BitBridge Versions ?

[NealClark]

I am experiencing some issues that appear to be Bitbridge related that I wondered if anyone can offer advice on. The situation and brief history are as follows:-

I have a PC setup that has the ability, via two boot drives, that allows me to boot into either Windows 7 x64 or Windows 10. On the Windows 7 install I have all my original Sonar installs, from version 8 through to X3e Producer. In this Windows 7 system I have a huge number of "projects" that have been lingering around for many years and over time I have been migrating them where possible over to the Windows 10 install and it's associated X3e, SPlat and CbB installs. However I have a number of projects where I have used 32 bit plugins that I am now having issues with.  The majority of these projects were last edited in Sonar X3e Producer where those 32 bit plugins worked just fine and I can't ever remember experiencing any issues using them. So as part of the plan to migrate these projects over to Windows 10 I installed CbB onto this Windows 7 install. This was prior to the release where it was stated that  CbB was no longer supported on Windows 7. Now when I try to run any of the projects that use the 32bit plugins and BitBridge within Sonar X3 I get terrible audio breakup, crackling and stuttering. The version of BitBridge that is installed has a date on it of 2015 which would be after the release of my installed X3e Producer. So my main question is "were there previous version of BitBridge prior to that date that differed in any way?". Obviously whatever I had prior to the CbB install worked just fine. I am kind of stuck being able to do some final edits on these projects. My whole back catalogue of music written over many years are contained within these projects. I don't really want to be purchasing newer versions of these older plugins in order to be 64 bit compatible. Also many of them are no longer available but were pretty much cutting edge at the time. I have found a work around for some things in that I have both a 32 and 64 bit install of Sonar X1. If I open the projects in there I can obviously use all of these plugins without issue, as BitBridge isn't required, but I then have the problem that any 64 bit plugins and VST's don't work or show up.

Any help with suggestions would be appreciated. If it's worth me going back to a previously installed version of BItBridge, that's if there was such a thing, and it is any different and also where that version would be contained in the original install files. I know that there is always the option to install JBridge but I have read many differing reports about the relative success of using that. So am not really keen to spend any further monies to get around a problem that at one point didn't exist in my X3 Install.

Look forward to reading and suggestions all you Sonar / Cakewalk gurus may have.

Cheers

Neal.

Edited July 6, 2020 by NealClark

[Xoo]

What sort of issues?  And why can't you keep X3 on the machine (32 bit) and use that to complete old projects?

[NealClark]

I did mention the issues. "terrible audio breakup, crackling and stuttering" when using the 32 bit plugins. I don't have a 32 bit install of X3 on there, only a 64 bit. The only 32 bit install I have is X1. As I mentioned the issue with using a 32 bit version of the software is that other 64 bit plugins that were also used in the projects wont be available. I guess using the hybrid combination of 32 bit and 64 bit plugins wasn't the best idea, but it was what was available at the time. One reason for migrating the projects over is to take some of these projects and migrate them to 64 bit CbB on Windows 10 where I have a load of new VST's and Guitar Amp modelling that I would like to try with the projects. There are many things done with the older 32 bit plugins that would take an horrendous amount of work to reproduce in the migrated files.

One thing I have noticed that is if I freeze the tracks that contain the 32 bit plugins they render in place and play, using those 32 bit plugin effects, without any issues. It's only when I preview them in "real-time" that I have the issues. To eliminate any possibility that it is latency related I have adjusted the number of samples up and down on my ASIO audio device (Focusrite Saffire 18i8) but this made no difference at all. After many hours of investigation am pretty much convinced that it is BitBridge related in some way. As I said before all of these plugins worked perfectly in Sonar X3e 64 bit at one point.

[Xoo]

Sorry - misread!  You can install 32 bit X3 of course if you want to.

Like you, I've got some projects that were created in 32 bit SONAR and I want to revisit/complete (ideally in CbB), but some of the plug-ins don't exist in the 64 bit world, so migration doesn't work.  What I've been doing is re-opening in 32 bit SONAR, even if some plug-ins are missing, and then replacing just the not-64-bit ones with as close an equivalent as I can (it was reverbs last night).  And saving under a different name of course 🙂

[NealClark]

I could, but that still wouldnt solve the issue with being able to run the existing 64 Bit plugins. I was hoping that someone would be able to say "ah, yes, Cakewalk updated BitBridge on such and such a date, the older version worked fine."

What I might do is Install a fresh version of X3e onto a Laptop and compare the versions of the BitBridge.exe and BitBridge.dll files and see if anything has changed. That might at least point me to a possible solution. It could be that MS have also changed something in their C++ libraries that is causing the issue. It's an annoying place to be though.

Best of luck getting your old projects migrated. It sure is a lot of work to redo everything with new plugins. I guess like me you have spent a huge amount of time already on the older projects and to have to go over them again is quite a task.

Thanks for your input.