KVR Audio

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:24 pm

Hi folks,

I don't know if I have received ANY AAX requests on KVR, but just in case anyone cares, I'm currently working on AAX ports of the Valhalla plugins. The latest progress:

- The Juce framework has finally been updated to have a stable AAX plugin target. This is good, as I use the Juce framework for my cross-platform code, in addition to my GUIs.

- In order to use the Juce AAX code, I have to update my plugins to use the latest Juce tip. I was using my own stable branch of Juce, based around the 1.53 update, and the current Juce code revision is 2.0.39. A fair number of changes have been made to Juce, which require changes to my own code, so I have been working through those.

- The current stumbling block I have run into is that my copy protection fails with the latest Juce revision. I figured out the cause of this yesterday, and am currently working on the solution.

- I have alpha versions of ValhallaFreqEcho and ValhallaRoom up and running. These have to be run in a special debug version of Pro Tools, due to some Pace copy protection that is required of all AAX plugins that I don't have running yet. I'm sending in the NDA for this Pace tool later this afternoon.

- Once I have the beta versions up and running, I will post on KVR, Gearslutz, and other places, inviting the existing users of these plugins to try the betas. The changes to the underlying Juce code will fix some existing bugs for non-PT users, and may create some new ones that I will need to fix, so I welcome any and all Valhalla plugin users to try the betas out.

Sean Costello

Yorrrrrr · Post by **Yorrrrrr** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:38 pm

Nice! Are the VST versions of ValhallaDSP plugins going to be updated?

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:43 pm

Yorrrrrr wrote:Nice! Are the VST versions of ValhallaDSP plugins going to be updated?

Yes. I have to rebuild ALL the plugins, and have them beta tested, in order to ensure that the Juce code updates don't break anything. The changes to the existing plugins will probably be on the subtle side. I'm leaving new algorithms and such for future updates.

There will be a few minor bug fixes incorporated into the plugin releases:

- downsampling bug in VRoom/ÜberMod will be fixed
- VST64 and full installer will be part of the Shimmer release

Sean Costello

Yorrrrrr · Post by **Yorrrrrr** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:51 pm

What are the advantages of using a newer, updated JUCE framework?

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:54 pm

Yorrrrrr wrote:What are the advantages of using a newer, updated JUCE framework?

Advantages: AAX targets, bug fixes, that sort of thing. None of the requested Juce bug fixes are migrated back into older code versions.

Disadvantages: Bugs can be introduced with Juce code changes. This sucks, but what are ya gonna do? The reported bugs tend to get fixed fairly quickly.

Sean Costello

Yorrrrrr · Post by **Yorrrrrr** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:11 pm

Alright, keep it up with the good job. Valhalla are definitely my favorite plugins.

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:37 pm

valhallasound wrote: - The current stumbling block I have run into is that my copy protection fails with the latest Juce revision. I figured out the cause of this yesterday, and am currently working on the solution.

I just fixed this, and have a debug version of ValhallaRoom working in the debug version of Pro Tools, that actually reads the copy protection correctly. Now I need to figure out how to get the release version of AAX plugins up and running, as this is required to get optimization working correctly. EDIT - I figured this out.

Sean Costello

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Wed May 01, 2013 8:55 am

I have no use for the AAX ports, but would definitely like to test the beta's of the (64bit) VST's and AU's. Hoping this will include FreqEcho as well.
Anyway, looking forward to it!

sws2h · Post by **sws2h** » Wed May 01, 2013 4:26 pm

valhallasound wrote:Hi folks,

I don't know if I have received ANY AAX requests on KVR, but just in case anyone cares, I'm currently working on AAX ports of the Valhalla plugins. The latest progress:

- The Juce framework has finally been updated to have a stable AAX plugin target. This is good, as I use the Juce framework for my cross-platform code, in addition to my GUIs.

- In order to use the Juce AAX code, I have to update my plugins to use the latest Juce tip. I was using my own stable branch of Juce, based around the 1.53 update, and the current Juce code revision is 2.0.39. A fair number of changes have been made to Juce, which require changes to my own code, so I have been working through those.

- The current stumbling block I have run into is that my copy protection fails with the latest Juce revision. I figured out the cause of this yesterday, and am currently working on the solution.

- I have alpha versions of ValhallaFreqEcho and ValhallaRoom up and running. These have to be run in a special debug version of Pro Tools, due to some Pace copy protection that is required of all AAX plugins that I don't have running yet. I'm sending in the NDA for this Pace tool later this afternoon.

- Once I have the beta versions up and running, I will post on KVR, Gearslutz, and other places, inviting the existing users of these plugins to try the betas. The changes to the underlying Juce code will fix some existing bugs for non-PT users, and may create some new ones that I will need to fix, so I welcome any and all Valhalla plugin users to try the betas out.

Sean Costello

Excited to try the beta version of AAX. While there really aren't any advantages for Pro Tools 10, it will be a necessity for me with 11 is actually released.

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Wed May 01, 2013 5:55 pm

BDeep wrote:I have no use for the AAX ports, but would definitely like to test the beta's of the (64bit) VST's and AU's. Hoping this will include FreqEcho as well.

I have a bit more work to do with the FreqEcho update, as this plugin is getting a pretty big overhaul. Once this update process is completed, all of the Valhalla plugins will be released in the following formats:

32 bit VST (PPC/Intel Mac/Windows)
64 bit VST (OSX/Windows)
32 bit AU (PPC/Intel Mac)
64 bit AU (OSX)
32 bit RTAS (PPC/Intel Mac/Windows)
32 bit AAX (OSX/Windows)
64 bit AAX (OSX/Windows)

I haven't ported anything to Windows AAX yet, and there might be some teething issues there. I won't delay the OSX AAX release if the Windows AAX is lagging behind, as the Windows Pro Tools user pool is fairly small compared to OSX.

Sean Costello

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Wed May 01, 2013 5:58 pm

sws2h wrote: Excited to try the beta version of AAX. While there really aren't any advantages for Pro Tools 10, it will be a necessity for me with 11 is actually released.

I wouldn't uninstall PT10 anytime soon. Given that Avid is releasing a new 64-bit DAW at the same time that all the plugin developers are supposed to release a new 64-bit format, I anticipate that the launch will have a few snafus. This isn't "insider information," but is based on having observed lots of software launches over the years, and having launched several products myself.

Fortunately, once something is released publicly, the developers are under huge amounts of pressure to fix any bugs, so the fixes will happen quickly. I speak from personal experience here.

Sean Costello

sws2h · Post by **sws2h** » Thu May 02, 2013 2:13 am

Avid is allowing users to have 10 and 11 installed simultaneously, so that should help get users through the hiccups. I'll be sticking with 10 at the tracking studio and putting 11 through the paces in the mix studio first.

sws2h · Post by **sws2h** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 4:47 pm

Hey Sean, any news about AAX?

Brittlestem · Post by **Brittlestem** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 5:17 pm

sws2h wrote:Hey Sean, any news about AAX?

Ditto, I'm only waiting on REFX and Valhalla now...

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 7:58 pm

Interestingly enough, I DO have news:

Yesterday, I finally got the Pace Eden code signing working. ValhallaVintageVerb is currently running as an AAX64 plugin in Pro Tools 11. Not the debug version of Pro Tools - the full on, consumer version.

Today, I am working on getting ValhallaRoom up and running with Pace Eden signing.

The other 2 commercial plugins (Shimmer and ÜberMod) will take a little longer to get ported, as I need to update their code framework. I hope to get betas out of all of these by the end of the month, preferably sometime before then so I can relax over Thanksgiving. The full releases will depend on the bugs found during the beta process.

ValhallaVintageVerb will also have new reverb modes. The other plugins will be straight ports. I need to get these in the hands of PT11 users before I add new features and such.

I decided against releasing 32-bit AAX plugins. This is a dead in the water format, and the only DAW that uses it (PT10) also runs RTAS, which runs in PT7/8/9 as well. Avid also changed the Pace code signing format for AAX32, which makes it near impossible to distribute 32 bit AAX plugins that work in older releases of PT10 while also distributing AAX64.

Sean Costello

AAX Progress