Trying to ressurect an old session

[rickendude]

Hello.
Until 2020 I used Waveform for all my sessions, I then moved to mac (with waveform) and then later to logic.
I wish to open a few of my old projects to do some minor edits and re-export. I am using the free version as my license is to a very old version.

All my plugins (mostly waves) do not load anymore, it claims that they cannot be found. Any suggestions on how to debug it? I do see waves in both VST and AU in the plugins section in Waveform.

Thanks.

[talby]

Did you meanwhile (after having used them in 2020) updated your Waves plugins?
It then comes to my mind to first of all create a copy of your original Project and only work with that copy, to keep the original version safe from unwanted changes which maybe cannot be reversed later on anymore.
Then, let Waveform (you can install and use the old version, I wouldn't see why you want to use a new version if your Projects have been elaborated with the old version) scan for your current plugins, and if your Edit claims that an old plugin version could not be found anymore, then replace it by the new version. The settings for the plugins should not be changed by this, they should the same be applied to the new plugin version as you stored them with your Edit for the old plugin versions. Hopefully the new Waves plugin versions didn't change on the settings they are capable to reload and apply, though.

[rickendude]

Thanks!
Yes, I have WUP so all my plugins are at their newest version.
I tried v11 to see if that works and it has the same issue.
I did a bit more digging, is looks like some plugins have changed their name For example. I used REDD17, The old version says "REDD17 Mono", the new one says "Abbey Road REDD.17 Mono" Replacing it did the trick!

Thanks again

[rickendude]

I checked some of my older projects (really old, 2009), in these projects it just says "WavesShell-VST 5.0". i don't even know the name of the plugin to replace it with, is there any way to get this?

Thanks.

[Watchful]

WavesShell-VST is some sort of place holder for Waves plugins. I had a Waves plugin go "bad" years ago, and I had to edit the .xml file for the project to delete the instances of it. Only older WavesShell versions were affected.

If you insert a Waves plugin, you get a "WavesShell" pointer in your project file for each instance of a Waves plugin. If that version gets old, you lose the ability to open the project unless you edit the project file. At least, that's what happened to me a while back.

[rickendude]

I can actually open the project and remove the plugin, I just don't know which plugin it was.
Oh well, I'll just bounce all tracks without any effects and redo the entire project in logic, I've learned a lot since 2009...

[Watchful]

It's definitely a Waves plugin. They all link to WaveShell.

[rickendude]

I know, I just don't know which plugin and what was the configuration so I can't even replace it with anything modern...

I did 1 project, bounced all tracks without any effect to ensure proper sync for punch-ins, etc... and re-did it in Logic-pro, I already got to a much better result than my old results as it was nice to take a fresh approach with over a decade of experience I gained since... So sometimes these things have a positive impact I guess

[Watchful]

I'm glad you were able to rescue your project.