Waveform 8.2.7 Beta Available

[jabe]

I am running Waveform 8.2.7 beta and had a strange thing occur today. The Waveform application window suddenly vanished, "poof"!

Only had one instrument plugin inserted, SynthMaster One, and was auditioning presets in that. No other effects or VSTs in use at the time. Just clicking away to advance to the next preset in the plugin UI.

No crash messages, or logs that I noticed. Restarted Waveform and it offered to open a temporary copy of the previous edit. Which it did, but with no sign of the plugin that I was using.

Re-inserted the same plugin and it happened again.

Tried again, with all tracks except track 1deleted, so only track 1 exists, no clips, just a keyboard MIDI input and one synth.

"Poof"! again. No sign of a Waveform task in Windows task manager after this occurs, so the task is clearly ending when this happens.

I've tried to replicate this, though with just the demo of SynthMaster One (which could, of course, make a difference), and it's behaving pretty well, even when I try to change presets too quickly.

I had tried it in 8.2.6, where it also ran okay, though when I opened the edit in 8.2.7 for the first time, I immediately got a mass of noise and had to delete the plug-in to make it stop.

[zzz00m]

I am running Waveform 8.2.7 beta and had a strange thing occur today. The Waveform application window suddenly vanished, "poof"!

Only had one instrument plugin inserted, SynthMaster One, and was auditioning presets in that. No other effects or VSTs in use at the time. Just clicking away to advance to the next preset in the plugin UI.

No crash messages, or logs that I noticed. Restarted Waveform and it offered to open a temporary copy of the previous edit. Which it did, but with no sign of the plugin that I was using.

Re-inserted the same plugin and it happened again.

Tried again, with all tracks except track 1deleted, so only track 1 exists, no clips, just a keyboard MIDI input and one synth.

"Poof"! again. No sign of a Waveform task in Windows task manager after this occurs, so the task is clearly ending when this happens.

Edit/follow-up: I ran through my other instruments and was not able to reproduce the crash with any others. So it appears to have been isolated to just this one plugin.

Also found a Windows Error Report indicating an "appcrash" in Waveform 8 (64-bit).exe event name "Stopped working".

I updated SynthMaster One from v1.0.5 to the latest v1.1.5, and that seems to have cleared up the Waveform crash. So all good now it seems!

My final thoughts on this are that there should be a way to make the Waveform software more resilient, so that a plugin cannot bring the host down when this type of error occurs...

[jabe]

My final thoughts on this are that there should be a way to make the Waveform software more resilient, so that a plugin cannot bring the host down when this type of error occurs...

You'd think so, but there are so many ways that plug-in writers can stray from the assorted standards, and it appears that the standards are nowhere near as standard as they ought to be.

[dRowAudio]

I checked that sidechaining is working with a few plugins. Perhaps the plugins you're talking about don't automatically open more than a stereo input?

Can you right click the plugin and select the "Configure plugin channels" option to enable more inputs?

It looks like the Tracktion DAW Essentials Collection Compressor and Ducker have the sidechain drop down menu. Some third party plugins that support sidechain do not have the drop down menu: Voxengo Crunchessor, Klanghelm DC8C2, iZotope Neutron. Reaper ReaPlugs ReaGate does.

I tried right clicking the plugins all over the GUI but wasn't able to get to a "Configure plugin channels" option or menu.

From the Waveform User Guide Version 8 2017-11-23, it looks like the drop down sidechain menu is the only way to assign a sidechain. Can you create a Send to direct audio to a sidechain input?

I looked through the User Guide and through the Settings-Plugins within Waveform but couldn't find any way to configure the plugin or the way Waveform sees the plugin.

Any help is appreciated.
Steve

I just tried this with Crunchessor and it works exactly as I described above:
1) Enable the additional input channels

Sidechain Menu Available.png

2) The sidechain menu will then appear

Configure Plugin Channels.png

As far as I can see, the only difference here compared to other hosts is that we respect the default channel configuration of the plugin. I.e. if a plugin wants to open with a stereo in/stereo out configuration we let it do that. We then provide the above menu for advanced configuration.

We did this specifically in response to user complaints that if we just tried to open the maximum number of channels a plugin supported as soon as it was added, it would use unnecessary CPU as it's often the case that you don't need the additional channel.

Please also note that for VST 2.4 plugins, you can select the channel configurations providing they have a single bus. As MeldaProduction pointed out to us and we later verified with Steinberg, if a VST 2.4 plugin has multiple busses, it has a fixed channel configuration and the above "Configure plugin channels" menu won't be available.

I hope this clear up the situation and helps explain what you're seeing.
Cheers, Dave

[fwsuperhero]

Please, redux still doesnt open more than 2 outputs. Waveform is the only daw with this problem i know

What plugins format, what platform?
Have you tried right clicking the plugin and choosing "Configure plugin channels".
N.B. if a VST plugin has more that one bus, its channel config will be static and hence the above menu won't be available. This was discovered after discussions with the Steinberg devs and MeldaProduction.

(If I load Renoise Redux on Mac and use the above menu I can open multiple output channels, this can very clearly be seen by wrapping the plugin in a Rack and seeing the number of output pins change).

Hi, thanks for response.
Windows 10 64bit, last Waveform, last Redux - vsti 64bit.

I dont know how the mentioned menu can help me.
I see it, i can select anything (8 discrete channel) here but it doesnt matter what i select - i cant select any different output but Main in the Redux itself. More outputs wont help me

[Steve Bolivar]

Thanks Dave for clearing that up. It looks like the problem is somewhere in the internal routing settings of Voxengo Crunchessor VST3.

When I try to Configure plugin channels for Klanghelm DC8C2 and iZotope Neutron VST3s I only see the Named Channels at the end of the input tree. I'm missing the Discrete channels option.

Thanks for your help
Steve

[dRowAudio]

The named channels are probably the safer bet. I only really list the discrete channels because not all plugins give canonical names to their channels.

Also, channel configs for VST2.4 plugins is a bit simpler so maybe try using those instead?

[Steve Bolivar]

Will do, thanks for the help.

[geqfreq]

Sorry wrong topic. removed.

[rosesbyrosex]

I checked that sidechaining is working with a few plugins. Perhaps the plugins you're talking about don't automatically open more than a stereo input?

Can you right click the plugin and select the "Configure plugin channels" option to enable more inputs?

It looks like the Tracktion DAW Essentials Collection Compressor and Ducker have the sidechain drop down menu. Some third party plugins that support sidechain do not have the drop down menu: Voxengo Crunchessor, Klanghelm DC8C2, iZotope Neutron. Reaper ReaPlugs ReaGate does.

I tried right clicking the plugins all over the GUI but wasn't able to get to a "Configure plugin channels" option or menu.

From the Waveform User Guide Version 8 2017-11-23, it looks like the drop down sidechain menu is the only way to assign a sidechain. Can you create a Send to direct audio to a sidechain input?

I looked through the User Guide and through the Settings-Plugins within Waveform but couldn't find any way to configure the plugin or the way Waveform sees the plugin.

Any help is appreciated.
Steve

The sidechain menu does not always appear, but you may be able to sidechain using racks

[dRowAudio]

The sidechain menu should appear if the plugin states it has configurable IO channels. (Remember multi-bus VSTs have a fixed channel configuration and can't be changed).

Do you have an example of a plugin that fails in this regard?

[rosesbyrosex]

Sidechain Menu isn't working for me, the menu appears but sidechain is not sent, but stills works via rack

Plugins Tested:

• Built in compresor
• Tcompresor (64 bit)
• Wavesfactory Trackspacer

As far i remember it was working on version 8.2.5, but it may be my computer, so, users on 8.2.7 version please check if the sidechain menu is sending the singnals on your computer.

[rosesbyrosex]

Just want to add that i just found the most weird thing i've seen in my 6 years of work
I will try to be as brief as possible, and I hope this will be taken as serious because it caused me so many tests and lots of my time to figure out the nature of the problems.

PROBLEM 1

• 1. Installed Ik multimedia T-RackS 5
• 2. Loaded VST3 into Waveform plugin database
• 3. Dropped the VST3 on the master track and then SOUND IS GONE
• 4. Disabled the plugin and Sound is back
• 5. So i wrapped it to check the I/O channels configuration, and it shows only midi I/O, so, where is audio I/O supposed to be,
• 6. Finally tried the VST2 Version and everything is Fine with VST2

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PROBLEM 2 The Real Problem
Another totally diferent problem i found which is even weirder:

• 1. Archived the waveform projects and backed up them my external HDD
• 2. Did a clean Win 10 instalation and reinstalled everything, VSTs, Waveform..
• 3. Opened one of my Waveform project from archive, We will call it PROJECT1
• 4. Waited PROJECT1 to load for too long, more than 30 min with high cpu usage from 90 to 99 % of CPU
• 5. Closed waveform via windows task manager, CPU usage reduced to 5%
• 6. Reopened the PROJECT1 and again waveform keeps loading project forever with high CPU Usage
• 7. Removed all my VST from plugin settings, and reopened PROJECT1, and vuala!! project opened but all the vst had exclamation mark (because i removed them from settings)
• 8. So, i loaded the vsts one by one, reopening the PROJECT1 each time i add a VST in plugin settings to find the VST that caused the problem
• .10 Found that the problem was IK Multimedia amplitube 4, when not loaded in plugin settings, the PROJECT1 opens, if i load the vst in plugin settings the project won't open
• 11. So created a new project, this called PROJECT2, added only ik multimedia 4 VST in a track, saved it, closed, reopened many times, it opened correctly every time and very fast.
  
  ANALYSIS:
  The problem is present only in PROJECT1, and no matter how many times i deleted the amplitube 4 VST instance (with exclamation mark) and added a new one, PROJECT1 won't open in if Amplitube 4 was loaded in plugin settings.
  
  So my final test was:
• 10. Created PROJECT3, copied all tracks in PROJECT1 and pasted on PROJECT3 and Vuala!! it worked even with amplitube 4 loaded,
  
  CONCLUSION
  The problem was the PROJECT1 itself because all tracks in PROJECT1 and PROJECT3 had the same plugins and configuration, was just a copy/paste.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now we have a new problem in another project, called PROJECT4 and this time the problem was Toontrack Superior Drummer 3, the project opened but the pulgin didn't.

My tests with superior drummer 3:

• closed/reopened the edit a few times, edit loaded but plugin didn't
• Inserted a new plugin instance and deleted previous, didn't worked

So i copied all tracks to a new project, PROJECT5 and the plugin worked in the new project.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Recomendations for Users
If you have problem with plugins try copying all your tracks to a new project, this in order to migrate to a new project with no bugs. Hope that helps.


Final Conclusion
I don't know whats going on here, but this is the height of the waveform bugs, how is it posible that single edits or projects can have it own VST configuration bugs, i can't really understand how this software can have too much bugs and even more surprising is it that I still love and use it.

Also i want to add that this may be the reason why some users reported their own VST problems that are not present in the other users.

[dRowAudio]

It seems to me that the problem is a matter of configuration of plugin channels. As I've stated many times on these forums, W8 will only open the default set of channels the plugin reports. The only exception to this is if the plugin opens in mono by default, we request to open it as stereo as that preserves legacy behaviour.

If you want to open a plugin with a different channel configuration than the default, you can right click the plugin and choose "Configure plugin channels" to change the bus layouts. (As per the spec, if a VST2.4 plugin has multiple buses, then it's channel configuration is fixed, can not be change and therefore this menu will not appear).

Obviously to reload this channel layout, it is stored in the Edit XML and we try to restore this when we reload the project. It appears this is working well with AU and VST2.4 plugins but there may be some issue with VST3 plugins?
This reloading of channel configuration state is the only thing that I can think of that could change between Edits.


I have tested this with a number of plugins, most notably the ones reported by users as not working correctly in W8 but there could still be compatibility issues out there either on the plugin or hosting side. If you can provide a concise way of reproducing issues I'll take a look but it seems like many plugins interpret these channel configuration options either differently or incorrectly so there might be some work to do on the plugin side.

In the above example it sounds like the IK plugin is simply not opening any channels by default?

[rosesbyrosex]

To reload this channel layout, it is stored in the Edit XML and we try to restore this when we reload the project. It appears this is working well with AU and VST2.4 plugins but there may be some issue with VST3 plugins?
This reloading of channel configuration state is the only thing that I can think of that could change between Edits.

If you can provide a concise way of reproducing issues

well that's the hard part, I would send you the buggy edits to XML revision, but when copied the tracks to a new project, deleted the old from the hard drive. From now I will keep them for future revision, if the problem shows up again.

I'll take a look but it seems like many plugins interpret these channel configuration options either differently or incorrectly so there might be some work to do on the plugin side.[/i]?

Users usually blame the DAW, but plugin developers are also guilty, they should configure the I/O correctly to work well in any DAW.

In the above example it sounds like the IK plugin is simply not opening any channels by default?

as you said but the problem is present only in VST3, VST2 works well