Bizarre issue involving U-he plugins and sidechain routing in Tracktion Waveform 12

[elcalen]

I've already written about this over at the Tracktion forum, but figured it might be worth mentioning here as well. I initially brought it up over there already a year ago, but didn't really get any response... I recently decided to check out the current state of Waveform again, and found the bug still remained.

In a nutshell, while I was trying out Tracktion Waveform Free 12, I encountered a weird issue where external sidechain compression would stop working, as if the incoming sidechain signal level was stuck at a random constant level. This was happening with several different compressor plugins, including Presswerk and Waveform's stock compressor. However, after a bunch of testing I found that it only seemed to happen when there was a U-he plugin in the audio chain *before* the sidechain compressor plugin. Didn't seem to matter which plugin; I tested it (iirc) at least with Diva, Hive and Presswork. Tracks without U-he plugins, but receiving sidechain signal from the same source track, would keep working normally...

EDIT: one additional detail: it would generally seem to work OK when there's only a single plugin drawing from the sidechain source track. The issues begin when there's more than one track sidechained from the same source track.

I have no idea if this is a Waveform bug or an issue with the U-he plugins themselves... I'm on Linux, if relevant, though it doesn't sound like type of issue that'd be platform specific.

Here's my original thread on the Tracktion forum: viewtopic.php?t=586178

[tasmaniandevil]

Hi, that sounds very unusual, certainly nothing we ever encountered.
I really cannot tell if that's a u-he issue or if Waveform is doing some funky stuff when multiple u-he plugins are used.
Could you write to our support, so we can get some more details and investigate the issue?
https://u-he.com/support/#contact

[elcalen]

Could you write to our support, so we can get some more details and investigate the issue?
https://u-he.com/support/#contact

Done.

[pough]

I thought I'd just report that I was able to replicate this issue. Then I wasn't able to replicate it. Then I was able to again later. It's a strange one.

Does anyone know of a compressor that allows you to preview the sidechain signal? Something is getting to the compressor that isn't what it's supposed to be. I wonder what it is and where it's coming from...

EDIT: I will also mention that while I have been testing this I have also been having issues with the presets disappearing "updating database...". So far it's just been ACE and Podolski and only in these tests and I think only when there are two of the same plugin.

[tasmaniandevil]

We've been able to reproduce the side chain issue over here too. But we need to dig deeper, we currently cannot say what's causing it and if it's an issue on our side or in Waveform. Certainly seems unique to Waveform, as such an issue has never been observed in any other host.

[pough]

Sometimes I envy programmers, getting to make cool stuff. Other times I don't.