Question

One of the only things I still miss from Pro Tools is being able to browse plugins by Category or type. For example, if I wanted to see all my reverb options in the plugin browser, I could click on a "Category" option up top under Effects -> Sort by. And there would be expandable categories there for Reverb, Delay, Saturation, Compressors, EQ, Limiters, etc. Pro Tools has had this for a long time.

To make it even sweeter, there should be a Misc category for all plugins that don't get classified correctly (lack of mfg metadata) and we could drag them into the proper folder. Maybe also be able to create categories of our own for more niche categories like Lo-Fi, channel strips, amp sims, or meters (if S1 wouldn't get that granular from the get go).

Answer 1

This is already an option. Studio One can list out FX plugins by "Folder" which is basically what you're describing. Plugins can be categorized in the plug-in manager.

Answer 2

@michael He's talking about just having FX categories as a base sorting option, based on the 'tags' that are already applied within the VST3 .dll for the vast majority of plugins:

Which would be extremely useful. What you're saying works as well of course, but only if you take a very long time to sort through all your plugins manually and create a comprehensible folder structure for browsing them (something nearly all pros should be doing anyway, but probably not a priority for hobbyists).

You can also kinda sort by FX category by including the word (delay, reverb, distortion, etc.) -- but you can't combine it with other tags or sort it by vendor which makes it kinda useless.

We need an overhauled browser honestly, with more of an emphasis on tags and custom tag creation and assignment, and legit boolean search operators (and/or/exclude, etc.) and multi-select of the various tags.

The browser in Omnisphere would be a great template for what an excellent plugin browser in S1 could look like.