Robert Bone

Try temporarily moving that VST 3 plugin to a folder that is not in the VST scan paths for plugins, and see if the VST 2 version of the plugin works. 

Bob Bone

6 hours ago, bayoubill said:

Yes I moved my pc to another location

I unplugged my pc and plugged everything up again

At first the pc didn't recognize a midi controller was plugged in.  I unplugged everything and added just the USB for the midi controller.  I then tried AD2 and Dimension pro stand alones. They worked fine but in Cakewalk nothing

I redid the add midi device as I had before but still nothing

OK - I am no expert with this, but have run into this in the past.  

If your USB devices switch which ports they are connected to the computer in, then that confuses Cakewalk.  I suggest you try going into Cakewalk Preferences, and explicitly removing the A300 midi controller as a MIDI Input device and as a MIDI Output device.  Then click Apply.

I would then exit Cakewalk, and relaunch it.  Then, add the A300 back in again - and that should hopefully restablish its connection to Cakewalk.

Bob Bone

Did you, by chance, happen to change what is plugged into your various USB ports, of your computer, meaning one or more USB devices being plugged into different USB ports than they were in the past?

Bob Bone

I own the Nektar LX61+, but I only use it for triggering sounds from soft synths, and never to control parameters in CbB.  In my live keyboard rig, which is where I use this controller, I use 2 other midi controllers to change patches and such, because those 2 controllers have numeric keypads, so I can punch in preset numbers that way, and those both work perfectly.  For recording, I usually use my Roland A800-Pro, but even with that, I never do anything but trigger notes in soft synths, with the exception of pitch bend and/or mod data.

Next time I get everything set up, I will see if I have any of the issues you folks reported above.

Bob Bone

In addition to the things noted above - I would like to add that sample libraries for drums can produce these kinds of differences, between one playback and the next, of the exact same midi data.

In this case, it can be because of the round-robin samples using different sample files every time, some of which will be at different volumes.  I found this with several different libraries, including those that play as Kontakt instruments, as well as those from soft synths, such as Steven Slate Drums.

For drum sample libraries in particular, this is often simply how it is.  It is of no particular consequense, to have those fluctuations, as they still fit in the mix just fine.   Much better than having that machine gun effect from years prior, before round-robin sample playback became available.

Many of the currently available premium drum sample libraries have quite a few different samples of each drum kit piece, which is a good thing - it just means there will be, and deliberately so, slight variations in volume between them, to best represent what happens when a real drummer plays.

Anyways, the above is common, and I do not view it as an issue, for me.   

Bob Bone

On 7/8/2020 at 7:10 AM, chuckebaby said:

I use 32 notes and 64 notes all the time using this same exact method. You are suing triangle drum grid. Piano roll is a lot easier than grabbing those little triangles.

I actually work in Step Sequencer, for drum data, and it is quite easy to manipulate.  Piano Roll also works well, for this - I just happen to prefer Step Sequencer.

Bob Bone

Hi, Larry - hope you are well.  You are AMAZING at digging up and posting all the deals you do - just incredible.

I got an email from Eventide today, and it shows up to 70% off, for their vintage plugins, here is the link for that:

Eventide Sale - up to 70% off on Vintage plugins

I am on my way to look through those - ALWAYS wanted one or more of their plugins - this sale may have snagged me into going for it.   

Bob Bone

Howdy - I get emails from Plugin Alliance, and there are a couple days left on a pretty sizable sale they have going on right now, where I got 3 voucher codes to apply to almost all of their plugins (the small number of excluded ones are listed), and you can use one of the three voucher codes on a single order.

The 1st voucher is for $29.99 for any non-excluded plugin, the 2nd voucher is for $39.99 for any non-excluded plugin, and the 3rd voucher is for $49,99 for any non-excluded plugin.

I just bought one of the plugins with the $29.99 voucher code - an emulation of the Elysia Apha Compressor, for mastering, which would have been regularly priced at $249.00, and am super happy with that.  (I will look through their other offerings too, to see if any would add something sweet and tasty to my effects plugins).  I want to add that when I was using their installation manager to install the Elysia Alpha Compressor, they also presented several other plugins for free download and installation, so I REALLY got a good deal with buying the one plugin at that reduced price to start with.

Also, when you go to the web site, at Plugin-Alliance they offer 6 free plugins just for subscribing to their newsletters/emails, and that is WAY kewl. 

Here is a screen shot of the offer for the 6 free plugins for creating a free account with them and subscribing to their newsletters/emails:

And, here is a screenshot with the 3 Voucher Codes - they exlicitly indicated ANYONE can use these codes during the sale, so they are happy to see them shared and used by whoever is interested:

On 8/28/2020 at 4:25 PM, James See said:

Thanks so much to all of you for your kind responses.I am very sorry but I don't think I explained my situation very well.  What I am trying to do is set the now time to zero in a different place than the first bar.  For example I want bar 3 to show 01:01:000  on the counter instead of 03:01:000.  In other words, I want bar 3 to be the beginning of my project. I hope that's a better explanation.  Thanks

Hi - just curious, why are you wishing to do this?  For whatever the worth, I always add a Marker at measure 3 (I usually have 2 measures of count in using drum stick hits).  I also made it easy to move left or right through my projects, by binding the Left and Right arrow keys on my computer keyboard, to the functions: Previous Marker, and Next Marker, so if I rewind to the beginning of the song, I don't even need to use the mouse to move to measure 3 - I just hit the Right arrow, and it puts me right there instantly.

So, anyways, if there is some other reason for wanting to have measure 3 be shown as 1:01:000, please explain.  Thanks

Here is a screen shot of the two shortcut key bindings I set up for moving to Previous Marker and Next Marker in my projects - I find it quite helpful.  Also, if you want to do this, you can quickly get to where you need to in the bindings, by first hitting the Locate Key button, then hitting the Left arrow, whic will automatically highlight the Left key.  Then - in the Search text box, under Global Bindings, start typing the word 'Marker' and it will take you to where you can see both Previous Marker and Next Marker in the listed functions.  Then, highlight the Previous Marker function, and click on the Bind button, to create that binding (for the Left arrow).  Since you are already right above the Right key, click on that to highlight it, then also highlight the Next Marker function, then click on the Bind button to create that binding :

On 8/28/2020 at 11:47 AM, Colin Nicholls said:

I chose to distinguish between "Song/Score position" (Measure/Beat/Tick) and "Time" (h:m:s) for clarity, but we're both right 🙂

Sure - I just wanted to explain it from the default perspective.  

4 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Or Ctrl-Home

This puts the Now time at Bar 1, Beat 1, which is Time =  00:00:00:00

Ctrl+Home yes, quite correct - is the Go To Start function.   

Whether the Time displays as 00:00:00:00 or displays as 1:01:000 depends on which Now Time display format is chosen.  The default display for Now Time will be in Measure: Beat: Tick, which would show as 1:01:000

1 minute ago, lapasoa said:

Zero means 1, the first bar of your project.  Click W on your keyboard.

There are also 2 little arrows in the Transport Module (this has the Play button, Record button, Now Time display, etc...).  The two little arrows are underneath the Transport buttons, to the right and left of the Now Slider.

The arrow pointing to the left, performs the Go To Start function, and the arrow pointing to the right, performs the Go To End function.  Those two functions can also be performed by hitting CTRL+Home or CTRL+End

On 8/25/2020 at 5:48 PM, Tay Zonday said:

Yeah whatever this is, it happened to me. VST is installed, its directory is being scanned by Cakewalk, and the license is on my iLok. 

The plugin does not show up anywhere on the soft synth menu.

Seems to me that it ought to work with Cakewalk upon normal installation. It's regrettable because I was excited to use the product.

Did you try that workaround I posted?  

Bob Bone

5 hours ago, paulo said:

In that case, the hard work is already done........😀

That's my class picture 1977 - even polished the bolts that day, and even slicked down the non-burnt parts of my hair, ya know, for Da Ladies!

2 hours ago, paulo said:

Americans have very strange ideas as to what a Halloween costume is.

Well, it is just a day/night of fun - nothing more, nothing less.  When I went to the costume shop to look for a costume, that LITERALLY, was the only one they had that would fit me.  I am nearly 7 feet tall (2 meters 5 cm). With size 17 shoes (53.5).  I also happened to own a pair of green gym shoes, (given to me for working out with the Boston Celtics), so it all worked.  I had a blast that evening, as well.  

1 hour ago, Bapu said:

I created my own costumes in 90s for adult only parties.

1. A Fudgcicle (with drips of chocolate on my white pants, the stick)

2. A divot (with huge 10" golf tee)

3. Buttered toast 

4. Third Base

5. The cutting room floor (audio and film clipping with name tags like "The 25 minute middle 8 of Truckin'") 

6. A vibrator called "The Arouser" complete with a button to push with a buzzer attached.

 

The most compact was the cutting room floor. All the others were very "Gumby" like in size (i.e. at least a foot above my head and a foot on  both sides of me.

 

Nice!

1 minute ago, Old Joad said:

were you playing the crocodile rock?🙂

Sadly - I did not, but had a whole bunch of fun, nonetheless.  

1 hour ago, bayoubill said:

"What costume"  is what you'd here around my parts. Gators  possums  nutrias are common sites and it doesn't have to be halloween

In the past I always showed up as myself. I figure I Am scary enough as is

 

 

 

 

Hey, good luck with these storms coming your way.  Stay safe  

Just had this picture of me emailed to me, by one of the other members of an 80's rock cover band I was in,  Dirty Looks, from way back in the late 1980's:

Anybody else have Halloween pics in costume, playing?

1 hour ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

It's not about in the same directory.  It's about how Cakewalk does the scanning.  Cakewalk loads plugin #1, checks it, unloads it, then loads Plugin #2.  That first plugin doesn't clean up things correctly it can cause Plugin #2 to fail to load right.  Cakewalk's scan in a sandbox option is supposed to help fix this.  But it only sandboxes the Cakewalk process.  It can't protect system services (like iLok/eLicenser/etc) that not only use loaded DLLs but also actively running services.

SSD5free claims to use iLok:

https://stevenslatedrums.com/ssd5/#SSD5FREE

 

Understood, on the scanning.

I have no iLOK authorization for SSD5, I checked, yet it loads and works fine, so not sure why there is any mention of it on their site.

2 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

When Cakewalk scans DLLs to see if they are plugins if the plugin fails to load it will mark it as not a VST.  This happens because some plugin developers mix non-plugin DLL's into the directories that are being scanned.  Plugins that do load then have to respond like a VST/work like a VST as well.

Sometimes when scanning plugins one plugin will do things that cause later plugins to fail to load.  When this happens the later plugins can be marked as not plugins, even though they certainly are.  I actually wrote a Powershell script that would clear out all bad plugins so that they would get re-scanned.  Otherwise the only way to get that to happen is to use the Cakewalk option to re-scan everything which takes a long time.

I suspect the problem with the Slate Drums might be related to iLok libraries.  Loading an iLoc plugin can sometimes have issues (not just with Cakewalk).  I've seen many a iLoc plugin fail during a scan (multiples of them) but then when reset and re-scanned they work fine.

Rather than edit the entry, I'd just delete it and let Cakewalk re-scan it.

Likely a good idea to rescan it, in any case, just to see what happens.

Please note, that in the case of the folder contains the Steven Slate Drums 5 Free Edition module, SSDSampler5.dll, that is the only thing in that folder, so it is not possible that some other component/module in that folder could have caused any issues - nothing else there to do so.

Also, this product, SSD5, is not controlled by iLOK authorization.

Bob Bone

I cannot recall if the 1st install was on my PC, or if I had done it remotely on my friend's, using Team Viewer.

The issue would appear, to me, to be something in Cakewalk's VstScan.exe processing, as other VST hosts I launched, found the plugin and loaded it just fine.  In addition, even if I had installed it on my PC, the 1st install, when it was uninstalled, CbB's VstScan would have removed it from its inventory, or at least, should have removed it from the inventory entries in the Registry.

Bob Bone

2 hours ago, Jacques Boileau said:

Hum, strange, I just looked at my installation of the free SSD5 VSTi and it shows up correctly in Cakewalk and I took a minute to check the registry and isVst is set to 1. your problem must not be happening to everyone, but I sure wonder why it happens to some and not to others. I don't know what to make of it.

Yup quite weird - I used it a month ago, checking it out for a friend who I was recommending it to, and everything was fine.  I deleted the free version after that, but quite odd to have it be improperly scanned like that, for me, and for at least the one other other, who I was trying to help in the FB forums.

Bob Bone

Howdy - I was looking at posts in a FB group for Cakewalk by Bandlab, and I saw a user who had reported not being able to find the plugin for Steven Slate Drums 5, the Free version.

Since I had recently worked with both the free version, and umtimately, the paid full version, about a month ago, I thought it interesting, so I decided to download the free version, to see what Cakewalk thought of it currently.

Sure enough, I too had no such luck, after installation of it, properly placed into a sub-folder included in the search paths for VstScan.exe.  The plugin, VST2 version - named SSDSampler5.dll, was indeed in place, however it failed to show up as available for use in Cakewalk, in any category.

I verified its proper location, in the sub-folder I intended for it to be installed to, and found it IN the Registry entries for Cakewalk VST x64, but when I examined its Registry entry further, I found a Value Name and Value Data pair, that looked a bit suspicious.  The Value Name is "isVst", and the Value Data for it was '0' (zero).  SOOOO, it looked like the scan found SSDSampler5.dll, but determined it wasn't a synth.

It is possible that SSDSampler5.dll could have been determined to be an audio effect plugin, but I had not looked in those categories, in Cakewalk's Browser Pane, and SSDSampler5.dll was a synth plugin a month ago, when I spent 2 weeks working with it, and its full version.  Clearly, VstScan.exe had improperly evaluated and classified this plugin.

SOOOOO - I compared the "isVst" Value Name and Value Data of another synth in the Registry, and confirmed my suspicion that to be seen as a synth plugin, I needed to change that Registry Value Data, for SSDSampler5/dll, from '0' to '1', so I did.

I then launched Cakewalk, and lo and behold, it showed 1 newly found plugin in the VstScan, and sure enough, I could now see and insert SSDSampler5.dll into a new project, and it gloriously opened up its UI just fine, and all was well.

Since at least 2 users have had this issue (me, and the person I was trying to help in the first place), it would seem there is something abnormal happening with VstScan, at least with regard to proper processing of Steven Slate Drums 5 Free version, a 64-bit VST2 synth plugin.

Cakewalk support - I hope this is some small issue, not affecting scans of VST2 synth plugins in general.

If anybody else experiences this sort of issue, the steps I took, described above, MAY (hopefully) help get scanned synth plugins working for use in Cakewalk.

Here is a screenshot I took, of the Registry Value Name and Value Data pair, so you know you are in the right place, should you have to try doing such a Registry edit - PLEASE NOTE that you MUST be careful when editing things in the Registry, as unintended edits could cause other things to fail. (just be careful).

Screenshot:

Bob Bone

16 hours ago, Anton Pyvovarov said:

 

I have to say I'm not very experienced with windows audio drivers, as I've been using mac since I've learned my first DAW. Until now I wasn't aware, that WASAPI is meant for built in audio engine only. Furthermore I was using a wrong asio driver all along (ASIO4ALL, instead of MOTU Asio) What I did notice though is that, as far as latency is concerned the MOTU ASIO driver will be less efficient, then WASAPI exclusive without the interface.  To  be able to use strings and piano libraries without "cracks" I have to setup buffer size higher and have no less than 15 ms.  So with what I have , if having least latency is needed i'm right now better off using no audio interface, but just usb input and a headphone output with WASAPI exclusive. As I was (unknowingly) trying to use WASAPI, with my MOTU, it worked very unstable and as a result the aforementioned artefacts.  Thanks to all for the tips !

I think if you uninstall ASIO4ALL, install the MOTU ASIO drivers, change your Driver Mode in Preferences, set the ASIO Buffer Size to 128 samples, and be careful about any effects plugins adding latency, you should be fine for recording.

When mixing, change the ASIO Buffer Size to 1024 or 2048, then you can also use more resource demanding plugins, such as convolution reverbs, or linear phase type plugins.

Bob Bone