After spending several hours with this utility, here are some impressions:
- Incredibly useful! I agree with a previous poster, a feature like this should be built into Reason by default, especially because so many Reason samples are sequestered inside Refills.
- As I mentioned earlier, samples won't get auto-tagged if there's no information in their file name. At first I thought this would be a big problem, but it's not so bad. Scrolling thru the samples (or browsing via the Random button) it's easy to spot ones that haven't been tagged (they're often grouped together), and if I'm inclined, I can spend a couple of minutes to manually tag them. The vast majority of samples get auto-tagged, so if a few slip thru the cracks, it's really not a big deal, and I will eventually get around to tagging them over time.
- The search feature applies to both tags and filenames. So it's not difficult to zero in on samples that have obscure or untaggable names.
- The plugin has locked up on me a couple of times during the import process. This seems to happen if it's playing a sound when I start to import a new folder. Once I figured that out - no more crashes.
- It takes a few minutes to process the samples being imported, but the UI doesn't do a good job of refreshing itself to indicate its busy. But there's a simple workaround - just close the plugin and open it again and you'll see a progress counter by the folder being imported. During this time, not all of the previously imported samples may be accessible, but they'll become available as soon as the current import is processed.
- It's great fun to audition samples and be able to instantly play them pitched on my MIDI keyboard. This has already inspired some new musical ideas that I otherwise would not have stumbled upon.
- This is a 1.0 release, so it's a little rough around the edges. The basic functionality seems rock solid, but it could use some more convenience features, especially the ability to manually bulk tag a group of samples.
Overall, this is the most exciting and useful plugin I've added to my arsenal in months, and the workflow benefits are immediately obvious.