Blue Cat Audio

davidhokney · Post by **davidhokney** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 4:31 am

There are around 35,000 files in the entire Bluecat suite. There are probably about 1500 files just in BC Patchwork alone. Now normally I'd say whatever, you don't like housing your stuff in resource files like normal programmers do, fine... whatever...

But then Ableton come along and change their plugin scanner, then FL Studio come along... and change their plugin scanners...

Ableton reads every file, folder, subfolder, symbolic or junction point and their subfolders - in your plugins path.

You'd think, hey - I'm just bothered with VST2, VST3... but no.. EVERY file and every folder and subfolder.

BC patchwork come along and rather than a registry setting or maybe a path in their global preferences file pointing to (WHERE IT GOES ANYWAY IN PROGRAMDATA!) they may as well just dump 35,000 files that Ableton and FL Studio think they have to scan in order to update their plugins lists.

Anyway, you get the idea. VST2 and VST3 folders are for ACTUAL plugin files. Not for the garbage that plugins need to run because of lazy developers and bad programming.

Please remove your files from the VST folders and set a preference, because the developers at Ableton and Image Line AREN'T GOING TO CHANGE (at least they haven't for the last two major versions).

Plugin scanning for new plugins is slow because your putting files in the scan path THAT SHOULDN'T BE IN the scan path.

(Better still, just don't bother with symbolic links or junction points at all or settings in files or registry! Just look in ProgramData where they are expected to be and the installer places them?).

Thank you.

MirkoVanHauten · Post by **MirkoVanHauten** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 10:59 am

Just tried it and can't confirm. I have a proper plugin library and at least 1/3 of them put files other than the plugins in the plugin folder. FL doesn't even touch files other than the actual plugins while scanning. They skip files that don't have the dll or vst3 extension. Studio One scans plugins regularly on startup, fast as f**k. Reaper only scans plugins. None of them scan the 25k+ presets from Nexus, don't scan the 6k files for Hive, not the 10k+ files of Native Instruments content... If Ableton does that, it's just s**t. Instantiating the plugins to read their information is what rather takes long.

rasmusklump · Post by **rasmusklump** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 3:26 pm

I am also for keeping the VST folders clean

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 3:43 pm

Live has always been one of the fastest scanning DAWs here, I'm on MAC OS but I doubt that's the reason. The VST and VST3 version of Blue Cat Connector does not install anything but the VST in the plug ins folders here. IMO OP is having an issue that he thinks he solved, but it's very likely something else.

jsp1979 · Post by **jsp1979** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 3:47 pm

On my system, Reaper always scans Blue Cat files when opening even when there are no updates. I have no idea why or how to get it to quit. You can see it go through those folders every single time. It's the only plugins that have this situation,

I think this is probably the same issue the OP had with a different DAW. I'd love to know how to get it to stop. I always update to the latest versions of the plugins, but it keeps scanning them.

mcbpete · Post by **mcbpete** » Mon Jul 17, 2023 7:55 pm

machinesworking wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2023 3:43 pm Live has always been one of the fastest scanning DAWs here, I'm on MAC OS but I doubt that's the reason. The VST and VST3 version of Blue Cat Connector does not install anything but the VST in the plug ins folders here. IMO OP is having an issue that he thinks he solved, but it's very likely something else.

On the Windows release this certainly isn't the case - the data subfolder for the VST3 version of Connector has 267 files, 238 of them being in the 'skins' subfolder.

I've a dozen Blue Cat plugins and have nearly 37 thousand data files (36,394 to be precise

) for those plugins in my VST3 folder (and a replicated 36,394 in the data subfolders of my VST2 versions too) ... Yikes !

I wonder if this is indeed what makes Ableton take so long to fully load on my system since they changed the way it scans plugins. The app itself only takes about 15-20 seconds to launch on my SSD, but it's not fully done checking/indexing my packs and plugin folders for about another 10 minutes after that

@Blue Cat Audio folk - any chance you could do like u-he does and have a user chosen .data folder, one which all instances (i.e. vst,vst3,aax) of the plugin can reuse without scattering duplicate files in all our plugin folders !

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Jul 18, 2023 11:35 am

We are indeed aware of this issue. A unified installer on Windows for all plug-in formats should make its way out one of these days and will put these files in a shared location.

(it is not as simple as it may seem though, since some customers want to be able to have the same plug-in installed with different versions for different plug-in formats because of potential compatibility issues, but we'll make it happen, just like we did on Mac).

It would be nice however if Ableton could fix their scanner (as well as other issues that appeared with Live 11...)!

mcbpete · Post by **mcbpete** » Tue Jul 18, 2023 11:39 am

Blue Cat Audio wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 11:35 am It would be nice however if Ableton could fix their scanner (as well as other issues that appeared with Live 11...)!

Do developers have a bit more sway when it comes to stuff like that? I imagine if I were to post a request they'd just come back saying 'shut up...works fine, you're just doing it wrong'

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Jul 18, 2023 1:41 pm

mcbpete wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 11:39 am

Do developers have a bit more sway when it comes to stuff like that? I imagine if I were to post a request they'd just come back saying 'shut up...works fine, you're just doing it wrong'

[/quote]

I don't think there is much difference. I guess the more people who are impacted by an issue, the more chances you have to get it fixed. So it definitely helps when customers actually report the issues to the host applications manufacturers. The more bug reports and complaints they get, the more likely they are to try to fix issues!

elassi · Post by **elassi** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 6:08 am

mcbpete wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2023 7:55 pmI wonder if this is indeed what makes Ableton take so long to fully load on my system since they changed the way it scans plugins.

Now I know that I'm not alone ...

TheSteven · Post by **TheSteven** » Wed Jul 26, 2023 3:05 am

Not to comment on whether or not reorganizing Blue Cat libraries would help this issue (certainly in favor or anything that speeds up the process), but on my system it's Native Instrument Kontakt 7 that make Ableton & every other DAW I have crawl through VST scanning. 5 minutes or more just to scan that one plugin.

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Sat Jul 29, 2023 9:22 am

TheSteven wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2023 3:05 am Not to comment on whether or not reorganizing Blue Cat libraries would help this issue (certainly in favor or anything that speeds up the process), but on my system it's Native Instrument Kontakt 7 that make Ableton & every other DAW I have crawl through VST scanning. 5 minutes or more just to scan that one plugin.

It is definitely worth asking Ableton to fix their scanner, regardless of what we, plug-in developers, can do to help!

Blue Cat Audio

KVR Audio

Please think of others...