BigTick has updated Zen, the free Universal Presets Manager, to Version 1.64.

Recent changes include:

• Automatic scan of supported VST plug-ins.

• Fixed crashes when entering text data in Reaper.

• Non-commercial presets are now stored in a fully open format (fxp + sqlite for metadata).

• Added commercial presets bundles.

• Fixed bug with preset tags updates.

• Fixed some "preset not found" errors when loading back projects saved with Zen.

• Importing a modified preset wouldn't work for hosts that don't support getTimeInfo.

• Add an option to silently ignore duplicate presets while importing.

Zen is a Universal Presets Manager: It loads in any host as a VST instrument, and acts as a loader for other VSTis. So with Zen, you can search for "Rhodes piano" and get a list of all matching presets – regardless of the final VSTi (Rhino, Zebra, Absynth... whatever). When you select one of the presets in Zen, the corresponding VSTi is automatically loaded to play the requested preset.

Many popular VSTis are supported, and new ones are added daily. Eventually Zen aims to categorize all available presets, for all VSTis.

Zen is online
It constantly synchronizes its own local database of presets with a master online database hosted at bigtickaudio.com – users get new presets daily, delivered right into their sequencer, already categorized.

Zen for commercial presets designers
Commercial presets designers can use Zen to send demo versions of their presets to all potential customers. Users can preview the presets in Zen, directly in the context of their track, and buy the presets they like with just one click. Presets can be bought individually, as opposed to purchasing a full bank of presets.