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VST Synth Settings Problems


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Every time I reload my project after starting cakewalk all of the settings in the VST synth are reset to default.  This means I have to start over from scratch again with setting up and dialing in my instruments every time I close it down.  In the patch selector window it will still show the patch I had selected but all of the settings will be reset to default as if I had just created a new synth track so I needs to recreate all of the sounds I had previously created again.

Right now I'm using the VST prodigious which I use a lot as I really like how it sounds but this bug is happening with it.  Does anyone know anyway to fix this besides having to make sure I save all of my patches every time before I close down sonar or I loose them?

Also, when ever I had sonar running I have to close it down to get any sound from any other program to play.  Is there a way to keep cakewalk from locking out all other programs from audio playback?

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6 minutes ago, GuyWithAFuzzPedal said:

Every time I reload my project after starting cakewalk all of the settings in the VST synth are reset to default.  This means I have to start over from scratch again with setting up and dialing in my instruments every time I close it down.  In the patch selector window it will still show the patch I had selected but all of the settings will be reset to default as if I had just created a new synth track so I needs to recreate all of the sounds I had previously created again.

Right now I'm using the VST prodigious which I use a lot as I really like how it sounds but this bug is happening with it.  Does anyone know anyway to fix this besides having to make sure I save all of my patches every time before I close down sonar or I loose them?

There's no fix because no-one so far can give the developers a set of steps to reproduce it.

If you're seeing it every time, please let @Noel Borthwick know about it - maybe make a project available for him to inspect.

8 minutes ago, GuyWithAFuzzPedal said:

Also, when ever I had sonar running I have to close it down to get any sound from any other program to play.  Is there a way to keep cakewalk from locking out all other programs from audio playback?

If you're using WASAPI, you may be running it in exclusive mode. You can set it to shared instead so that other programs can use it as well.

image.png.361f36f155ae46bf5a27850325e9a1fa.png

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I'm using ASIO4ALL.  It's happening consistently with my current project and the prodigious VST.  It's a free VST (and an amazing sounding one too) so using that should allow them to reproduce it.  It's happening every time with my current project and this VST.  If just using that VST doesn't help I could make a copy of this project it's not a serious one just one I was playing around with to dial it different sounds with this synth.

I'm also having a problem with a nice sounding drum VST (that I"m actually using in this project) not displaying it's name correctly in the insert soft synth menue.  It displays as "container" when it's actually called EXD-80.

I started the project as a blank project if that helps.

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Other people have seen VST settings being reset with a selection of plugins, commercial and otherwise, but never consistently.

I've personally never experienced it.

The synth that says "container" sounds like it was created with SynthEdit, and the developer didn't set the name properly. I don't think that in itself is anything serious.

It's a pretty rare bug, and no-one can reproduce it consistently. If you help get to the bottom of it, there'll be a lot of happy people out there :)

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Well it's happening every time with prodigious in this project.  I can send the project to someone at cakewalk and they can grab a copy of Prodigious if that helps.  They might want to try recreating the problem with the steps I used to get here.

1) start a blank project.

2)insert EXD-80 and create a basic 4/4 beat of kick on 2nd and 4th beat.

3)insert prodigious and add a bassline.

4)insert a second prodigious and add a lead instrument with some simple riffs

5)save and then restart.

Edited by GuyWithAFuzzPedal
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I was having this problem all the time with my Korg M1 and Roland Cloud vsti. They would reset back every time I closed and re-opened the project and I would have to guess which of the 1000+ patches I chose earlier. Then, I posted my woes on in the VST forum. I got some replies and then when I tried to re-create it, it never happened again. I have no idea why. Maybe you can read my thread from there. It was about a month ago. Good luck.

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Interesting synth... I created a test project for final Splat 32 bit, using two (2) instances of “Prodigious Synthesizer V1.2” each setup with a different “Prodigious Factory patch”, recorded a midi sequence for each midi track per instance. Also loaded an instance of AD2 and setup a midi drum sequence and saved and closed the project. On reloading the project all returned as saved no problems!

Since this is a 32 bit synthedit VST, I hesitate to use it in CbB, having had problems with some 32 bit VSTs and BitBridge, causing crashes in Splat 64 bit. I assume your issue is in CbB, who knows it might be whatever bridge you’re using in conjunction with Prodigious, or another plugin in the mix? And, I always run the Splats & CbB as an administrator...

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There's a number of people who have experienced losing their VST settings on a fairly regular basis, and yet a lot of us have never seen it.

The more I think about it, the more I think that these VST settings issues are maybe an environmental issue, combined with something within Cakewalk that handles this in a bad way.

Unfortunately with PC's, there's so many different configurations that could come into play here.

It might be worth asking people if they're willing to submit a report (such as a Belarc advisor report, minus the serial numbers), to give the Cakewalk dev team an idea of people's PC configuration, and what other drivers/software they have installed.

Hopefully it might point out something common to all of those experiencing the issue that the others don't have.

@Noel Borthwick - do you think this is something worth pursuing?

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We're pursuing all leads that might have any bearing on this. So far I've even had two live sessions with users but nothing has shown up as suspicious in diagnostics and the problem was not reproducible on the customers end. Are you sure this is not a demo plugin issue in this case? Many demo's intentionally do not retain settings....

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I run all my 32 bit plugins with JBridge, using the "Load with JBridge wrapper" option within the plugin settings.

I have seen issues with a handful of 32 bit plugins regarding the GUI being blank or only partially drawn, and also some of them not closing down when quitting Cakewalk - both can be solved within JBridge using the "Force whole GUI refresh" and "Dirty Close" options respectively.

I've still yet to experience the lost VST settings issue with any of my plugins.

I know there's a general feeling that using bridged 32 bit plugins is bad, but in my experience the vast majority have been rock solid using JBridge.

The few that have been problematic were just as problematic on a native 32 bit OS.

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18 hours ago, GuyWithAFuzzPedal said:

Also, when ever I had sonar running I have to close it down to get any sound from any other program to play.

This may be because your sample rate and bit depth settings in Cakewalk don't match your Windows system settings, and ASIO4ALL is not releasing when you switch to other programs (your browser, for example). A dedicated audio interface is usually better at this. In the mean time you might try setting up Windows the same way you have Cakewalk set up. (I would guess the default in Windows is 16/44.1, but I've messed around with my settings so many times I can't remember what it was out of the box.)

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That is the work around I am using Wookiee it gets the job done but is a bit annoying.  It still shows the correct preset as being selected but the settings aren't correct when I click it again it loads it correctly now that I've saved them to a new preset bank instead of just using the default one.  There is no way for me to rename the presets in my bank for some reason.

I'm using ASIO4all because way back when I was using Sonar x3 I was having some problems getting it output sound properly and I found a website that said to use ASIO4all and using it made everything work properly.  I'm using what ever sound card is build into my AMD Radeon 7980 graphics card.  I use an external DAC called AudioEngineD1 for sound output but my DSP is what ever is built into that.

Larry the settings are the same in windows and the DAW I got it to release the audio but setting it's output to WASAPI like msmcleod suggested.  I do have an audio interface for my guitar but it doesn't work with my desktop due to not having thunderbolt ports so I only use it with my laptop which is not very powerful.  I bought an PCI card that has thunderbolt ports for my desktop but it's a knock off of the ones made for my MB that doesn't work and since manufacture they ripped the design from stopped making them scalpers on ebay are charging insane prices for the real ones.  It's a thunderbolt port from my understanding they need to be made specific for each motherboard. 

I'm trying to get the screen capture I made of the problem to be a small enough size for upload but I can't get it under 4.88mb I think I'm going to have to upload it elsewhere and PM a link to Noel.

 

Edited by GuyWithAFuzzPedal
typos and clarification
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Good to know you have found a workable though irritating solution.  I would try the WASAPI driver as on an old 2600K PC I have it gives me good latency with the MoBo's Realtek sound card. 

WASAPI has two modes Exclusive and shared as noted by @msmcleod you could try both.  If you use Exclusive you could also check the option in

Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording > Suspend Audio engine when Cakewalk is Is Not In Focus.

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I loaded the test project in the final Splat 64 bit, originally created for final Splat 32 bit. I can confirm that, yes indeed, in spite of the preset indicating the one that was saved, it was in fact the 1st in the preset list “Bass Gratification”, and re-selecting the checked preset that was originally saved will restore it. Re-saving the project under a different name from Splat 64 bit made no difference on the Splat 64 bit reload. This was with BitBridge, so it seems that whatever the preset parameter is, is not being recognized or applied to the vst via the bridge on loading in Splat 64 bit, yet the Splat 64 saved version opens in Splat 32 bit without any problems. It might work with JBridge but that I can’t test.

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@Tez - I tried creating a brand new project using two instances of Prodigious using the BitBridge wrapper. I chose two presets, and altered them slightly.

I got exactly the same results as you - i.e. both instances reverted to "Bass Gratification", even though their preset name indicated the ones I'd changed them to.

However, changing the wrapper to JBridge fixed it, and it behaved as it should.

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For what it's worth, after reading this thread, I checked a 32 bit plug-in (MHC's Ambient Keys) which has the same problem - in both 32 bit and 64 bit SONAR/CbB - the preset changes to preset #1 (counting from #0 in the plug-in's preset list).  Using the demo version of jBridge resolves the issue.

Interestingly, though, it has the same issue in my quick'n'dirty 32 bit VST checker Chainer and Samplitude.  So it looks like some vagary in the VST spec that many hosts (and bridges) don't deal with in the way all plug-ins expect, but jBridge does.  Maybe this will help the Bakers work out the issue (perhaps the same happens with the internal VST handling in CbB too for 64 bit plug-ins).

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Terrific...   jBridge is not free & the demo's limitations make it only useful for a review,  be nice if there's a fix for BitBridge. Meanwhile is there any other free alternatives out there someone could recommend??

Edited by Tez
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I brought that same project I've been working on up to 4 prodigious tracks and now I'm having trouble with CbB freezing repeatedly.  I can't open the project without it freezing.  Really sucks and I really like the sound of this synth and the only other moog prodigy vst I've found is also 32bit.  I did find schematics for the original analog prodigy and I have a good soldering station so I guess that's a option.  But I can't open it all now.  I have Sonar x3 but I only had the 64bit version registered before they shut down the registration servers so I can't open the 32bit version.

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