with a unique name (might include date or use a version number if you iterate on the same preset).
  3. In the notes for the track, input this unique name and the Fractal device and firmware version. I'd also record what guitar you used
  4. In the future, if you want to have the same exact tone, you'll need to load the firmware version and the preset as firmware updates can change how the preset sounds.
 
The editor can export a text version of the preset settings. XML as well.
I don't think there's a corresponding import, so I don't think that will help. Even if there was an import, it's using ascii instead of base64, so that's probably not a good solution.

I wrote an app to do the preset encoding/decoding with drag and drop to make the process as streamlined as possible. This works much better than saving a preset .syx file, but it's still awkward. There are 4 steps to save a preset into a track note and 3 steps to restore it from a track note. Also, this doesn't work in all DAWs. For example, Cubase can't store a note that large.

This illustrates the point that a plugin with a one click save and one click restore would be a much simpler and more universal solution.


Edit:
For anybody who wants to try it, here's a google drive download link for the Mac app. Put it in the dock after you download and unzip it. (No warranties, use at your own risk, etc.)

Code:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jutYVpLPpJKxbx63QCfxqcvYeY_2NRl-/view?usp=share_link

Instructions:

Save:

1) Export the preset in Axe-Edit to a .syx
2) Navigate to the folder in the Finder where you stored the .syx
3) Drag the .syx file to the encoder app in the dock. This encodes the preset, saves that encoding into a .b64 file, and puts the base64 text in the clipboard.
4) Go to your DAW and paste into your track note. It'll be quite large, at least 60KB.


Restore:

1) Copy the preset text from your DAW track note that you pasted earlier.
2) Click on the app icon in the dock. This will decode the base64 clipboard text into a axefxpreset.syx file in your home folder.
3) Use Axe-Edit to import that axefxpreset.syx file in your home folder that was created in step 2.
 
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FracTool…Full system backup, firmware version file saved in same folder of project.
Creating a plug-in or integrating with all DAWs would require a whole other team of programmers. Not likely happening.
they already have plugins, so they have the programmers if they wanted to do it...would be a great feature if it happened but also i am not missing it that bad even though i use axe fx almost daily for commercial releases.
 
Just to clarify a point about the preset encoder/decoder app I mentioned above. There is no gui for the app, so don't be surprised if you don't see a gui appear. (I got a question asking about that).

To encode into text, you simply drag a preset .syx file to the dock icon and it will put the text into the clipboard ready for you to paste into a track note.

To decode, just click on the dock icon and it will take the clipboard contents and use that to create a preset .syx file in your home folder.

In both cases it does its job without ever launching an app that you'll see in the menu bar.
 
If you use linux or osx you can also do this conversion via the command line. You should
base64 'path to file' > 'converted file name' will encode
base64 --decode 'b64 file' > 'decoded file name' will convert back to original

For example with a file names Orig.syx to encode:
base64 Orig.syx > Orig.b64

To decode:
base64 --decode ./Orig.b64 > OrigDecoded.syx

Looks like there are some ways to do this with the windows command line with Powershell or the certutil.exe too https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37046771/base64-encode-string-command-line-windows

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Hey all! After I got my brain sorted out the base64 encoding works perfectly AND the output fits into the notes section in Logic Pro. Perfect! Thank you all - and especially GlennO for the assist.

I won't use this all of the time - but if I record something that has great tone I can pretty easily keep track of the exact preset that I used. I'll probably drop a copy of the AFIII firmware into the project directory as well - that way I can get back to exactly where I was if I want to revisit a track.

AWESOME!!
 
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