Page 1 of 1

Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VSTs

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:45 am
by raygrote
Hi all,
I'm new here on the forums, but figured I've been using Gold Wave long enough to contribute a bit. My first post here is a question. I should perhaps E-mail support about this, but I thought I'd ask here first.
Many VST plug-ins I use work well in Gold Wave. Most of them are relatively simple. Even so, this is a blessing, because I've come to use VSTs a lot, as well as some DX effects and some GW effects. However, there are a few VSTs which just aren't being recognized by the VST effect plug-in, and the strange thing is, they worked just fine before. The VSTs in question are the old Reaper effects which have been available for free for years. The VSTs can be downloaded at cockos.com/reaper/reaplugs/. Only two VSTs out of that pack actually show up in the VST list: Compressor and Control Midi, neither of which I use. The one I really used a lot was the gate. And, to those who aren't able to help with this issue, that link above will get you some great VSTs and I would recommend at least some of them to anyone. Hmm, maybe if we find out that this is in fact a problem for a lot of people, it might improve Gold Wave's VSt support? Anyway, I'll outline what I did before this happened. Perhaps I inadvertently did something wrong.
When I installed 5.6, I was excited about being able to use VST, but 5.6 seemed less stable, even with all plug-ins disabled. I went back to version 5.58, and discovered that the VSt effect plug-in still worked! So I was happily using VSTs with 5.58 for quite a few months, and occasionally I had to remove and redo the VST configurations, but for the most part, everything was very smooth. Some time in the last few weeks, I was working on something, and needed to use the gate. It wasn't in the effect list. So, I re-did all the VST stuff, and it's still not there. I even downloaded a fresh copy of the effects, and got nothing. I uninstalled Gold Wave, and reinstalled 5.69. None of my custom settings were saved, not even my license, so I'm guessing everything was wiped. But, after Gold Wave searches through the VST folder, it's still not in the list... for the life of me I can't tell what the problem is. I've put the VSTs in their own separate folder, I've gotten rid of the vsts I don't want, then I tried putting them back in, thinking that they are somehow needed, and for all of those things, I get nothing. What concerns me is that it's not just the Gate that's missing, it's almost all the VSTs in that pack. Other VSTs work fine, but I haven't found a gate I liked as much as the one I am doing without. Of course I could just run stuff through the VST in something else, but I see no reason to resort to that, until I can find out what's up. The only thing that crosses my mind is perhaps something like antivirus is modifying the dll files, but I think I'd know if that happened. Or maybe it's something else... all I know for sure is I'm confused.
So, does anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on, or how to diagnose this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 2:02 pm
by JackA
raygrote wrote:Hi all,
I'm new here on the forums, but figured I've been using Gold Wave long enough to contribute a bit. My first post here is a question. I should perhaps E-mail support about this, but I thought I'd ask here first.
Many VST plug-ins I use work well in Gold Wave. Most of them are relatively simple. Even so, this is a blessing, because I've come to use VSTs a lot, as well as some DX effects and some GW effects. However, there are a few VSTs which just aren't being recognized by the VST effect plug-in, and the strange thing is, they worked just fine before. The VSTs in question are the old Reaper effects which have been available for free for years. The VSTs can be downloaded at cockos.com/reaper/reaplugs/. Only two VSTs out of that pack actually show up in the VST list: Compressor and Control Midi, neither of which I use. The one I really used a lot was the gate. And, to those who aren't able to help with this issue, that link above will get you some great VSTs and I would recommend at least some of them to anyone. Hmm, maybe if we find out that this is in fact a problem for a lot of people, it might improve Gold Wave's VSt support? Anyway, I'll outline what I did before this happened. Perhaps I inadvertently did something wrong.
When I installed 5.6, I was excited about being able to use VST, but 5.6 seemed less stable, even with all plug-ins disabled. I went back to version 5.58, and discovered that the VSt effect plug-in still worked! So I was happily using VSTs with 5.58 for quite a few months, and occasionally I had to remove and redo the VST configurations, but for the most part, everything was very smooth. Some time in the last few weeks, I was working on something, and needed to use the gate. It wasn't in the effect list. So, I re-did all the VST stuff, and it's still not there. I even downloaded a fresh copy of the effects, and got nothing. I uninstalled Gold Wave, and reinstalled 5.69. None of my custom settings were saved, not even my license, so I'm guessing everything was wiped. But, after Gold Wave searches through the VST folder, it's still not in the list... for the life of me I can't tell what the problem is. I've put the VSTs in their own separate folder, I've gotten rid of the vsts I don't want, then I tried putting them back in, thinking that they are somehow needed, and for all of those things, I get nothing. What concerns me is that it's not just the Gate that's missing, it's almost all the VSTs in that pack. Other VSTs work fine, but I haven't found a gate I liked as much as the one I am doing without. Of course I could just run stuff through the VST in something else, but I see no reason to resort to that, until I can find out what's up. The only thing that crosses my mind is perhaps something like antivirus is modifying the dll files, but I think I'd know if that happened. Or maybe it's something else... all I know for sure is I'm confused.
So, does anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on, or how to diagnose this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Welcome aboard, Ray!!!!!

I don't even know what a VST is, but it appears Goldwave requires a wrapper of some sort to use them. Maybe the wrapper is the problem?..
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=291457

Others would know better!! :P

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:51 pm
by raygrote
Hi Jack,
While the rapper would suffice, it doesn't really fix the root of the problem. Gold Wave actually doesn't require rappers anymore because it comes with VST support right out of the box now. Using a rapper would bypass this, so would be counterproductive.
Any more ideas?
I think while I'm waiting for replies, I'll send a message to support. It wouldn't hurt. Of course if they answer, I will post here.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:15 pm
by Tristan
People have been complaining about the lack of reliability of the Reaper VST's, and not just people using GoldWave. I'd say you're out of luck until Cuckos decides to address the issue. (Dude, use paragraphs. I had a really hard time reading your post. :? )

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:41 pm
by raygrote
Really? that's odd, since they work in everything else I use VST plugs with. I doubt they'll be updated any time soon, since last I remembered, they haven't been updated in years. And I really liked them too... not to mention that as far as I know, Gold Wave's VST support is still beta, or at least it hasn't been declared fully stable yet.
And sorry for any hard-to-read posts. I am visually impaired so I use a screen reader, which reads text verbally. So paragraph breaks, or the lack thereof, can easily go unnoticed.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:56 pm
by Tristan
Sorry about your visual problems; I hope I didn't come across as insensitive.

I tried the ReaPlugs in the Sony Audio Studio 10 demo, and all of them seem to work as advertised. As I recall, I had the same issues you did using the plugs with GoldWave, though my memory is a bit fuzzy.

I just remember reading complaints from other people about ReaPlugs and how they didn't play nice with some big-name audio apps. I just chalked it up to "Oh well." Maybe I shouldn't have done that.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:25 pm
by JackA
raygrote wrote:Hi Jack,
While the rapper would suffice, it doesn't really fix the root of the problem. Gold Wave actually doesn't require rappers anymore because it comes with VST support right out of the box now. Using a rapper would bypass this, so would be counterproductive.
Any more ideas?
I think while I'm waiting for replies, I'll send a message to support. It wouldn't hurt. Of course if they answer, I will post here.
Wish I could offer something of value, but nothing on the 'net!
Maybe you and/or Tristan know, maybe it can be done with GW alone, but a song with a cold ending; is there a Plug-in, or other, way to echo a portion of the ending and have it repeat as it fades?

Thanks! :P

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:36 pm
by Tristan
JackA wrote: Wish I could offer something of value, but nothing on the 'net!
Maybe you and/or Tristan know, maybe it can be done with GW alone, but a song with a cold ending; is there a Plug-in, or other, way to echo a portion of the ending and have it repeat as it fades?

Thanks! :P
I'm going to suggest starting another thread for this topic, since a lot of people might have suggestions, including Chris.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 3:13 am
by donrandall
...is there a Plug-in, or other, way to echo a portion of the ending and have it repeat as it fades?
Very carefully select very precisely what you would like to repeat. Ctrl/C will copy and Ctrl/V will paste in the copy as many times as you care to repeat Ctrl/V. Then, use the Shape Volume tool to fade it out... one of the presets very nicely mimics the fade recording engineers/producer often apply in the studio.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:11 pm
by DougDbug
I think the basic issue with VSTs is that they are not designed, tested or debugged to work on GoldWave. Ideally, everybody would follow the VST standards and everything would work together. But in the real-world, programming is very-very difficult! Software never works without testing & debugging.

The "System Requirements" for commercial VSTs usually list programs like Cubase, Logic, Audition, etc. I've NEVER seen GoldWave (or Audacity) officially supported. REAPER support is also very rare. It's the VST developer's responsibility to make the plug-in work with the supported hosts.

Free VSTs are probably tested with whatever DAW/Audio Editor the developer happens to have on-hand. Users can report problems to the developer, but it's difficult to troubleshoot & debug if he doesn't own the host application.

And of course Chris (GoldWave's developer) can't possibly test thousands of VSTs with GoldWave and tweak GoldWave to work with all of them. Even if he had the time and inclination to do it, he'd go broke buying VSTs.

And of course, the ReaPlugs are designed to work with REAPER. If a ReaPlug VST doesn't work with your application, I doubt that they care.

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 4:22 pm
by JackA
donrandall wrote:
...is there a Plug-in, or other, way to echo a portion of the ending and have it repeat as it fades?
Very carefully select very precisely what you would like to repeat. Ctrl/C will copy and Ctrl/V will paste in the copy as many times as you care to repeat Ctrl/V. Then, use the Shape Volume tool to fade it out... one of the presets very nicely mimics the fade recording engineers/producer often apply in the studio.
Thanks, Don!! Was hoping to find an automated thingie!

Tristan, you are correct about being off topic!!!

Re: Trouble getting the VST plug-in to recognize Certain VST

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 6:57 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
The real problem is that the VST "standard" is flawed and under-documented. Many VST plug-ins are poorly tested and violate the "standard" in unique and special ways. Even the simple task of detecting if a DLL is a VST plug-in can cause the hosting application to terminate.

Although I haven't had a chance to test the Reaper plug-ins, I suspect that the ones that don't work are the ones that don't call the callback function, which is the only safe way to determine if a plug-in is a VST plug-in. Hopefully I'll have time to look into it before the next update.

Chris