The two user-requested features missing from Roland’s official editor/librarian are available via third-party tools. That means you can get a plug-in editor/librarian to store settings with DAW projects, and now you can even get started with drag-and-drop sample loading.
I’m pretty excited about Baza. It’s very bare-bones – but it solves the single biggest chore in preparing kits for the TR-8S/TR-6S. The official way to do this is – load audio files onto an SD card, then load the SD card into your TR, then import the wave files into the kit – part by part. Uff.
Baza basically only does this, but it does it in one step. Sign up for a free beta account (I had mine in about 30 seconds, after confirming an email). Then you get a Web tool that just allows you to drag and drop audio files onto individual parts.
It’s in beta, so YMMV, but I’m into it already.
Note, too, because this runs in the Web, I had it up and running way faster than the Roland Cloud solution, and it isn’t dependent on having particular versions of certain operating systems.
I’m guessing the reason Roland didn’t do this kind of sample loading is that there’s some issue with directly interfacing with this aspect of kits. With Baza, you do still need to put the kit files onto your TR-6S/8S hardware. That “Download” button spits out a .t8k file you can add to your gear.
But while it’s weird to cobble this together from multiple tools instead of have a single, integrated, official Roland solution (ahem), it sure solves my problem for now. I just drag and drop my files into the Web tool, spit out a .t8k, and then do the more advanced finishing editing in Roland’s TR-Editor.
Some of you also like to store TR-8S kits with your DAW project files. This eases some automation, but mainly gives you the ability to open up your project without having to remember which kit or settings you were using. You can’t do that with TR-Editor, either, since it only runs standalone and not as a plug-in. But you can do it with a plug-in I wrote about previously.
Also relevant: if you’re running an older OS (mainly an issue for Mac folks), this plug-in is a solution in case you can’t run the new Roland Cloud stuff:
Plus, bonus, here’s a cute and useful little Max for Live tool also mentioned in comments.
https://maxforlive.com/library/device/5486/tr-8s-aerobik-performer
I do hope Roland sees the download counts on TR-Editor and does a little more here. Roland Cloud already has plug-ins that work with the Boutique hardware – TR-08 and TR-09 – and sample loading is clearly a must.
I’m happy with my kludge for the time being, though, while I wait.
For the walkthrough of the editor – if there’s interest I might loop back and talk about some tricks to kit design: