Question regarding plugins and their versions

[Tianzii]

Hey family!

I’ve got a few FLPs from WAProduction and OST Audio for a while now and I’ve learned new stuff by watching automation params and arrangements.

And I’ve noticed that because plug-in versions are higher then the ones used in the project, the project couldn’t load the newer version of the plugin in the daw template using an older plugin version.

I want to create my new album and I don’t want after a few years to open the projects without being able to load the plugins.

How do you tackle this in your projects? Are you running multiple versions of the same plugin on the same pc/mac?

Or should I not be interested in those long term cause I’ll be bouncing the tracks anyway for mixing and mastering?

The same applies for plugins names that change over time. Eg: Kontakt vs Kontakt 7, Spire v1.1 vs 1.5, etc.

Thank you!

[OutrageProductions]

4 hours ago, Tianzii said:

How do you tackle this in your projects? 

Just learn to make a decision and commit to it. If you can't arrange, produce, and mix a decent project now, it probably won't get any better with age.

[Byron Dickens]

5 hours ago, Tianzii said:

I want to create my new album and I don’t want after a few years to open the projects without being able to load the plugins.

How do you tackle this in your projects? Are you running multiple versions of the same plugin on the same pc/mac?

Finish the project and move on.

Revisiting things over and over is for Wordsworth and Whitman.

[Bapu]

The only time I actually revisit a project is because something got re-recorded/replaced. If a plugin is out of date or replaced by a newer version, I just "deal with it'. Chances are I'm going to come up with something just as good or maybe/hopefully even better.

[Tianzii]

Thank you guys! You’re awesome! 💪

[bitflipper]

This is rarely a problem. Most plugin upgrades look - to the DAW - like the same plugin as the original, and honor the same automation parameters and custom presets.

That may not be the case if the new version is radically different from the original, but when that happens the two versions will typically have different names, allowing you to have old and new side by side so that projects using the old version are unaffected. 

Worst-case scenario is you are forced to replace the old one with the new one, and then the DAW then complains about a missing plugin. Even then, Cakewalk makes it fairly easy to painlessly substitute the new one and carry on. Any automation you had on the track will still be there but you'll have to manually reassign them to the new plugin.