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Tagging, advantages, pitfalls, and why even Intua packs do it wrong !!

winconwaywinconway
edited January 2018 in Tutorials, Tips & Tricks

The tagging in Beatmaker 3 is basically a copy of Maschines desktop browsing system, it feels a complete mess when you don’t completely understand it or use it properly.
First let’s ignore the fact that when you choose a pack and click on categories it should show you only the categories available in that pack, not every single category ever created for you to blindly stumble through empty category after empty category (this just needs fixing, simple as that)

Also keep in mind here that I only have Intua starter pack and starter pack 2, but even they have not been tagged to the potential of the tagging system, the system itself feels backwards (it’s supposed to, that’s actually it’s power) and lots of 3rd parties on Maschine never realised how it worked either, but when you follow NIs way of thinking it’s actually very quick (if things are tagged correctly)

Example
I created my drum pack called 5pin vol1
Pack is set to 5pin vol1
Drum samples are tagged drums and then each individual hit is sub tagged for its type, snares are sub category snare etc

Now when I view via tags I choose 5pin vol1/category drum/sub category snare
All my snares are listed, wonderful.
Now instead of changing category, I just change the pack, and I can view the snares in all the packs I have available, this is the power of the reverse system NI uses where you can always remain in category or sub category while you flick through packs.
But if I click starter pack 2, I know there is a damn snare in there, but it is tagged wrong and consequently I have to trawl through various categories to find a snare that’s not tagged snare.

If you remember that tagging sort of goes from right to left instead of left to right, the whole tagging system is much more powerful (again I only have the starter packs, the others may be tagged correct but it served as an example of bad tagging)

Bad tagging leads to one horrible horrible thing, go and look at a Maschine desktop install with a bunch of 3rd party content, 70% of the browser is tags before the files are even listed.

Keep tags simple.

Tagged:

Comments

  • winconwaywinconway
    edited November 2017

    On that note I think we need some standard tags list too, last thing we need is one bank having Kicks and another having Kickdrums or rims and rimshots or shots !!
    Just checked in Maschine, here’s an example of closed hi hats, I have...
    CHH
    Closed Hats
    Closed Hihats
    C Hihats
    C High Hats
    C Hats High
    And that is all from official NI add on packs since the post 2.0 staff exodus !!!

  • bleepbleep
    Common tags works if the software limits your choices, but that feels too restrictive. The open approach really needs allowing the user to modify existing tags. And it’s a chore to maintain.
  • bleepbleep
    Btw regarding the browser; for the recent Amen break upload, I created a “Amen v1” folder and renamed the bank to “Amen v1” before getting the latest version. So I had two Amen banks, with different names and in differently named folders. The browser still lists both these as Amen.bnk. Mildly annoying.
    (Thinking now, maybe there is a refresh button that must be tapped. Will check later)
  • winconwaywinconway

    Common tags is the only way to work, otherwise you end up with the garbage i posted above as taken from Maschine, that many tags for something as simple as a Closed Hi Hat is just silly.

  • bleepbleep

    Indeed, and I want it, but I've lost faith in getting users to follow rules for such things (and then you have 3rd party providers). Therefore the need to modify existing tags easily in bulk.

  • winconwaywinconway

    Yeah for sure :)
    I will investigate nuifonts further ;)

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