Mainly running CBB, but can no longer scan VSTs in 32-bit Sonar

[Steve Moddelmog]

I have been running CBB since it first became available, but I have kept a 32-bit version on SPLAT on my computer to be able to load old projects that used dxi's.  I have done that as recently as 2 months ago.  Today when I loaded 32-bit Sonar all my VSTs were gone all all VST configuration options were grayed out.  What might have happened?

[Steev]

I don't believe bit depth is an issue with DX (audio plugins) and DXi (instruments) as they run on Windows Direct X runtime component built into every version of Windows. However, it's a serious issue with VST and VSTi plugins because they are "stand alone" apps that don't rely on any one particular OS. Does the x32 bit version of SONAR even recognize VST 3 plugins?

What happened most likely depends on what OS version you are running on your computer, and IF the old software/plugins are so outdated that Windows 10 had blocked/tagged them as possible security issues? (Assuming you even are running Win 10?)

And or corrupted/ broken "paths" in Windows "registry" and maybe confusion between the different paths of "Program Files" and "x86 Program File" folders?

It's generally a BAD idea to keep running x32 bit apps on an x64 bit OS computer.

ALL support for 32 bit apps and programs have already been, or are being phased out of Windows 10, and Cakewalk by Bandlab doesn't support an x32 bit version of the DAW at all. But both Splat & CbB  DAW's do in fact serve as an excellent "Host" for running  x32 FX plugins and instruments.

There is no reason to keep running an x32 bit version of SONAR on an x32 bit computer as the x64 version will recognize and run all DX/ DXi and older 32 bit VST/VSTi plugins, and do so MUCH better MORE efficiently.

That being said, there is REALLY no good reason to run SONAR at all being CbB is really just a newer ever evolving updated version with continuing support. If Bandlab didn't change the name it would still be SONAR, just v20+ or maybe v30+ or something by now. ?

Although I do sometimes spark up SPLAT on occasion when opening up very old projects (just in case) The only reason I still have it installed is for licensing purposes for bundled Cakewalk & 3rd party software that isn't included CbB, and I've had little to no problems or surprises either DAW opening projects going back as far as work originally done with SONAR Producer 2 running on Windows 2000 when I couldn't trust Win XP x64 bit computers where nothing more the a distant wet dream..

 Ah those were the dayz, when I couldn't trust XP until about it's final year when Microsoft FINNALY got it STABLE about a year before Win "Millenium" was released and then the cycle of crap continued ON & ON and I continued to rely on XP for my SONAR workstation until Win v7 and Microsoft FINALLY figured out how to make a reliable x64 OS. It was so good and reliable for so long, I didn't even hesitate to JUMP on Win 10 and since then I NEVER LOOKED BACK!

Yeah, it's been a long and bumpy ride and I DON'T see much to "wax poetic" about NOR do I miss recording to tape either.... ?

 

 

[msmcleod]

51 minutes ago, Steev said:

I don't believe bit depth is an issue with DX (audio plugins) and DXi (instruments) as they run on Windows Direct X runtime component built into every version of Windows. However, it's a serious issue with VST and VSTi plugins because they are "stand alone" apps that don't rely on any one particular OS. Does the x32 bit version of SONAR even recognize VST 3 plugins?

32 bit DX plugins cannot run within a 64 bit DAW, and vice versa... and AFAIK you can't have a 32 bit DX plugin "installed" or more accurately, registered at the same time as the 64 bit one.  So although you can have both on your hard disk, only one of them will be available as only one DX plugin can exist in the Windows registry with the same CLSID.

You can however quite happily have 32 bit & 64 bit VST's installed at the same time, as long as they live in different locations on your hard disk.

For the DX plugins, you could probably come up with a batch script that could swap between the 32 bit & 64 bit DX plugins before you ran SONAR or CbB, but you'd need to know exactly which plugins you'd need.

For example, assuming you've installed SONAR 32 bit to "C:\Program Files (x86)", you could run the following to register the 32 bit version of TTS-1, and use it in SONAR 32 bit:

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared DXi\TTS-1\TTS-1.dll"

Then run the following to register the 64 bit version before you run CbB:

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared DXi\TTS-1\TTS-1.dll"

However, you'd need to:
1. Do this for each and every DX plugin, and
2. Know exactly what dependencies they need, in case you need to regsvr32 those as well.

It's not for the faint hearted.

There are three other solutions:
1. Run SONAR 32 bit on a different PC
2. Set your PC to be a dual 64 bit/32 bit boot and swap between them as needed ( FWIW, this is what I do )
3. Run SONAR 32 bit in a virtual machine running a 32 bit OS... although with this solution, you'll be able to load/edit projects, but the VM might be too slow to record or playback larger projects.
 

[Steve Moddelmog]

Thanks for the responses, but I think I wasn't very clear.  First of all, as of March 15 I was doing exactly what I want to do - load old projects with dxi's in 32-bit Sonar, which I have had installed on my computer alongside CBB ever since CBB was released.  All of my 32-bit VSTs have been visible in 32-bit Sonar as have all of my dxi plugins - until I tried it today.  The dxi plugins are still visible - that's not the problem.  The problem is that the 32-bit VSTs, which I am absolutely certain were available in 32-bit Sonar on March 15, are all gone, and all of the options for scanning them in Plugin Manager are grayed out.  I'm not trying to load VST3 plugins or 64-bit VST2 plugins in 32-bit Sonar - I know that is not possible. I'm only trying to do what I have done ever since CBB was released - use 32-bit Sonar to load old projects since I cannot load the dxi plugins that many of them used in CBB.  Any thoughts?  Thanks.

[Xoo]

20 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

32 bit DX plugins cannot run within a 64 bit DAW, and vice versa... and AFAIK you can't have a 32 bit DX plugin "installed" or more accurately, registered at the same time as the 64 bit one.  So although you can have both on your hard disk, only one of them will be available as only one DX plugin can exist in the Windows registry with the same CLSID.

You can (at least in some cases): I have TTS-1 available in both 32 bit SONAR and 64 bit SONAR/CbB, and ditto for the Sony (Sound Forge) plugins. 

[msmcleod]

1 minute ago, Kevin Perry said:

You can (at least in some cases): I have TTS-1 available in both 32 bit SONAR and 64 bit SONAR/CbB, and ditto for the Sony (Sound Forge) plugins. 

oh, interesting... they must have different CLSID's, or maybe installed in the Win32 subsystem. 

[scook]

On 5/12/2022 at 4:20 PM, Steev said:

Does the x32 bit version of SONAR even recognize VST 3 plugins?

Yes, starting with SONAR X3.

On 5/12/2022 at 5:10 PM, msmcleod said:

32 bit DX plugins cannot run within a 64 bit DAW, and vice versa... and AFAIK you can't have a 32 bit DX plugin "installed" or more accurately, registered at the same time as the 64 bit one.  So although you can have both on your hard disk, only one of them will be available as only one DX plugin can exist in the Windows registry with the same CLSID.

On 64bit Windows, 32 and 64bit DX plug-ins are registered in different locations.

If fact all the 32bit software registry entries are kept separately under WOW6432Node.

Both 32 and 64bit versions of old Cakewalk DAWs may be installed on the same machine. It has been that way since the introduction of 64bit SONAR.

Both the software and registry entries are stored in different locations.

What they will share are Cakewalk Content, the user directory and ProgramData. Folders are created for each product but the data in the folders are not 32/64bit specific.

 

On 5/12/2022 at 5:22 PM, Steve Moddelmog said:

The problem is that the 32-bit VSTs, which I am absolutely certain were available in 32-bit Sonar on March 15, are all gone, and all of the options for scanning them in Plugin Manager are grayed out. 

If this is a 32bit X-series version of SONAR, you should be using preferences to perform plug-in scanning operations.

That said, when the scanner options are disabled it most often means the registry entry for the scanner is bad or missing.

Running a full-personalization which overwrites the files in the user directory also attempts to restore the registry entry for the scanner.

To perform a full-personalization depends on which version of SONAR is running

• for X3 and older hold down SHIFT+CTRL while opening the DAW
• for SONAR newer than X3 hold down the CTRL while opening the DAW

This will present a dialog about personalization. Use the dialog to confirm running personalization.

If this does not work, re-install the DAW.

The fact that all VSTs are missing and the scanner entry may be missing means something happened to the registry. 

Possibly a registry cleaner was run and accidently removed the entries.

[Steev]

On 5/12/2022 at 6:10 PM, msmcleod said:

32 bit DX plugins cannot run within a 64 bit DAW, and vice versa... and AFAIK you can't have a 32 bit DX plugin "installed" or more accurately, registered at the same time as the 64 bit one.  So although you can have both on your hard disk, only one of them will be available as only one DX plugin can exist in the Windows registry with the same CLSID.

 

?WHY would you even want to do that? What advantages could you possibly achieve by running 32 bit Direct X  plugin on a x64 version of Windows? I'm not trying to be a wiseacre or  factitious. I'm simply curious..

Today the only DX plugins I have and still use are Cakewalk TTS-1 and the Sonitus bundle which are built into SONAR/CbB and they configure & install with the DAW's automatically with no user input or hassle. I am also unaware of any DX/DXi plugin development in the past 2 decades as VST/VSTi plugin had leapt ahead ENORMOUSLY.  I have WITNESSED, felt, and HEARD the differences from VST to VST 3, as well as anyone else who has had the insight to bother to continue do things like keep their Waves™ VST plugins updated from (old legacy) v9 and under to today's current v13 VST 3. And YES the old legacy Waves VST plugins still work and sound great? , just not NEARLY AS GREAT as their current v3 VST 3 plugins do???? . 

I'm also wondering WHY anyone would want to run a x32 bit version of SONAR on an x64 bit computer, as it will run a good deal slower & sluggish, had limited physical RAM memory bandwidth, and DOESN'T SUPPORT multi-core CPU's. ? I even noticed improvements in details in sound quality  and sharpness in the GRAPHICS.

I remember very well how SHOCKED I was at the different in performance,  power, and even SOUND of SONAR P was when I switched from x32 bit to x64 with Windows 7 being able to easily access and USE 8GB out of 16GB of memory, and spread the processing work load across all 4 cores of my AMD Phenom 960 CPU I was using at the time. ??? There were no 8 core CPU's released yet to  date, but even though there's a considerable boost in raw horsepower, I don't believe the difference between 4 core CPU's and 8 core CPU's is as VAST as the differences between x32 bit and x32 bit computing.

 I DO BELIEVE the transition from x32 bit to x64 bit computing IS the most significant LEAP of computer TECH  UPGRAGING of ALL TIMES I have experienced in over 30+ years.

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Steev

[Steve Moddelmog]

1 minute ago, Steev said:

?WHY would you even want to do that? What advantages could you possibly achieve by running 32 bit Direct X  plugin on a x64 version of Windows? I'm not trying to be a wiseacre or  factitious. I'm simply curious..

Today the only DX plugins I have and still use are Cakewalk TTS-1 and the Sonitus bundle which are built into SONAR/CbB and they configure & install with the DAW's automatically with no user input or hassle. I am also unaware of any DX/DXi plugin development in the past 2 decades as VST/VSTi plugin had leapt ahead ENORMOUSLY.  I have WITNESSED, felt, and HEARD the differences from VST to VST 3, as well as anyone else who has had the insight to bother to continue do things like keep their Waves™ VST plugins updated from (old legacy) v9 and under to today's current v13 VST 3. And YES the old legacy Waves VST plugins still work and sound great? , just not NEARLY AS GREAT as their current v3 VST 3 plugins do???? . 

I'm also wondering WHY anyone would want to run a x32 bit version of SONAR on an x64 bit computer, as it will run a good deal slower & sluggish, had limited physical RAM memory bandwidth, and DOESN'T SUPPORT multi-core CPU's. ? I even noticed improvements in details in sound quality  and sharpness in the GRAPHICS.

I remember very well how SHOCKED I was at the different in performance,  power, and even SOUND of SONAR P was when I switched from x32 bit to x64 with Windows 7 being able to easily access and USE 8GB out of 16GB of memory, and spread the processing work load across all 4 cores of my AMD Phenom 960 I was using at the time. ???

 I DO BELIEVE the transition from x32 bit to x64 bit computing IS the most significant LEAP of computer TECH  UPGRAGING of ALL TIMES I have experienced in over 30+ years.

 

As I've said, the purpose is solely to open older projects that used dxi plugins. Everything new I do is in 64-bit CBB. I'm surprised that nobody else seems to want / need to do this. In many cases, all I want is to see what preset I used in a plugin that also has a VST version, for example  FM8. I then replace the dxi with the VST version, load the preset, save, and then reopen in CBB.

[Steev]

Oh OK, that's simple. Just go to Native Instruments support and download and install the legacy version of FM8 in CbB than you can OPEN YOUR OLD SONAR PROJECT (where your patch & preset settings are stored) in CbB and Have a nice day! ? ? ?

You CAN have both a Dxi and VST versions of FM 8 installed in the same DAW.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Steev

[Steve Moddelmog]

31 minutes ago, Steev said:

Oh OK, that's simple. Just go to Native Instruments support and download and install the legacy version of FM8 in CbB than you can OPEN YOUR OLD SONAR PROJECT (where your patch & preset settings are stored) in CbB and Have a nice day! ? ? ?

You CAN have both a Dxi and VST versions of FM 8 installed in the same DAW.

 

 

Yes, I have both versions installed, but suddenly none of my VSTs are available in 32-bit Sonar.  So if I have a "mixed" project (say, FM8 dxi plugin but Absynth VST plugin) the VST will fail to load in 32-bit Sonar.  This is new behavior - I'm certain I could do this with no problem as of March 15.