Annotating tracks
Add library links and tags to a template's tracks so they're searchable and ready for Flow.
A template's structure — folders, tracks, MIDI routing, embedded maps — is one thing. The notes you add on top — what each track is and how to find it — are what make a template useful for search and for Flow. These notes work the same way whether the template was imported from Cubase or built from scratch.
What you can edit
On any template, regardless of where it came from, three things are editable:
| What | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Template name | Top of the template page | Renames the template (display only — it doesn't touch the underlying archive). |
| Per-track library link | On each track | Links the track to one or more knowledge-base patches. This is what fills Flow's articulation grid for the track. |
| Per-track tags | On each track | Free-form labels for search and organising. |
On a Cubase-imported template, everything else is frozen. DawForge won't let you restructure an import — to change the folders or routing, re-export from Cubase and re-import. (Builder templates, by contrast, are editable everywhere — see Build a template.)
Linking a track to a library patch
This is the most useful note — without it, Flow has nothing to show in the articulation grid for that track.
- Open the template page.
- Click the track row to expand it.
- In the Library picker, search for the patch by library name, vendor, or articulation. (Acquire the library first if you haven't — see Add your first library.)
- Select it. The patch's articulations become the track's Flow grid.
To save time, the page also offers an Auto-link action that walks through every unlinked track in turn, and on a fresh import it offers to link them all as you go.
A track can be linked to more than one patch — for example, a single MIDI track that drives a layered Spitfire + Vienna violin stack. The articulations from every linked patch are merged into the grid, and duplicates are folded together automatically.
Linking is optional. An unlinked track still appears in Flow and you can select, solo, show, and hide it — it just has an empty articulation grid and collects in an "Unlinked" row in the grouped views. See Play with Flow.
Tagging tracks
The tag field accepts both the standard tag vocabulary and your own free-form labels. Use standard tags (strings, brass, winds, low strings, divisi) so you can search across templates; use free-form labels for personal organisation ("intimate", "ostinato-ready").
Tags feed your template search — /templates?tag=brass finds every track tagged brass across all your templates.
What renaming actually changes
The template's name is yours to change any time. Track names inside an imported template are frozen, though — they're how Flow matches Cubase tracks, so renaming one in DawForge without re-importing would quietly break selection. To rename a track end to end:
- Rename it in Cubase.
- Re-export the Track Archive.
- Re-import it in DawForge.
- Re-install the Cubase presets from the Flow page.