Presets & A/B

Aconite saves everything a patch is doing in one shared format, so a saved preset and a host session round-trip identically. The browser lets you step through the combined factory and user lists, pick any preset directly, and save your own; presets carry optional category, tags, author, and favourite metadata; a factory bank ships bundled; and A/B compare lets you flip between two versions of a sound while you dial it in.

What a preset captures

A preset is a complete snapshot of the full patch state:

Every parameter: oscillators, mixer, filter, envelopes, LFOs, modulation matrix routes and depths, FX rack settings, Master band settings, voice and performance controls.
All drawn shapes: the LFO curves and their morph targets, the step sequencer pattern, the waveshaper transfer curve, the velocity curve, the Performer curve, and all six drawable envelope contours, the four Curve Lanes, and the arp step lane.
The path to any user wavetable you have loaded, the reference to the file, so Aconite can reload it when the preset is opened. (The wavetable data itself is not embedded; the file needs to be present on the machine where you load the preset.)
Your active colour theme.
Both scenes. When you use the scene layer, a preset captures Scene B’s full state alongside Scene A’s — its own patch, its own effects rack, and its own sequencer/arp/chord/probability stage (and its own drawn shapes) — so a two-scene layer or split recalls exactly as you built it. See Scenes.

When you save a preset and load it later, or share it with someone else, the sound is exactly as you left it, including any shapes you drew by hand. The only things a preset does not carry are MIDI-learn mappings (those belong to your hardware setup, not the sound) and authorization state. See MPE & MIDI-learn for why MIDI-learn intentionally stays outside presets.

Presets are forward-compatible: if a preset was saved with an older version of Aconite, parameters that did not exist at the time are silently ignored; parameters that are absent fall back to their defaults. Old preset files and saved sessions load without complaint; you will never get an error because a patch predates a new feature.

Keeping your sequence across presets

By default, loading a preset loads everything it captured, including its sequence and generative layer. Sometimes you want the opposite: you have built a groove you love — an arp pattern, a step sequence, a chord lane, a probability setup, some curve lanes — and you want to audition different sounds over it without each new preset wiping the part out.

Open the Options gear and you will find a toggle, Presets replace the sequence:

On (the default): loading a preset replaces your current sequence with the preset’s own. This is the normal behaviour, and how presets have always worked.
Off: loading a preset keeps your current sequence and generative layer in place, and loads only the sound. The arp, step sequencer, chord lane, probability routes, and curve lanes you built stay exactly as they are while the patch underneath them changes.

Turn it off, get a phrase going, then step through the preset list: every sound you land on plays your groove, so you can hear how each one sits in the part you are writing. Turn it back on when you want presets to load whole again.

The preset browser

Click the preset name in the header and the browser slides out as a drawer from the left, filling the left half of the window. The header stays lit and interactive above it, so the name button, theme switcher, and transport keep working while you browse. The synth face dims to the right so the browser has your focus without hiding the instrument.

Close the browser any of three ways: press Escape, click anywhere outside the drawer, or click the preset name in the header a second time.

The drawer is a full two-pane browser:

A filter rail down the left side: All and Favourites under Library; Factory and User under Bank; the categories (Bass, Lead, Pad, Keys, Perc, Seq, FX); and the most-used tags as clickable chips. Each shows a count.
A search box at the top filters as you type, matching preset name, author, category, and tags at once.
A sort row above the results: Name, Category, or Author.
The results list, where each row shows the preset name, its author and category, up to three tags, a Factory or User badge, and a favourite star. Click a row to load it; the current preset is highlighted.

Along the bottom of the drawer sit the quick actions: Save, Init (load the clean starting patch), A / B (flip the compare slots), < / > to step through the filtered list, and Random to jump somewhere unexpected. The < and > arrows also wrap at the ends, so you can audition quickly without opening the list. The header’s name display refreshes on any load: from the list, from the arrows, or when your DAW restores a saved session.

Saving a user preset

Shape the sound how you want it.
Click Save at the bottom of the browser.
Fill in the details: a name, and optionally a category, tags (comma-separated), an author, and a favourite flag.
Confirm.

The preset is written as a .synthpreset file to your user application-data presets folder. It immediately appears in the User list and carries the full patch state exactly as described above, along with the metadata you entered. That folder is also where you go to back up your library or copy presets to share with someone else; the files are portable.

Managing user presets

Right-click any user preset in the list for its actions:

Rename edits the name in place: type the new name and press Enter (Escape cancels). The file on disk is renamed with it.
Duplicate makes a copy (named <name> copy) that you can then edit independently. Duplicating a factory preset gives you an editable user copy of it, a good way to start from a factory sound without altering the original.
Delete removes the preset, behind a confirmation.

Rename and delete apply to your own user presets; factory presets are read-only. Toggle the favourite star on any row to flag it, then use the Favourites filter to pull up just the sounds you starred.

The factory bank

Aconite ships with a curated factory bank spanning a wide range of sounds and playing styles. The bank covers categories including Bass, Lead, Pad, Pluck, FX, Keys, Brass, Chiptune, and Percussion, including some less common voice types built on physical modelling (Handpan, Steel Drum, and modal drums), and hard-sync leads designed around the Probability modulation and the oscillator sync system.

Two factory presets showcase oscillator sync at its most expressive: Prophet Sync Lead (Mono) and Prophet Sync Lead (Poly). Both use two sawtooth oscillators with a 2→1 sync routing, and an envelope route from Env 3 to the slave oscillator’s Coarse tune — sweeping it a full three octaves so the sync timbre screams and snarls as the note attacks. The Mono version locks to a single note for cutting lead work; the Poly version opens the same patch to full polyphony for chords. These are good patches to open up and study if you want to understand how the sync system and the modulation matrix work together.

Each factory preset is a full-state capture authored by ear in the plugin, so what you load is exactly what the preset’s author heard. Factory presets carry their own drawn shapes and modulation programming, not just the default starting point.

One thing factory presets do not carry over: loading a factory preset leaves your current theme untouched. Because themes are a personal aesthetic choice, the sound bank does not override your look.

Preset metadata

Presets can carry optional metadata: a category, free-form tags, an author name, and a favourite flag. The factory bank is fully categorised and tagged, so the browser can show you all the Pads or all the patches by a particular author.

You can tag any user preset and flag it as a favourite without reloading the sound: the metadata lives separately from the audio state, so browsing and tagging is non-destructive.

A/B compare

A/B compare is a workflow tool for the moment when you are deciding between two versions of a patch. Rather than saving two separate presets and loading back and forth, you can hold both states in memory and flip between them instantly.

The A/B controls live in the header.

How it works:

Get your patch to a state you like. That is your starting point; call it A.
Keep editing. Try a different filter setting, a new LFO shape, a different effect level.
When you want to compare, flip to B. Aconite restores the version you left in B (on first use, B starts as a copy of the same state, so the first flip is a no-op, there is nothing to compare yet until you copy your current work into one slot).
Use Copy to other to capture the current state into the inactive slot. Now flip back and forth to A/B by ear.

The flip is immediate. There is no load time, no disk access, no gap in the sound, just the two states switching.

What A/B does and does not carry:

A/B captures the same payload as a preset: all parameters, drawn shapes, and your theme. It does not carry MIDI-learn mappings (those never change on a flip, which is exactly what you want: your hardware assignments stay put while you audition the two sounds). It also does not carry authorization state.

A/B is session-scoped. The two slots live only in memory while the plugin is open and are not written to disk. When you find the version you prefer, save it as a user preset to keep it permanently.

Presets and your DAW session

When you save your DAW project, Aconite’s full state is saved with it: the same complete snapshot a preset would capture. Reopen the project and the sound comes back exactly as you left it, including any drawn shapes and your current theme. MIDI-learn mappings come back too, through the host session rather than the preset format. Authorization state is per-machine and does not travel with sessions; see Authorization for how to move Aconite to a new machine.

For a walkthrough of loading your first sound, see the Quick start.