bitflipper

Technically, that second one would be a host, not a plugin.

Curiously, I can't recall ever having a stuck note issue with anything other than certain Kontakt instruments. There must be some scripting trick that's not universally known, as evidenced by vendors whose products never seem to exhibit this problem (e.g. OTS, Indiginus, Spitfire). Probably not coincidentally, those vendors are also known to employ sophisticated scripting, suggesting deep expertise. OP: which synths have you experienced stuck notes with?

Give it a try. I think you may already have my email address, but I'll send it to you via PM if not.

I once counted up all the reverbs I have. Sheesh. Way too many. Some of them are unique, e.g. D16's bizarre Toraverb, Valhalla Shimmer or tritik's otherworldly irid. Some are especially adept at disappearing into the mix if that's what you want, e.g. FabFilter's infinitely tweakable Pro-R. I suppose MTurboReverb falls into that category too. Very versatile. But despite all those options, 95% of the time it ends up being Valhalla Plate. (No Nimbus for me, though; I have a Pace-free system and aim to keep it that way.)

Bapu is a compulsive collector. Like that weird person you know that collects clowns, salt shakers or dream catchers. Ask him how many he actually uses. Or has ever used. I've heard enough of Bapu's mixes to know he's good at it. I doubt he's scrolling through a hundred compressors trying to decide which one to use. I admit to being a reformed collector myself, although I'm down to 339 at last count. I could easily reduce that to a couple dozen.

There is no link in your last post, Annabelle. A wav file would be much easier to restore than a Cakewalk project file, even if the file header is gone. Adobe Audition, for example, can treat a file as raw data with no file header, open it, and re-save it as a RIFF WAV. I'd be happy to try that if you like.

I think so. Here's a comparison of features between Elements, Standard and Advanced.

When I add a new plugin, the subsequent scan takes about 3 seconds. A lot longer if I do a reset first, in which case it's more like 30-40 seconds. Either way, significantly under a lifetime. OP, how long do your scans take? Could be one plugin that's holding up the process.

When I read the thread title, I took it as literally one plugin. If that were the case, it would have to be an EQ. Everything else you can do with painstaking automation. But now that I realize the OP meant "third-party plugin", and presumably does not include virtual instruments, then my answer would be Ozone. (Although technically if you use Ozone Advanced, that's actually a bundle of, iirc, 21 plugins.)

"Underrated" will be laughable if you're Dutch or Scandinavian, but here in North America Floor Jansen is, sadly, relatively unknown.

It's not surprising that smaller plugin vendors don't have the resources to test every version of every DAW out there. Note that when they do include one, they specify the exact version they support. Cubase 10? Sorry, we don't support it, even though the idea that any VST might be incompatible with any Steinberg product is silly. Looking at iZotope's list for RX, I see a lot of DAWs that aren't included. Samplitude, Tracktion, Bitwig, Audacity, Ardour, Mixcraft, ACID Pro, Digital Performer, MuLab, GarageBand and many others. Too many for any company to properly test on a frequent basis. Also note that they never make any mention of hardware console compatibility. The list, I think, is just there to reassure novice buyers who might not understand that the whole idea of a standard interface is to assure universal compatibility.

That was my first thought, too. It looks like an encrypted file. Although in my experience ransomware targets files with specific file extensions, e.g. .docx, .xlsx, .mdb.

Was going to say the same thing. They have frequent sales and loyalty discounts. The Rain Piano is quite nice if you're looking for an upright. The 7CG is a deeply-sampled Yamaha if you want something brighter than a Steinway. There is also a cheaper version of it, presumably with fewer samples.

Since somebody mentioned bagpipes...

Verify that the vst3 version is in fact installed and in the right place, then rescan. All vst3 plugins should be in the same place, e.g. c:\program files\common files\vst3. As long as it's there, the scanner should have no problem finding them. If the file is in the right place, run the scanner with its log enabled (Preferences -> Files -> VST Settings -> Generate Scan Log). After rescanning, open the log (%appdata%\cakewalk\logs\vstscan.log) with Notepad and search for the name of the dll. If the init failed while scanning that plugin, an entry in the log file should indicate why.

Cakewalk has no concept of "end of song". It tries to figure that out based on where the last event occurs, which might be the end of an audio or MIDI clip, a MIDI note, an automation node, or an ARA region. Quite often, the "end" that it comes up with doesn't land where you think it should be. The good news is that it doesn't really matter until you export your final mix. At that time, you have to decide where the beginning and ending are and select the region in between for export. I deal with this by placing markers labeled "Start" and "End". When you export, you can specify those markers. If it really bothers you, you can find that last event and move or delete it. It would be nice if Cakewalk would let you indicate Start and End markers as references that the export dialog would default to, but I've been lobbying for years for that feature with no luck. But as I said, it's really not a problem.

A good price, but only get this if you don't already have any other choir libraries. There's no new ground here.

Anything can be a slide guitar with nimble use of the pitch wheel. Mostly, I use Zebra2. But if I'm feeling lazy, I do keep an arsenal of sampled bendy instruments on hand. None of them do it all, so selection is based on the particular part. The STEEL Lap Steel Guitar, The Resonator and Delta Blues Acoustic Guitar, all from Indiginus SLIDE Acoustic and SLIDE Lap Steel from OTS Young Love, Glorious Steel and Smoked Lap Steel patches from Omnisphere Here's a tune I'm currently working on that features The Resonator.

Classical music and Broadway show tunes, that's all keyboards are good for.

Even though I don't drink myself, I will never dismiss the power of drink to break down barriers. It was a crucial factor in 90% of my pre-marriage, um, casual romantic encounters. The other 10% was due to being a rock 'n roll musician.

While you're looking at the registry, check \core\userpaths\TplFolder. That should contain the path you specified in Preferences as the template folder. Sounds silly, but that's where I'd start: combine the TplFolder path with the filename in Default Template, paste them into a DOS window and see if notepad can open it.

Could there be something in the template itself causing loading it to abort? Just spitballin'. Can you make a different template work? IOW, have you determined that it's one template that can't be used as default, vs. no templates work. You might try setting/adding the ExceptionHandlingSeverity variable to 7 (Preferences -> File -> Initialization File), which causes Cakewalk to report every piddling error it encounters, even some that normally wouldn't warrant a visible complaint. That could potentially drop a clue into the debug log (%appdata%\cakewalk\logs\cakewalk.log). Also verify that Cakewalk knows which template should be the default. That's stored in the registry (search "Default Template" under the Cakewalk\Core key). Normally, it's default.cwt. If that file doesn't exist, I think you get a blank project.

Who'd have guessed a serious thread about alcohol could degenerate into a discussion of hockey? This is what happens when you invite a Canadian to the table. I was in Germany once during the Stanley Cup finals, staying with a German friend. He had like 400 channels on his TV and we stumbled onto a hockey match. Neither of us knew anything about the sport, but had a blast making up the rules based on what we saw on the screen. Apparently, it's like soccer/football except that injuries are not incidental to the game, but rather the point of it.

Count me among the clueless, then. "Too much" keys is not a concept I can grasp. Contrast that with, say, the digeridoo. Now, that's one I don't miss when absent from a song. Mainly because it has to be accompanied by the obligatory rainstick, and mine, being an actual organic one made out of some kind of cactus, has annoying poky things along the length of it that irritate my delicate keyboard player hands. I keep it behind the door to fend off intruders.

Root beer, Bourbon Street and Spirit Halloween. Last drink I had was New Year's Eve 1984. First hangover ever experienced was New Year's Day, 1985. The ultimate cure.