Where are the golden day of the old Device Manager in Cubase 3? This had preconfigured bank managers for most common synths (much like MidiQuest but a lot more user friendly). You could really have a ‘total recall’ of all connected midi hardware when opening a project then called arrangement (arr) or song (all). You could import/export complete patch banks and write Sysex patch data to the temp memory of a synth. So you wouldn’t even have to store it permanently when opening a project. But enough of day-dreaming of better days. (This really was better for external gear! And I still don’t know why they removed this from future versions.)
Nowadays I ‘try’ to use MidiQuest to accomplish the same but it’s not a very pleasant program to use imo. And some synths do not really agree with it. For one thing it tends to lock up with my D50 when sending patches sometimes.
What I also do to get the patches to the synths; You can configure most synths to send out Sysex preset data on program change. I keep one pre-count bar in the project and I record the Sysex of the combination/performance into this bar on the receiving channel. So when I start to play the Sysex is send to the synths/module. After this you can send other midi messages like program changes or CC data to specific channels. It’s probably not the most
elegant way but it works and most of the time it beats struggling with MidiQuest.
I’m not a big fan on chasing Sysex events because when you stop playing and the Sysex is resend it will most of the time reset all volume and other CC data that has been set earlier. So it could blow out your ears/speakers when volume is set to 127. That’s why I specifically turn this of in chased events. I simply read the bar once and set the locater at bar 1. So when skipping back to the left locater it will start past the Sysex. You only need to upload it once, no need to chase it. To be absolutely sure you can mute the Sysex parts and only enable them for the first read.
When you want to make other changes permanent to a Combination/Performance you will have to write it in the synth and then re-record the Sysex in the project. That’s where MidiQuest is better to use because you can record any change and upload it to the synth at anytime without actually writing anything in the synth itself. It also has editors for most synths so you can make all kinds of adjustments and save them if you like without touching the internal memory of the synth itself. That is if it works like it’s supposed to, which is unfortunately not always the case?