FabFilter

Is there an official way to copy settings from Q2 to Q3?

I'm going through several projects and wish to replace my instances of Q2 with Q3 but I don't see an obvious way of moving the settings across.

Copy and Paste from the top right menu doesn't work.

Surely I'm not supposed to save a preset for every single control point in every instance of every project temporarily - there will be hundreds, and it will take ages, and it will leave my presets contaminated with loads of temp settings I don't want.

Tell me there is a proper way to do this?

Cheers,
John

Hi John,

Unfortunately the only way is to save the settings of each instance of Pro-Q 2 in a session as a temporary preset using the presets menu in the plugin, then replace them by Pro-Q 3 and load the preset to restore the settings. Any automation needs to be re-recorded.

Our recommendation would be to keep using Pro-Q 2 in existing sessions so you're 100% sure that they sound exactly the same as before, and use Pro-Q 3 for new instances/sessions.

There's some more discussion in this forum topic:
www.fabfilter.com/forum/3328/can-pro-q2-and-pro-q3-installations-coexist

Cheers,

Ta.

Hmm. This doesn't seem to be a workable solution.

I save my Q2 preset.

I go to my Q3 and look in the V2 preset subfolder, and my Q2 preset doesn't show. I can get at it using the Other Preset function.

But it's a bit of a pain it not showing in the V2 preset folder. Unloading/reloading Q3 doesn't even refresh the list. The only thing which refreshes it is closing and reopening the whole project.

This is gonna get messy for large projects updates.

Is there a better way to refresh the Q3 preset list then to have to reload the whole project?

Cheers,

This is why I requested Pro-Q 3 replacing Pro-q 2, just like Omnisphere 2 replaces Omnisphere 1. There's a big thread about this somewhere in the forum.

Yes, I've read that thread and understand the arguments.

But I still need an answer to my question above. "Is there a better way to refresh the Q3 preset list then to have to reload the whole project?"

Hi John,

You can refresh the preset list by clicking Save As in the presets menu, and then clicking Cancel in the Save dialog.

Cheers,

Excellent, thanks.

Hmm. Tried this several times and it doesn't work. No refresh.

You're right, I've now tested it myself and only the main presets menu is refreshed if you do this. We'll look into a solution for the next Pro-Q 3 update because it's really inconvenient to have to close and reopen the session only to refresh the menu.

Cheers,

Many thanks. Look forward to the update.

Cheers

Maybe some concept of a transfer buffer which could be created by one plugin and collected by the other. This would avoid the need to make endless temporary settings files just to complete the transfer, and which are not otherwise required.

I could do with out all the manual file creation and deletion required to do it that way.

All we really want is to copy/paste the settings between plugs.

Cheers,
John

Hi John,

We'll think about that, but if you just use one temporary preset file, you don't even have to refresh the menu. So for each Pro-Q 2 instance:

- Open the Pro-Q 2 instance and save the setting to a 'transfer.ffp' preset
- Add a Pro-Q 3 instance, and load that preset from the V2 menu
- Remove the Pro-Q 2 instance

Cheers,

I'm following your instructions exactly, but the transfer.ffp never shows up in the new Q3 list anywhere.

So it still doesn't work for me.

Can't see that I'm doing anything wrong, but I'd love you to show me what you are doing different.

John

I'm on a Win10 PC if that makes any difference.

Oh, and Cubase 9.5 Pro

Hi John,

It should be in the V2 Presets Folder submenu.

Cheers,

Aha. Now I realise why it's not working here. I had added the Q3 before saving the Q2 preset, and like that it doesn't work.

I look forward to a more streamlined solution as we talked about above.

Cheers,
John

HI!

I've just got ProQ 3, the first thing I've wanted to do is copy and paste a self made preset from ProQ 2 and of course you can't just do that ;-)

I'm using Logic X, High Sierra, on a 2010 Mac Pro

I've read the comments above but can't get that to work either for some reason?
I can only 'Save As' my user setting in the normal way on Q2, then opening
Q3 and navigating to it, it's grayed out?

Please help!
Best,
Pete

Dear Fabfilterteam,

In this case I'm using ProTools 2019 on OS 10.13.4
I've just installed ProQ 3, (Congrats with all the awards!) the first thing I've wanted to do is import a preset from ProQ 2.
A notification appears: "These files are not valid setting files for the plug-in"
I've read the comments above.
Can you help me please?
Warm regards,
Frank

If I were to guess I'd you've saved them as ProTools presets (ie, within PT) and not as FabFilter presets (ie, within the plugin). The Fabfilter presets have "ffp" as extension.
To do this "cross version" preset switching you'd need to use the presets within the Pro-Q2/3 preset system.

Thanks Bram,

That did the trick using Fab Filter's preset system and not the Pro Tools presets. I didn't want to have to rebuild my Pro Q2 DX setup that I've used for years.

Not having copy/paste functionality is a very bad idea workflow wise.

I have thousands of tracks in my orchestral template, and I'm now in the process of creating macros to automate the transfer from one DAW to another. Copy/paste would have helped immensly.

Because Fabfilter is the only manufacturer not supporting copy/paste among my currently used plugins, I tried a very advanced sequence of macro automated mouse-clicks around this using the preset system to be able to universally – independent of track name/order/etc – be able to save a preset from DAW #1 and load it in DAW #2.

This worked. Up until the point where I discover that the "Save As" menu selection MOVES depending on the amount of presets in the list.

If this was in the top instead (where it belongs, it's a constant, and it's a single entry, in the list, so it should always be in the top of the list according to all software design Logic ever) this would not be a problem.

So, summary: There is no way to automate the transfer of Fabfilter plugins using macros. Simply no way. This will create several extra work days of just menu selections of Fabfilter plugins on my part.

Please. Add copy/paste. As almost all other manufacturers have now.

Got it!

Cheers,

I'd just like to add another vote for a simple copy settings / paste settings function to be added to all Fabfilter plugins. Saving & recalling presets is a bit more fiddly and creates unnecessary clutter in our preset folders, and simply copying & pasting settings is so much more handy in a lot of settings - e.g. transferring settings to a different DAW, or changing plugin formats within an existing project as a workaround for format-specific bugs in a DAW (e.g. needing to switch from VST to AU, or vice versa)

I'd also like simple copy/paste of the entire current settings between ProQ instances. The need for it comes up a lot for me, and the workaround to save to a preset works for me but is clumsy and not as convenient as what some other plugins allow (click Copy button at top of plugin, click Paste button at top of 2nd instance of plugin).