It loads in any host as a VSTi, and acts as a loader for other VSTi's.

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.

Most popular VSTi's are supported, and new ones are added daily. Eventually Zen aims to categorize all available presets, for all vstis.

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

Zen and also be used by commercial presets designers to send demo version 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.

New in v1.7.2b

• Various bugfixes

New in v1.7.1

• Random freezes when switching presets now fixed
• Fix for rendering bugs with Zebralette and Absynth
• Various other bug fixes.

New in v1.7.0

• New standalone host.
• Various stability fixes and performance enhancements.
• Smooth transition between presets.
• Plugin scan runs in a different process - no more crashes while scanning !
• Presets database can be shared across systems and architectures.
• Option to automatically scroll to the top of the list when search results change.
• Option to clear the plugins cache.
• Presets changes are now saved when saving from a host.
• Increased the number of user controls from 8 to 8*4.

New in v1.6.6

• Allow x64 and x86 versions to be installed simultaneously.
• Fix issue when plugins tried to resize their window (e.g Absynth)
• Save VST path before scanning (so that a plugin crash doesn't lose the path)
• Fixed issue with potential database corruption

New in v1.6.5

• Store results of previous plugins scans
• Offer to blacklist any plugins that crashed the previous scan
• Fixed random crashes when deleting a user-defined synth
• Crashes when attempting to load ReaPlugs, or Polyvalens VL1.
• Now uses SQLite 3.7.7.1 and FTS4

New in v1.6.4

• 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.

New in v1.5.3

• Added an option to extract/expand tags list with no matches.
• Extended virtual banks slots to 127.
• Added a dot indicator to identify untagged presets.
• Added support for Audjoo Helix.
• Added infobox messages and credits in the config page.