The Future of Digital Performer

[bayswater]

I think you have to tell DP which you prefer, but you can go into the preferences for plugins and put either or both in the inventory of plugins that show up. I've never tried to use a combination of VST2 and VST3, but have used AU and VST2 interchangeably.

DP appears to use a wrapper for any plugin so it doesn't much care which format you use.

[Belushi]

Hello,
I am Logic user of beginnings. It was probably because Emagic was a German company and was therefore very popular here. At that time Logic was far ahead of everyone else in my view. But it was also the most expensive software (apart from ProTools). The support at Emagic was very good. But this time is long gone.
Today the DAW's are not far apart from the power. Apple makes the money in hardware. Who wants to use the latest Logic version today must have a current Mac and the associated operating system.
That's one reason I work with DP more often now. A current DP still runs well on older operating systems. Whether DP is good in the press or public is not so important to me. I need good software that is stable and reliable. This makes DP on Mac with version 10.1.1. With DP I can do all that I can do with Logic.
I have found over the few years I use DP that this forum is better than the reputation out there. I've been helped competently here.

Greetings and stay healthy, Denis

[Westlyn]

Hey Denis (and everyone else):

I'm a big fan of this Forum as well. My questions get solid and useful responses.

My conflict with this VST2/VST3 situation is not being able to use both in the same project.

I cannot be the only guy who sees how cumbersome and annoying it is to have to keep going into my preferences to change my primary. And there are a lot of VST2 plugs-ins I'd like to keep using!

New Question: Have any of you tried using the UAD Spark subscription in DP11? I'm having no luck getting the two to cooperate.

Thanks,
Jim Westlyn

[bayswater]

Jim, try this in the Audio Plug-ins Preferences panel:

- choose whatever you want as the “Primary External Plug-in Format”
- select all the plug-ins that appear in the panel.

You might be told you have to revalidate some or all of them. Do that.

Do you now find that all of your plugins of all formats are available, without changing preferences ?

[Westlyn]

Thanks!

I'll give that a shot first chance and follow up!

[Michael Canavan]

My conflict with this VST2/VST3 situation is not being able to use both in the same project.

You 100% can use AU, VST2 and VST3 in the same project.

I cannot be the only guy who sees how cumbersome and annoying it is to have to keep going into my preferences to change my primary. And there are a lot of VST2 plugs-ins I'd like to keep using!

Hey, we all get weirdly stuck sometimes, you should spend some time in Preferences/Audio Plug-ins just learning how to use it, here's some tips. At the top left of the Audio Plug-ins window is a drop down menu, this allows you to create different sets of plugins. I have one called Enable All and others with "moving forward" choices like VST3 mainly, except the few VST2 only plugins, and AU because sometimes the VST3 doesn't pass examination.

So the Enable, Disable and Reexamine buttons allow you to select plugins in the window and create plugin sets. You can easily select the first plugin hold the shift key and select the last plugin and hit Enable, this will create a set with every plugin type in it. This is automatically saved in the plugin set that is currently selected, and the drop down menu allows you to create a new set etc. Hope this helps.

[Westlyn]

Michael:

Thank you! This is a bunch of options I wasn't aware of.

As I'm writing this, I'm firing up DP and going to Preferences/Audio Plug-ins/Set.

For reasons I don't understand, I've got odd options: Enable All.2, Enable All.2.2, Enable All.2.2.2. (I didn't invent theses on purpose.)So, I'm opting to simply Enable All.

If I try that shift/select option, I get Enable All.2.2.2.2!

Under Enable All... including VST2's and VST3's, does the Primary still apply?

I still don't think it should be this complicated.

Thanks,

Jim Westlyn

[bayswater]

You 100% can use AU, VST2 and VST3 in the same project.

You can even us different versions of the same plugin in one sequence. I haven’t done it but I expect you could even use multiple versions of the same plug-in in the same channel.

[Michael Canavan]

Michael:

Thank you! This is a bunch of options I wasn't aware of.

As I'm writing this, I'm firing up DP and going to Preferences/Audio Plug-ins/Set.

For reasons I don't understand, I've got odd options: Enable All.2, Enable All.2.2, Enable All.2.2.2. (I didn't invent theses on purpose.)So, I'm opting to simply Enable All.

If I try that shift/select option, I get Enable All.2.2.2.2!

Under Enable All... including VST2's and VST3's, does the Primary still apply?

I still don't think it should be this complicated.

Thanks,

Jim Westlyn

To be fair, there's a delete button right next to that drop down menu. You have duplicates and it's naming them differently so they do not overwrite the original.

[James Steele]

Just so I'm clear on this, in the Mac world, AFAIK, in order to run VST2 and VST3 simultaneously, you must run DP in Rosetta, otherwise only VST3 will work. This because unlike AU, there is no support in MacOS to run Intel VST plugins individually. Am I mistaken?

On the other hand, I imagine with Windows it doesn't matter since they're still using Intel chips?

[mikehalloran]

Just so I'm clear on this, in the Mac world, AFAIK, in order to run VST2 and VST3 simultaneously, you must run DP in Rosetta, otherwise only VST3 will work. This because unlike AU, there is no support in MacOS to run Intel VST plugins individually. Am I mistaken?

On the other hand, I imagine with Windows it doesn't matter since they're still using Intel chips?

I don't have a problem with it. In my case, the AU version of the PSP 608 Multi Delay does not work but the VST2 does.

[James Steele]

Just so I'm clear on this, in the Mac world, AFAIK, in order to run VST2 and VST3 simultaneously, you must run DP in Rosetta, otherwise only VST3 will work. This because unlike AU, there is no support in MacOS to run Intel VST plugins individually. Am I mistaken?

On the other hand, I imagine with Windows it doesn't matter since they're still using Intel chips?

I don't have a problem with it. In my case, the AU version of the PSP 608 Multi Delay does not work but the VST2 does.

Weird... can you check with the PlugInfo app (if you have it) and does it show your VST2s have Apple Silicon code? I was pretty sure that to run Intel VST2s, you have to launch DP in Rosetta on Apple Silicon Macs. I will have to try that out as I may be mistaken. I know Apple made a provision in the OS to run Intel AUs without having run launch the DAW in Rosetta, but was unaware such provision was made to accommodate Intel-only VST2s?

[James Steele]

Follow up to my previous post:

I just checked and if DP 11.31 is launched natively, the Audio Plug-in prefs won't even show me Intel-only VST2s as an option. I cannot even see them unless I launch DP in Rosetta. You are on Apple Silicon, I'm pretty sure. Any chance the "Launch in Rosetta" option was accidentally enabled at some point?

[Michael Canavan]

Follow up to my previous post:

I just checked and if DP 11.31 is launched natively, the Audio Plug-in prefs won't even show me Intel-only VST2s as an option. I cannot even see them unless I launch DP in Rosetta. You are on Apple Silicon, I'm pretty sure. Any chance the "Launch in Rosetta" option was accidentally enabled at some point?

OK that clears some things up. Here there are dozens of Apple Silicon native VST2 plugins available, so I was trying to figure out why you were running Rosetta to get VST2 when some are native? For instance the Akai MPC software is VST2 Apple SIlicon native, but no VST3 as of yet. U-He, IK and a few other have native VST2 plugins. I don't run them unless i have to anymore, but I was moving to VST on my Intel Mac in case i ever wanted to get a PC.

After the latest VST3 fiasco with them threatening to kill all existing licensing to VST2, (it's possible DP12 will not run VST2 because of this), I'm moving back to AU except for the plugins like Melodyne, MPC, and Reason Rack that work or have extended functions in VST3.

[James Steele]

Follow up to my previous post:

I just checked and if DP 11.31 is launched natively, the Audio Plug-in prefs won't even show me Intel-only VST2s as an option. I cannot even see them unless I launch DP in Rosetta. You are on Apple Silicon, I'm pretty sure. Any chance the "Launch in Rosetta" option was accidentally enabled at some point?

OK that clears some things up. Here there are dozens of Apple Silicon native VST2 plugins available, so I was trying to figure out why you were running Rosetta to get VST2 when some are native? For instance the Akai MPC software is VST2 Apple SIlicon native, but no VST3 as of yet. U-He, IK and a few other have native VST2 plugins. I don't run them unless i have to anymore, but I was moving to VST on my Intel Mac in case i ever wanted to get a PC.

After the latest VST3 fiasco with them threatening to kill all existing licensing to VST2, (it's possible DP12 will not run VST2 because of this), I'm moving back to AU except for the plugins like Melodyne, MPC, and Reason Rack that work or have extended functions in VST3.

Ahhh okay... that makes sense. I didn't realize that VST2 was also Apple Silicon native. I was looking for a rather old plugin that was missing. My (incorrect) assumption was that developers who updated their plugs for Apple Silicon just moved on to VST3. I can see in PlugInfo I have lots of Universal Audio VST2s that are AS native (or perhaps more accurately UB2... Universal Binary 2). I have Cubase 13 on this Mac. I don't really use... just dabble... but it's using VST3 and I remember UA had to release VST3 before their UAD-2 (DSP) plugs would work in Cubase running natively. I'm sure that was probably Steinberg/Yamaha's way of forcing developers to move on to that standard.

Seems many developers now are releasing only in AU, VST3 and AAX... all UB2. I guess VST2 will be with us for a while, but maybe after more developers get the hang of it, VST2 will go away except for legacy plugs. I wonder why Steinberg's APK and documentation (from everything I heard) is so horrendous that developers had a hard time. I know I read someone say aspects of it had to be reverse engineered by plugin developers. If Steinberg's documentation is THAT bad, it kinda borders on criminal. How can you expect developers to support a standard under those conditions?