Resolved: DP8: Virtual Instruments not showing up

Call to Adventure · Post by **Call to Adventure** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 1:56 pm

Hello,
I'm very new to DP. I've been a hobbyist in lesser-grade software (i.e. Garageband and Garritan Personal Orchestra), but as soon as budget permits I want to move up to higher-grade instrument libraries and get into semi-pro scoring of motion pictures.

Based on research, DP seems to be best for scoring to picture, so I figured I'd download their 30-day trial version and start learning it so I can hit the ground running when I'm able to purchase. Problem is, I can't even begin to audition the program because no matter what I do, I can't get Garritan instruments to show up as an option for loading a VI as a plug-in.

When I go to the Project menu and try to add an Instrument Track, nothing from Garritan is listed as an option. I've spent hours searching for a solution online, and have tried many things, including some great suggestions from past posts to this forum ... but nothing has solved the problem. (So far I've tried deleting the com.apple.audiounits cache file, re-installing GPO4, re-installing DP ... in desperation and based only on an ignorant whim, I even tried installing GPO4 into the Library/Audio/Plug-Ins folder.)

No matter what I try, it seems that the only manufacturers listed under the 'add an Instrument Track' command are: Insert Settings, Apple, and MOTU. I've tried adding an unassigned instrument, but can't make sense of the parts of the manual that claim to tell you how to instantiate a VI patch from the Mixing Board.

Note: I can get sounds from GPO using GPO's Aria player as output, if I have Aria player running concurrently. But this isn't what I'm after because Aria is limited to 16 tracks; I want to be able to load enough instrument tracks to emulate a large-sized orchestra (and then some!).

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading and giving it some thought.

Best,
Sam

My system right now:

OS X 10.8.4
Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Digital Performer 8.04 (30-day demo)

Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.02

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:10 pm

Garritan instruments ONLY runs in the Aria player. You HAVE TO instantiate that player to access the GPO sets. that's not a problem with DP, it's the way Garritan protects (or tries to) their library. The Aria player IS the VI. Period.

ChrisByrd · Post by **ChrisByrd** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:31 pm

Hi,

Welcome to the forum. Have you checked the plugin list in DP's preferences to see if the Aria player shows up as an AU instrument? As MIDI Life Crisis says, you have to load this into DP then open the GPO instruments from within the Aria player (it's the same in all DAWs). If you need more than 16 instruments, you need to load more instances of the Aria player. It's worth checking the parts of the manual that explain how to use multi-timbral instruments.

Chris

Call to Adventure · Post by **Call to Adventure** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:39 pm

Many thanks to both of you for the speedy replies! (In fact during my initial searching I remember chuckling at MIDI Life Crisis' very clever screen name.)

Chris, Aria player does not show up under the Audio Plug-Ins list in the Preferences pane (regardless of whether or not Aria player is currently open as a standalone application). I will research how to get it to show up there, but if anyone can point me to the best parts of the manual to read for this, I would appreciate it.

Please pardon a few additional questions; I want to make sure I'm getting warmer ...

Chris, if you wouldn't mind pointing me to the best sections of the manual to read in order to instantiate multiple instances of the Aria player, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've read through Chapter 16 (which I thought the most likely place for my needs) several times but haven't found any zen yet. Chapter 14 also wasn't much help, and so far I haven't had much luck getting clarity from consulting the index or searching within the pdf. If you can remember the best section to point me to, you might save me from jumping out a window in frustration

DP is (obviously) a much more capable DAW than Garageband, so I'm sure there is a way to do what I need and I'm just missing it. In Garageband and Sibelius, Aria player doesn't need to be running as a separate application. I would assume this is also the case in DP, but so far I've been unable to figure out how — so far, I can only enable Aria player as track output when I have it running as a separate application. From what you've written, I get the impression that Aria can be instantiated to run within DP without needing to open it as a standalone application each time I open DP — could you please confirm if I've understood correctly?

Also, as soon as budget permits I will be upgrading and kissing GPO goodbye. In anyone's experience, is this whole instantiation process smoother and more fluid with other libraries such as EWQL, LASS, etc.? I don't have any experience with Kontakt yet, is it less of a headache to work with than Aria?

Thanks again for all the help and support,
Sam

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:46 pm

Not familiar with Garriton, but a lot of folks have posted here about VIs and Plugs not showing up when the culprit was the VI or Plug simply doesn't support 64 bit operation.

You can run DP in 32 bit mode by "Get Info" on the DP app... there is a check box. It's much better in 64 bit mode, though; you'll be able to use that 16 GB of RAM.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Sun Sep 01, 2013 10:00 pm

Have you looked for it under the VSTs?

ChrisByrd · Post by **ChrisByrd** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 2:01 am

Have you got the latest version of the Aria player installed, as this is definitely 64-bit? If you check on the Settings page of the standalone player, it should show Aria Player v1.620 and Aria Engine v1.620 (OS X x68) over on the left. If you install Aria correctly, DP should just pick it up automatically the next time you open DP. BTW the standalone version doesn't need to be open to use the plugin in DP.

If you've not done so, I'd recommend working through the tutorials in the DP Getting Started guide, but page 137 of the manual shows you how to add an instrument track. Fig. 16-2 shows the dialog box you'd use for Aria - this will create the instrument track and associated MIDI tracks to record your data on - it's worth ticking the box to add the tracks to a new folder. To create four instances of Aria, you'd just create four instrument tracks with associated MIDI tracks.

Good luck!

Chris

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:18 am

Aria has never been a "headache" to work with here. Certainly a lot easier to use than Kontakt. I suspect Chris is right, and you have the 32 bit version running. If you haven't updated all your plugins to 64 bit, you'll have the same problem with other VIs and plugins not appearing.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:20 am

I agree. Aria is about as dumbed sown an interface as you can get, but it is easy to deal with.

Call to Adventure · Post by **Call to Adventure** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 1:27 pm

Thanks again for all the help! And special thanks to Chris and HCMarkus. I'm finally up and running. In case it helps someone googling for an answer in the future, here's the short version:

The Aria .pkg installer claims it will install both the engine and the player when running an update, but in my case it only updated the player. My solution was to trash the "ARIA Player AU.component" file located at Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components, and run the Aria installer again. There might be a more elegant way to accomplish the same, but it worked; quite a relief.

Chris, thanks again. Those tutorials were where I started, but I quickly got stuck because the above issue prevented me from following along. Now that I'm untangled I'll go through them again!

p.s. My apologies if I offended anyone by calling Aria a "headache". I've been frustrated by it several times over the past three years, but I'm certainly glad it hasn't been a headache for others.

ChrisByrd · Post by **ChrisByrd** » Tue Sep 03, 2013 2:45 am

Glad you got it sorted, and thanks for posting the solution. It is one of the oddities of Aria that the player and the engine are separate - at least since version 1.something they've kept to the same version number as each other.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:45 pm

I will chime in having just helped my daughter with an install of Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 today. I found it for $109 at AudioDeluxe, discount code HAPPY15. Since the instructions in the Setup Guide wrong, we placed a call to support. You shouldn't have to.

The Set Up Guide is old and flat out wrong when it comes to authorization. Support acknowledges it's (at least) three years out of date. Ignore it.

Register your software at Garritan.com using your serial number. Download your License Card (a .png file) to your desktop. We had to make three attempts but it worked.

The GPO 4 Installer (download or box) will install an old version of the ARIA Player that is long outdated. Support says they'll tell Engineering (again!). Uncheck the box so that version ARIA Player doesn't install. It will overwrite any newer version (as it did the first time -- she's a Finale 2014 user, too).

Download the latest ARIA Player v. 1.62 and install (you may have to search for it).
https://store.makemusic.com/Downloads/Default.aspx

There's also an update to the ARIA Engine found here (update the Player first). ARIA Engine 1.757 Update:
http://ariaengine.com/support/aria-engine-update/

Open the Aria Player.app in the Garritan Aria Player folder. It will ask you if you want to download your License Card - cancel because you've already done so.

Find the License Card .png and drop it onto the open window in Aria Player. You should get a window saying you are licensed. Close the app.

Per this YouTube video, you have to reboot to get the player to show up in Logic. This is correct, we found out. I don't know if you have to do the same in DP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkRpXvfc_XY

A little convoluted but we got it working.

MOTUnation.com