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OB-Xd v2 VST3 displays the programs in the host VST window in at least CbB and Reaper. May be others... Or you can use the VST2 version in other DAWs that do not. The VST2 works in the same fashion elsewhere. However, the previous advice is the only method I am aware of for switching banks in any version. Cakewalk w/ VST3: Reaper w/ VST3:

You probably heard about the new MIDI 2.0 spec.? Yep. 30+ years in the making. This is exactly the kind of thing I believe would be helpful to the plugin industry. Call it PLUGIN.org or whatever. If we had one wrapper that would play both older and more recent versions of plugins in the same wrapper lots of people would be happy. Or maybe just several wrappers that all work in any DAW. Great idea! Not sure how MIDI.org gets their funding. Maybe a token contribution from members keeps them going? Another benefit is all members could have input into the process. The MIDI Manufacturers Association, among others. They are midi.org. Formed in 1985. On the different specs for plugin wrappers. Just proprietary stuff I guess. Makes more work for the developers . Yes it does.

I had a credit card get caught up in 2 major breaches. Both times the issuer cancelled my card and issued a new number. A 3rd time someone used my card for a low dollar amount to see if it would go through. Called right away, cancelled and renewed, and the transaction was quickly backed out. The bigger risk IMHO, is when you use a debit card for an online (or anything besides the ATM machine) transaction. The hacker now has access to YOUR bank account! It would be a more stressful process to get the bank to give you your money back. Especially if bills are due! When a credit card gets hacked, it is the banks money that gets stolen. So they have more incentive to deal with the problem quickly. It's still an account in your name with the potential to affect your credit rating if not dealt with promptly, but in my experience most banks are willing to offer 'no risk' credit card fraud options.

A little broader question about standards. Why is MIDI.org in charge of the MIDI standards? We should probably have a better digital music interface considering it's taken several decades to get where we are. And then there is this IEEE Standard Association committee that decides how our Wi-Fi works (IEEE 802.11x), among a zillion other technical things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Standards_Association Sorry to ramble off topic, but in my opinion standards are the glue that holds the world together, and informs manufacturers that the products that they produce will be compatible with other manufacturers. We have entered an age of interconnected things. A lot of time and effort by experts in their respective fields must work together to develop standards. So yes, I agree that the path of least resistance is probably what leads to a standard that is accepted by the majority. [/ramble off]. Final thoughts on plugin interfaces... why do we still have VST, AU, AAX, and others, rather than one for all?

Dimension LE was included in Sonar 7. You could try installing that plugin with the original Sonar 7 installer disc. I don't see it in my legacy Cakewalk account products list. Maybe it was never a standalone product with it's own serial? [Edit]: Wow, that's weird. I just inserted Dimension LE in Cakewalk by BandLab and got the registration message too! Maybe it was only licensed for Sonar? [Edit 2]: Just figured out that you could click through the registration prompt, and continue using the plugin. Just hit 'cancel'. I get this prompt each time I open the plugin UI, and have to cancel the prompt each time. But if I close the plugin window and save the project, there are no nags when I reopen it, until I open the plugin window again. Weird that this is the only legacy Cakewalk 32-bit plugin that behaves this way here.

That's literally a problem in itself, LOL!!!

Yes, very nice update!

Well I already have Sparkle, and the Dandy Bass with the new V2 features. I need to try out the Carbon demo. It would be nice to have the latest features in a guitar, so I will probably just wait to upgrade to v2 of Sparkle when it comes out. I had some fun learning my way around Dandy this weekend. MIDI drag and drop for the phrases works, and if you hold a key or chord when you drag, that is what you get in the MIDI clip in your track. Nice! Picked it up on the last day of the intro pricing. Very versatile sound, you can range it from mild to wild. Sounds best with a bass amp and cab simulator insert.

Ujam must be getting ready to release v2 of their guitars. Their latest guitar edition, Carbon appears to be the only guitar with new features such as MIDI drag n drop, and instrument mode. Wonder how much a v2 upgrade would be?

Maybe not, but it seems to be where all the cool kids hang out. ?

I've actually been thinking about acquiring a used or refurb older model of iPad for that purpose. All of the cool music apps are written for iOS. That appears to be where the mobile music market is happening today. I believe I once heard a developer mention that there are still some issues with audio on the Android so that many have been shying away from that platform for mobile audio development.

I would agree that Structure 2 is much more CPU friendly than SampleTank for example. Yes, I have the AIR and SONiVOX collections. Picked them up on sale a few years ago. Most of the AIR stuff is very good, especially the synths and keyboards. However, I have run across a few bugs with Structure 2, Strike 2, and Transfuser 2. Those also appear to have the oldest UIs of the bunch, as well. No bug fixes for those in 4 years. I did go ahead and pick up the new Loom 2 because I like that instrument, even though my confidence in AIR was beginning to lag by that point. I actually have issues with all of the SONiVOX instruments, except for the 88 ensemble, which is nice. I'll just leave it there. In any case there are some great deals on those, if you can live without ongoing support and development, and especially if your budget is tight. But I think that I have finally decided to spend any further money on supported products only. Plus there is some excellent freeware available that is currently supported, and works. The TW16x is a good example of a freeware sampler. https://www.tx16wx.com/ Too bad most sample libraries are proprietary, such as is the case with Structure's.

The InMusic Brands family of companies like AIR Music Tech and SONiVOX have been years since releasing the last update or bug fix patch for their older products. I'm not certain they ever updated anything for Windows 10 (released 2015), and they are falling further behind every day as Windows evolves. Not a good recipe for continued compatibility. Development of application software is best kept in sync with the developments kits used by the latest OS. Using the OS (Windows 7) that was mainstream when the application was written and tested may be the best option for compatibility. If you think you found a bug in Structure you could contact their support and open a ticket, but if it needs a patch I wouldn't hold my breath. https://airmusictech.com/support

Running it now. Looking and sounding good! Today is the last day for the intro price...

I don't have them installed anymore to count them, and they are not listed in the manual or the AIR Music product page. But the Structure 2 library should be about 37GB in size. I uninstalled it to make room for SampleTank 4 MAX. You think SE was a nightmare, LOL!!! I thought that the samples in Structure 2 were very good. But the UI is quite dated at this point and needs an update. Especially needs a scalable UI and a better browser. But if you are patient it is mostly functional. Here is a review (from 2015): https://soundbytesmag.net/structure2byairmusic/

I did that to USB hard drive once, and the partition disappeared. I was lucky to find some partition recovery tools (not file recovery) that recovered the partition table with all files still intact. But it probably depends on what exactly gets zapped with that last write. The keyword here is that I was lucky! Your advice to power off is the safest method, followed by ejecting the USB drive with the "safely remove hardware and eject media" icon in the task bar notification area. If that doesn't work because the drive shows in use try this: if it shows up in disk management, you can offline it there and then online it again. Afterwards it should allow the eject command to work and say "safely removed". It would probably be wise to do this methodically when switching between PCs using the USB switch, if there is storage attached to it.

I wish they offered a discount on their controllers if you have already purchased Analog Lab.

When mixing, what I have heard changing buffers even higher, like to 1024, can make a big difference. Low buffers are only really needed when tracking. and recording, especially with live effects or instruments.

OK, I took a look at those two presets, and didn't see any unusual system demands with either one. No dropouts here. Running a 3rd gen Intel Core i3 desktop on Windows 10 with SSDs for system and content drives. Firewire ASIO for audio output

No mistake. Just trying to reign it in a bit for the local audience, otherwise it could become a global discussion. Thanks for your input!

That's a decent piano, and well worth $5... ?

I picked up LiquidRhythm a while back from WaveDNA. Never tried Liquid Music. LiquidRhythm is a unique way to create drum patterns, and you can use the LR pattern generator with any drum VST in your DAW, if you want to use your preferred drum sounds instead of the internal sounds in LR. It would be interesting to hear from any users that are using Liquid Music as to how it expands the chord progressions and song ideas... And just FYI, the old bug with Sonar and the transport loop appears to have been resolved with Liquid Rhythm in the current version of CbB! The loop region appears to remain intact while looping with LR! Previously, the loop region in the Sonar host would eventually (after x number of loops) just run past the end of the loop length in LR and keep going (the loop length in the host and LR must match) .

Thanks for that video, it was very informative! Well. the first point is that without questioning why or how Steinberg ended up in this role, VST is a current standard 20+ years in the making. Plus they are now fully owned by Yamaha, so they do have some industry weight behind them. I'm not opposed in any way to a workable plugin standard that is controlled by a non-profit org, such as MIDI.org has done with the MIDI spec. But those standards are decades in the making by the very nature of the concepts of a standard. You need ALL of the equipment and/or software manufacturers to sign up for said "standard". Otherwise we are back in the wild without a standard, and with each manufacturer releasing their own. And efficiency by committee is not the fast track by any means!

Yep, download all 5 parts to the same folder, prior to running the first one.

Apparently, ZT has some old plugins that MUST be installed on a hardware iLok.