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Enable PX-64, TL-64, and VX-64 processors


Starship Krupa

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Cakewalk by BandLab comes with these three very nice and useful VST effects, two of them are multi-FX processors oriented toward vocals (VX-64) and percussion (PX-64), the other is a saturation processor (TL-64) with multiple controls. The VX and PX carry only Cakewalk branding, the TL also says "powered by Studio Devil).

Unfortunately, by default, they are "excluded" in the terminology of the Plug-In Manager, and in order to use them the user must use Plug-In Manager to change their status so that they show up as available in the FX racks and lists.

Every time a new version of CbB installs, the installer flips their status back to "excluded" and the user must again use Plug-In Manager to enable them.

They were enabled  as part of the SONAR Platinum suite. I read on the forum that  some of the Style Dials use their resources.

I don't know what the barrier is to making them available by default.

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I believe the Style dials only utilized the Sonitus FX suite.

@Craig Anderton could probably verify that. I believe there was a write up on them in the E-zine a couple years back.

Haven't used the PX, VX or TL64 in years now but they were great little plug ins for their time. The Percussion strip was good for not only Drums...but in some instances Bass too.

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  • 3 weeks later...

@Craig Anderton wrote  up the procedure for enabling them in the April Sound On Sound magazine, singing the praises of VX-64 and PX-64.

I believe that it was @scook who said that some of the Style Dials depended on  VX-64, PX-64, and TL-64. This makes sense because there is a transient shaper Style Dial, a de-esser, gate, saturator, and those processors are all to be found in the "-64" modules we're talking about. Nothing else native to CbB has a transient shaper besides PX-64, and while you could roll up a de-esser using the sonitus fx, it would be easier to use the one in VX-64.

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I use the PX & VX, I love them. As old as they might be they still do a great job and I will continue to use them as long as possible. Mine never default to excluded after an update, I'm not sure if that is dependent on whether you have a previous version of Sonar installed or not. Hopefully they sort that out in the future though!

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  • 4 months later...

I love the VX and imho it's got one of the easiest to set up compressors that I know of. Together with saturation options, the little nice EQ and the delay it's a killer strip. The de-esser is pretty useful as well.  I've never liked the doubler but then there's no match to actually doubling vocals by using two takes.  

The only reason I've stopped using it is that I've experienced several times that, well into a project, it suddenly crashes (muting the audio or simply stopping processing) and never recovers. Perhaps that's why it comes disabled by default? 

Happy to see it can be enabled in CW now, I still have the version from Platinum but perhaps the bundled on would be better.

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13 hours ago, Cristiano Sadun said:

Happy to see it can be enabled in CW now, I still have the version from Platinum but perhaps the bundled one would be better.

I am pretty sure that the ones that come (hidden) with Cakewalk by BandLab are the same ones that shipped with the last versions of SONAR Professional and Platinum.

Can't think of why the developers would update plug-ins that are disabled by default.

Thanks all for reminding me to re-enable them! I need to come up with a script, maybe a .REG or .BAT or .CMD file that will do it.

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On 1/29/2020 at 10:55 PM, Starship Krupa said:

I am pretty sure that the ones that come (hidden) with Cakewalk by BandLab are the same ones that shipped with the last versions of SONAR Professional and Platinum.

The disabled ones are older versions, yes. I looked at them once and the ones I had visible already were newer. I forget the details offhand, but it would make sense to have the newest active for all users.

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In the plugin manager, it doesn't tell you the version, but if you highlight one in the plugin browser, it displays the version at the bottom of the plugin browser window. For what I have installed, they are:

PX-64 Percussion Strip - v1.9.2.40

TL-64 Tube Leveler - v17.9.3.29

VX-64 - v1.9.4.40

IIRC, they were just point variation differences between the ones that were in the excluded list. I am not sure that there is any difference in form/function to the excluded versions, but it would take someone from Cakewalk to answer what the build difference is.

Edited by mettelus
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I enabled these excluded plug-ins and find that every time I start CW now, I get this message for each of them:

 

 

 

I simply click "OK" and the messages go away, CW starts up, and I can use the plug-ins without a problem, save the project, but then when re-opening CW after an exit, the messages appear again. The same process every time.

I sometimes have this issue with some other VSTs as well. I don't understand how/why CW sees incorrect CLSIDs for plugins I have not touched, not to mentioned not changed, in years, especially these ones that have been "excluded" all this time until yesterday!

Weird?

 

 

 

Capture.GIF

Edited by winkpain
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It looks like your system "Programs" folder is in a location that may have changed since you first installed SONAR or CbB? And as you no doubt know, despite the fact that Microsoft allows it, and they should be able to handle it, some programs have trouble with being installed in any path other than C:\Program Files. ?‍♂️

Since the CLSID's may actually be different between the last SPlat versions and the last (older) CbB versions, maybe yours don't match?

TPTB remain silent on this matter.

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2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It looks like your system "Programs" folder is in a location that may have changed since you first installed SONAR or CbB? And as you no doubt know, despite the fact that Microsoft allows it, and they should be able to handle it, some programs have trouble with being installed in any path other than C:\Program Files. ?‍♂️

Since the CLSID's may actually be different between the last SPlat versions and the last (older) CbB versions, maybe yours don't match?

TPTB remain silent on this matter.

Ah yes! My previous Sonar installation is in fact on a separate internal SSD drive. When originally setting up this machine I had followed, perhaps mistakenly, some advice about a separate drive for programs and I did that with a few.  CbB is on the default C drive. 

How reliant on the Sonar install is CbB? I know if I want to continue to use those older instruments (Rapture, Dimension, etc.) I would want to keep it, yes?   Is there a way I could move pertinent elements from that Sonar (X3 Producer) install to better places on the C drive?  Or is that, as I assume it is, inviting disaster and a Registry nightmere??

 

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