Managing your Sound Library

This document describes some aspects of organizing your sounds and waves in Muzys 3.

Intro

Every MuZynth sound can be stored as a file on your harddisk (IPA, IPL, IPG).

Because these files are exclusive for Muzys, we recommend storing the MuZynth specific files in your Muzys/Library/MuZynth folder; Eventually you can create subfolders there like "Bass", "Lead", "Pad", etc ...

On the other hand, wave files (AIFF, WAVE, MP3, SF2) can also be used in other software, and that's why we recommend to collect your waves in a separate folder (i.e. not as a Muzys subfolder) on your harddisk, for example named "MyWaveLibrary". This folder can then contain subfolders like "Drum", "FX", "Organ", "Piano", "Voice" etc ...

Now when using waves in MuZynth Patches, you can choose whether these waves should be embedded within your MuZynth Patch file (aka internal wave), or that only a link to that wave file should be stored (aka external wave).

Saving a Patch with internal Waves allows for easy exchange of Patches, and protects you from inadvertently deleting waves used in Patches. But it has the disadvantage that the filesize of such Patch files will grow dramatically, depending on the amount of waves it uses.

The choice of using internal or external waves depends from the situation; Using internal waves is simple and easy, but eats a lot of harddisk space. Using external waves is much more modular.

Luckily, Muzys' Wave Manager makes it easy to tell what you want to do.

The Waves Folder

You can tell Muzys where your Waves Folder is.

This folder is the root of your Wave Library, and will most probably have subfolders like Bass, Drum, FX, Piano, Voice, etc...

Via Muzys' Wave Manager : Options, you can indicate where that folder is. From then on, Muzys will abstract all new wave links to that folder.

Technically, this is done by replacing the real wave folder path by an abstract shortcut "@WF", which is the symbol for the Waves Folder. Thus a wave link that says "@WF/BD909.Wav" simply refers to that BD909.Wav in your wave library, whereever that is in your system.

If you would move your waves to another harddisk, you only have to tell Muzys about that new waves folder, and all links automatically stay alive.

This Wave Folder system is also handy for exchanging Patches as Patches can now simply refer to, for example, "@WF/Drumloops/FunkyDrummer.Aif", and every user having the same file in his library will be able to immediately use these Patches.

Now here is an example :

Suppose you have a folder on disk where you store all your waves "Disk1:/MyWaves". Suppose you have a subfolder there called "Piano" containing a file "Pianissimum.Sf2".

So, Patches that use that wave and saved with external links would always refer to that file as "Disk1:/MyWaves/Piano/Pianissimum.Sf2". If you would give that Patch to another user, but he organized his waves in "Drive1:/Samples/Piano/Pianissimum.Sf2", then the Patch would load and say "Cannot find Wave, please locate it" because the wave links are different.

Now when User 1 tells Muzys that his Waves Folder is at "Disk1:/MyWaves" and User 2 says it's at "Drive1:/Samples", the exchanging the Patch will be more easy as the external wave link will be "@WF/Piano/Pianissimum.Sf2", which is correct on both systems !

Internal Waves

Of course, besides all these possibilities for managing external wave links, you can always choose to embed Waves within the Patch files themselves.

Simply go to the Wave Manager, and make these Waves internal. (select + do Options : Make Internal)

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