I love using Vital, it’s an amazing synth platform to work with. However, an unfortunate caveat . . .
On my Dell XPS-15-9350 laptop (windows 10), it’s really a struggle to keep putting ever more presets into the default preset browser directory
C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\vital
For now, I manually import each preset as needed from other directories / drives, but this is really tedious.
It would be SO MUCH BETTER if I could change the preset browser default directory to other directories, drives, even an external drive. I have a LOT of presets . . . with more ever evolving.
I’ve already read the previous conversation about this, but it didn’t really address how to solve this.
I already know where the preset browser default directory usually is, that’s not the question here.
The question is, how to actually change this.
Why Vital would apparently make this directory change difficult is a bit of a mystery, but maybe I’m missing something (certainly quite possible!).
On my other computers this is not an issue, but on the laptop, I’m often not online, I skip the entire “downloading” prompt that comes up when activating Vital.
Any info that can make this preset browser default directory change possible, or some sort of “hidden” secret trick for doing this, I would be most appreciative.
I appreciate your response, but where exactly do I find this - %appdata%\vital\vital.conf iirc.
It 's not in
C:\Users\Charles\AppData\Roaming\Vital
This is Windows 10
the file name " . . . vital\vital.conf iirc" is not anywhere I can see.
I did try opening “vital.config” XML configuration file, but there’s no reference to this default directory within the text of this XML file (???).
I didn’t change anything, a bit reluctant to start improvising into unknown territory.
.All I want to do is tell the preset browser where to look for presets.
Currently, if I try activating a preset from within the browser listing, it just crashes Vital
I can manually import an external preset from any directory, but that’s very tedious.
If you could clarify a bit, where exactly this mysterious vital.conf iirc actually is, I would be most appreciative.
Again, just to review, have already been through the C:\Users\Charles\AppData\Roaming\Vital . . . but it’s not there.
This only happens on the laptop . . . on the other computers this is not an issue
There’s a line called "data_directory": "<path>". Altering that will tell vital to look for all data in that directory and it’ll likely dl your Vital store packs again if they’re not present in the new folder.
iirc means if i recall correctly. The file is %appdata%\vital\vital.config.
Will try this . . . much appreciated.
Meanwhile, it’s only on this one laptop where it crashes every time a preset is selected from the preset browser listing . . . on 3 other computers, never had this problem at all. All are windows 10, 64bit (Dell and HP).
It’s only on this one laptop where activating Vital immediately starts the “downloading” process.
I was told that the reason it crashes is because that particular Vital install points to an online preset reference (does that sound familiar?).
I’ve tried uninstall / reinstall several times, and yet, every time I activate Vital, it starts the download menu again . . . but only on this specific laptop.
I’ve tried disabling internet connection, skipping the download startup, but still has the same behavior on that laptop.
I love using Vital, an amazing virtual synth engine . . . except for this one particularly mysterious inconsistency.
Update - it’s all good, preset selection from the browser is working!
It turns out that simply renaming the original vital directory (C:\Users\Charles\AppData\Roaming\Vital . . . ) to something else that Vital can’t find, but then create a new alternate vital directory (which can be anywhere), and load that up with presets / vitalbank files does work for this . . .
The missing step is when initiating Vital once again, there will be a brief moment during its startup that you can query for file location (as Vital is trying to find this) and then point Vital to that newly created directory.
Didn’t have to edit the XML file after all, though I appreciate your suggestion.
What is mystifying, though, is why the folks at Vital couldn’t just have a menu select item, maybe in settings to easily make this pointer change, rather than having to take a long hike around the barn to get there . . . I’m probably missing some crucially relevant aspect of this.
Once again, many thanks for your help.
Great that you got it working! If you renamed that folder then Vital’s configuration file was unavailable for Vital as well as the default preset and such, so your problem might have been in those as well.
Btw. dunno why it was a problem for you that Vital downloads content, that’s what it is supposed to do to get the factory content and licensed packs to your system.
