user 905133 Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 (edited) 4 hours ago, abacab said: You only need AAX if you are running Pro Tools. Unfortunately some plugin installers don't give you a choice. I also find that some installers will drop VSTs in a Steinberg folder for some reason, without asking. I don't typically have Steinberg in my VST scan paths, so those plugins will remain lost until I move them into my main VST folder. Thanks for the tips. I don't have Pro Tools and to be honest I never noticed the aaxplugins before the issue was raised here. Evidently, on my current PC the following plugins gave me some *.aaxplugin files: Melodyne, SPAN (Voxengo), RaptureSession_64, Ozone8Elements, and a while bunch from NI (including Komplete Kontrol)--less than 2 dozen. It looks like I have less than 10 vst plugins (not aaxplugins) in a Steinberg folder (counting all the Melda plugins as one, since they are all in the Melda subfolder. Actually, I don't recall seeing them in CWxBL; will check to see if I added the path. I previously simplified my plugins ( i.e., reduced the number of folders to search). So, thanks for that reminder! Edited July 30, 2019 by MusicMan11712 (aka Dr. Steve) to clarify that my Steinberg folder has vst plugins, not aaxplugins 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeGBradford Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 Must check mine when I'm on the PC - as others have said I always uncheck the option to install AAX but sounds like there may be some in there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 AAS puts plugins all over the place, even if you don't want them and told them not to. Search C drive for (for exemple) "AAS Player.dll" and at least four will show up, none of them in your regular vst folder (which, in my case, is on another drive). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted July 31, 2019 Author Share Posted July 31, 2019 6 hours ago, Paul P said: AAS puts plugins all over the place, even if you don't want them and told them not to. Search C drive for (for exemple) "AAS Player.dll" and at least four will show up, none of them in your regular vst folder (which, in my case, is on another drive). Well we were talking here mainly about Avid AAX plugins, but yes, AAS (Applied Acoustic Systems) VST plugins do have those tendencies as well. Good point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted July 31, 2019 Author Share Posted July 31, 2019 Yup, it seems at times that some developers think that the only thing you are running on your machine is their product, exclusively. So they put things wherever they wish! They should always take into account that the end user may run multiple products and needs 100% control and consent of install paths and content locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcL Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 IMO all these installers and even worse the installation managers just obscure the plugin installation. If you do not use the fxxxing AAX stuff, then the installation of plugins is actually very simple and was a delight in the past when a lot of developers deployed their stuff in simple zip files (there were less problems then!). In fact you have to know anyway where which plugins and settings are installed or you really get a mess!!! And nowadays things even get worse when you want to install on several computers (endless downloading, mindless waste of network resources, worse like in the Stone Age)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcklln Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 It is frustrating when an installer will crap all over the place even when you tell it not to. I rarely update AAS and IK stuff because of this. The only install manager that complains to me when removing the AAX plug-ins is XLN - it will say the install(s) needs to be repaired ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 Another annoyance is that some 3rd party installers default to my "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins" folder instead of "C:\Program Files\VstPlugIns" folder. If I catch that before I hit OK, it's usually not a problem. I only want my Cakewalk plugins in their respective folder and everything else in the general folder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
balinas Posted August 1, 2019 Share Posted August 1, 2019 12 hours ago, rcklln said: The only install manager that complains to me when removing the AAX plug-ins is XLN - it will say the install(s) needs to be repaired ? I got rid of the XLN AAX plug-ins about a month ago, and I was wondering why XLN said an install needed to be repaired when I updated yesterday. Thanks for mentioning this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 (edited) Hmmm... strange! Under "Advanced" on the XLN installer here, I only show paths for VST32 and VST64, and nothing about AAX. I just ran the update check with XLN, and no install repairs showed up about AAX for me. So I checked this path again: "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins". It appears that XLN had already "repaired" the Avid folder and replaced the AAX files that I had removed a month ago. In addition, I had recently re-ran an Akai/AIR installer that also replaced the AAX plugins in the Avid folder. So I deleted Avid again, and now the XLN installer says that 2 products need repairing. Then I just shut down the installer without completing the repairs, and the VST plugins still work just fine. I cannot believe that XLN has hard coded the AAX plugin install into their online installer tool. That's nuts!!! Same goes for the Akai/AIR offline installer!!! Edited August 1, 2019 by abacab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 I haven't contacted anybody. Not a big enough problem for me to warrant the effort. Just putting the info out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeGBradford Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 About 900mb in mine - think I must have had a clear out previously when I spotted it when I was down to my last few Gb on my previous smaller SDD. I've moved it across to my data drive temporarily to ensure that I can get it back if any glitches occur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Playing devil's advocate here, and because I used to do phone support at a software company, they probably dump the AAX stuff in there in case the user decides they're going to run Pro Tools someday. It reduces the need for tech support calls. After all, look at the people who come here convinced that "Cakewalk deletes your Sonar plug-ins" or "Cakewalk won't run your Sonar plug-ins" because a friend couldn't figure out that all they needed to do was reinstall Sonar or just fix their VST scan paths. The Native Instruments Native Access program will also indicate that your products need "repair" if you remove the 32-bit components, but they will work fine without them anyway. And disabling the drivers that they install for their hardware (even when you don't own any of their hardware) will not negatively affect anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now