VeeSTeeEx

It would be a killer option if this wrapper offered a randomize button to be able to get random synth patches. Also a nice feature would be to be able to lock certain parameters that we would not like to be changed, and maybe set a range of randomization per parameter.

Yep, plans to do so are mentioned in the 'What's next?' section of the readme that comes with the zip file. :-)
But probably not in the near future - at least not with the features you asked for (which for sure all make totally sense).
May I ask which plugins you already tried to warp with VeeSTeeEx?
What's your overall experience so far - given the fact that there is no manual...

Hi there.

Can this wrapper help to use 32-bit plugins in 64-bit DAW environment? Thank you for your response and time.

Have a great day ahead.

No - the concept of this wrapper is totally different. Aren't such already existing? Never tried any of those though.

Hello and thank you for making this. I am trying with V-Station x64 and the wrapper doesn't show in my VST list. I've checked that I've followed the instructions correctly. Studio One.

Hmmm, not sure when and how Studio One scans plugins, but I'm quite sure that the wrapper should be recognized as a valid VST by it.
I used it sometimes in my testing. Which version of Studio One are you using and what Windows version do you have?
Will have a look in the evening in some hours when I'm back from work.

I have tried resetting my black list numerous times just to try random things. That's where I am at. StudioOne scans the "regular" V-Station.dll normally - that is to say, it shows up in my list of VSTi's. I have your file, renamed to V-StationEx.dll, sitting right next to it in the same directory. Everything here is 64-bit. Also, believe it or not, I actually saw V-StationEx appear lightning quick (as they all do) during the Studio One startup scan of the VST / VSTi folders. I am running StudioOne5 on Win11. I'd like to convey magnanimous thanks for working on this wrapper. V-Station SORELY needs it. And V-Station just became free and has enough Supernova II DNA to make it essential. I am going to retrace all my steps right now, because I was really tired when I tried this yesterday. I really hope it will work for me.

Hmm. I started again from zero and it won't work. My system wont load the V-StationEx.dll
V-Station.dll sitting right next to it loads fine.

My system loads wrappers. I've use jBridge and also another called VST MIDI Control Extension successfully. I've actually wrapped wrapped VSTi's.

Thanks for all the details!
Very helpful!
I'll see if I can reproduce and hopefully find a fix for it.

ok and thank you for your effort big time.

Oh no!
I've Studio One version 4 and the shortcut for it - which I have on my desktop - says 'Studio One 4 - NO VSTs POSSIBLE!!!!'
Just looked it up in the Internet and to my understanding the demo version doesn't support it. Also not in versions 5 or 6...
Seems my last testing occurred, when I still had version 3? - I can remember that I liked its look and workflow better than those in most other DAWs.
So far I can only say that its 64-bit version loads fine in SAVIHost, energyXT 64-bit, MuLab, Cantabile 4 and Ableton Live 11 on my Windows 7 machine...
Maybe Window 7 vs? Window 11? I actually only tested a bit in Windows 10 (earlier - with other VSTs wrapped) - but never did so under Windows 11.
On the other hand - from my understanding it should be Windows 11 compatible if it can be loaded under Windows 10.
Or a Studio One issue, but that one I cannot verify under these circumstances unfortunately.
You are 100% sure that you really use the 64-bit wrapper variant and not the 32-bit VeeSTeeEx?

Yes indeed, and you can ask ANY questions --> I won't be offended. I did use the 64-bit variant of your file on a known x64 VST2 instrument.

Okay then! :-)
Could you please try with free - not to be installed - Savihost?
Here is the direct DL link: https://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihostx64.zip
Just put the extracted executable 'savihost.exe' into the directory where you have 'V-Station.dll' as well as 'V-StationEx.dll' located and see what happens, if you load 'V-StationEx.dll' with it.
BTW: Do you have lots of banks for V-Station?

I hope I HAVE made a mistake so that it can be made to work.

And one more thing to ask:
Do you see a folder called 'V-StationEx' under the directory where you have your 2 V-Station dlls? Does it have some files in it?
Could it be you have some permission restrictions there like not allowing sub directories.
Because this is something the wrapper tries to do to but some files (lke e.g the GUI xml file as well as the presets file into).
Although I think I should detect such an issue and then try to create that directory somewhere under 'C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\ZonderP\VeeSTeeEx...

Indeed that folder exists, with a *.vld file present in it. I am running StudioOne in admin mode for the time being. I also have the folder where the dll's reside set to no security whatsoever.

Is there a chance they're competing for the same VST id or whatever?

Yes, the wrapper uses the exactly same VST id as the wrapped VST.
Seems to not be a problem in the other DAWs I tried, but maybe if a Studio One project uses an original AND the wrapper?
But I'm 100% sure - I just (re)tested it - that this also works in the above mentioned DAWs (except SAVIHost, since it only loads a single VST)
Seems Studio One is trying to do some magic...
Might be worth to try out what happens, when you start a new project there and only use 'V-StationEx'?

Yes they are competing for the same VST ID. I just renamed V-Station.dll to V-Station.2dll, re-started StudioOne, and V-StationEx NOW APPEARS for the first time in my VSTi list. However it doesn't work because it needs V-Station.dll (I assume).

.

For sure the "problem" is StudioOne. I am currently reading how it observes VST ID numbers and file names, both, where most other DAWs do not. Can I chance the VST ID of V-StationEx.dll somehow?

No, it gets assigned dynamically the VST ID of the wrapped VST upon loading the wrapped VST - it only has its own VST ID (which also can't be changed), when it doesn't find the VST it is supposed to wrap (which happens, when renaming is not done properly as expected)...
During a scan, e.g. when a VeeSTeeEx get's scanned, then the scan is done by all DAWs in a way that the VST get's loaded, which means in case of a wrapper (I assume that might be valid for all such kind of wrappers) also the wrapped VST gets loaded.
Unfortunately no way of fixing something here in VeeSTeeEx - it's totally based on that idea that it pretends to be the 'original'. The associated database based preset file has that VST ID burnt it to make sure no presets from another VST can be imported to it. And so on...

I need to correct myself here...;-)
Starting from version 1.1.0.835, VeeSTeeEx comes in 2 flavors (besides 32 and 64-bit), where the one with the '-U-' in its filename is a flavor, which reports its own unique ID to the host (an ID different from the one of the wrapped VST plugin).
This helps for usage in DAWs like Presonus StudioOne.

If I remove V-Station.dll from that folder entirely, I can get V-StationEx.dll to appear in my VST list, in the same manner as if I has renamed "V-Station.dll", to "V-Station.2dll". If I dram V-StationEx to the timeline / work area, nothing happens. Nothing appears and no new track is made.

drag*.

That's also a bit strange!
It should show a GUI and a blank window with a text, indicating that no wrapped plugin was found...

Thank you for your patience. Perhaps the ID cannot be changed.

HEY! I tried only the V-StationEx.dll in savihost - it works! But in the big picture I am not any further ahead, because I cant us the setup in my DAW. I can't recall the VeeSTeeEx sounds when I go back to my DAW (I assume).

Wait a minute. I can import and export FXP and FXB freely? And jumble them all around? I might be all fixed here. I just want to organize my patches and let them all have names.

Self-made or collected? I'd like to have them;-)
So I could make them at least available for other users of VeeSTeeEx who don't use Studio One.

'I can import and export FXP and FXB freely?'
Yes, but you should be able to do so also with Savihost or energyXT. All proper DAWs should offer that possibility.
But VeeSTeeEx might make it a bit easier, if you first import all fxb and fxp.
Then you have them all there, even with reference to the bank where the presets come from and so on.
But then if you want to somehow create custom banks out of what you have, then it becomes a bit trickier.
It means switching to internal view and selecting the position where you want to have a preset. Then switching to database view and selecting the preset you want to have at that internal bank position, then switching back to internal view and select the next position and so on...
I have the idea of 'virtual' banks in my mind - there is already somewhat a 'prove of concept' ready - and this could make that process dramatically easier, but this might easily take some months...

And when the internal bank then is filled with presets to your liking, then you would use 'Save bank', which does exactly the same as e.g. Savihost and energyXT do when this command is used. It stores the current internal bank to a fxb file. But only the internal bank. That is a VST mechanism.
With support for virtual banks I could allow to freely drag'n'drop any preset in the preset picker to it and then possibly also allow rearrangement within it. And the something like 'Export' would auto fill the internal bank with the content of the virtual bank and then save it,

Those are not good news, that VeeSTeeEx can't work in Studio One...
Please let me know in case you find a setting there or some trick how it could be made to work.
Thanks.

I am referring to home made presets. Contact me at jwt0bos@hotmail.com and identify yourself somehow. I will mess around with the above procedure you describe. Yeah. I think I was hoping for drag n drop. Anyway now I have some tools I didn't have before, and am grateful.

As per conversation, it runs fine inside IL Mini Host which is running in Studio One. Hallajiuyah. IL Mini Host has always been free, and seems to be available on the archive https://archive.org/details/minihost_install

My wood end V-StationEx.dll running inside IL Mini Host running inside Studio One 5 x64 https://images4.imagebam.com/ac/15/f5/MEMK8HI_o.jpg IL MiniHost doesn't observe VST ID numbers.

Hello
I've just read on the Audiofanzine website that for better stability, Studio One 4 uses a different VST scanner than Studio One 3.
I'm using Windows 8.1 on my music computer and recent versions of Studio One only work on Windows 10 and 11. That's why I'm not upgrading to the higher version of Studio One, which is enough for my retired hobby.
The VSTs your application works with on my computer are from
Full Bucket Music (who produce some very good VSTs) : Bloo64 - Kern 64 - Pecs- Scroo64
Superwave P8 by Christopher Gill
It doesn't work with Full Bucket Music VSTs: BucketOne - Monofury - Ragnarok - Tricent - Whispair
With Datsound's OBX VST I can't tag sounds, and it's the same with MLVST's PG8X, which is a shame because in the 1980s I used these synthesizers when I was a young composer.
Thanks to these VST programmers who share their work with music enthusiasts by bringing these musical instruments back to life.

Hi Paoloconte!
How does it not work with the other Full Bucket Music VSTs? Not at all? Or problems with (correctly) loading already imported presets into it?
'With Datsound's OBX VST I can't tag sounds, and it's the same with MLVST's PG8X'. This I don't understand. I've never seen a problem with tagging already imported presets.
Once 'wrapping' works and presets got imported successfully and are available in the preset picker, then I would have hoped that tagging or whatever other actions are possible in the preset picker in 'Maintenance mode' should work equally well for all wrapped VSTs, since those actions are 'only' database actions and do no direct interaction with the wrapped VST plugin.
Looks we have equal preferences regarding VSTs. I mostly use(d) Full Bucket Music VSTs for testing, but it all started with Datsound's OB-Xd, and PG8X was also a VST I regularly tested with some years ago...
But all VSTs are written slightly different when it comes to how they react to preset loading/switching and some somehow seem to do it all right and others have some kind of 'flaws'.
It is / was really hard to find out what would work for the majority of VSTs, but for some it seems I cannot come up with a solution which works.
But I have the feeling it should somehow work for OB-Xd, PG8X and the other Full Bucket Music synths. But can't remember which kind of 'smaller' problems the one or the other of them would have out of my head...

Dear Patrick,
Working VSTs appear in the VST list below the VST for which I added and renamed the file VeeSTeeEx-64-R-1.0.1.777 (Release)-20230703-045239.dll.
VSTs that don't work simply don't appear in Studio One.
For OB-Xd and PG8X, VSTs with the suffix Ex appear, but I can't tag the sounds.
I've tried renaming with the new VeeSTeeEx-64-R-1.0.2.786.dll file but it doesn't make any difference.
When I'm in maintenance mode, after selecting a sound I stay on the sounds page. If I'm not in maintenance mode, after selecting a sound, the sounds page disappears and I'm back on the VST settings page.
I'm in the process of writing a short summary of how to use the software. Would this be of interest to you?
If so, how can I send a message with an attachment?

Thanks Paoloconte!
Then it looks a bit like Studio One also in version 3 behaves a bit erratic? Not sure if you would like to try if loading e.g. Ragnarok64Ex.dll or WhispAir64Ex.dll with SaviHost (https://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihostx64.zip) does work for you. (It should!)
For OB-Xd and PG8X: what do you mean with tagging here: You already mean the first step of importing presets for them? Or after importing the tagging like assigning to an author or to a category or an expression? Could it be that - if the latter is the case -, that you missed, that there is a 'Internal presets view' and a 'Database presets view'? Tagging is only possible in the 'Database presets view'. You can switch between both views in the preset picker title area at the top.
With which view VeeSTeeEx starts up depends on some circumstances - it tries to find the actually loaded patch in its database, and - if lucky - would present the 'Database presets view' with that preset already selected/active. If not, well, then you initially get the 'Internal presets view' presented.
I really hope, that this is your issue!

Yes, I totally would be interested in your short summary of how to use 'VeeSTeeEx'!
I'm totally aware that this is something which is completely missing and I really need/want to write such a manual (and be it only a mini manual initially) as soon as possible and deliver it with a next release. I'm 100% sure that what you write would give me at least an invaluable insight what might be important to let users know!

Wanted to send you a private message, but it seems you do (not yet) have the permission to receive or read private messages for whatever reason?
Maybe you never posted a public message on any topic... Or it's some kind of setting you could do in your member area?
You could try to post me a private message first.
If communication would work via private message, this would be the best/easiest way I could let you know my email address.

That's a pitty...
Then probably you will also not be able to somewhere here in KVRAudio post an attachment...

Maybe you could try to send a private message to me?
There would be hope that this somehow might unlock this restriction at least for the communication between us two?

I found the Reply button on the right side.

I don't have enough posts on the forum to read private messages.
This is what I read when I click on my profile.

Savihost cannot be installed on my PC. Error message when launching the executable.

I guess for SaviHost you then would need this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26368

The presets appear in the main view, but when I switch to the database presets view there's an error message and the list is empty.

Perhaps the Log file for OB-Xd would help you understand the problem.

I don't know how to attach my little summary, I know how to do it with outlook but not with the software we were exchanging with.

Yep, that would be interesting.
Maybe you could read the complete error message yourself in the GUI by pointing to the right side of the header column of the error log window and dragging it much more to the right?
Or use 'Reveal in explorer' -> 'Log file' and then open the log file to see what the complete error message is.

I do now have a support email-address;.)
ZonderP.Productions@gmail.com
Please send me your short introduction and - if possible - the last OB-Xd log file ('Menu' -> 'Reveal in file explorer' -> 'Log file').
Thanks,
Patrik.

Please change keys from shortcut.

Save preset as = alt+S
Next preset key. +
Previous preset. -

For vsthost users who use the keyboard computer can be hard to handle.

What an amazing tool dreamed of something like this. thank you.

I guess I need to make this configurable somehow...
I expected this request at some point!
On the To-Do list!
Thank you for appreciating the wrapper!

When moving any plugin added to VeeSTeeEx to another folder, it stops working. Is it possible to fix this?

Increase the size of the veesteeex menu bar for better viewing on monitors with more resolution, especially the < > buttons.

thank you.

When moving any plugin added to VeeSTeeEx to another folder, it stops working. Is it possible to fix this?
No sure what you mean with that.
For sure you have to move both dlls - how should the ....Ex.dll know where to you moved the wrapped plugin dll?
This is how wrapping works - the (accordingly renamed) VeeSTeeEx dll and the dll of the wrapped plugin must be in the same folder.

Increase the size of the veesteeex menu bar for better viewing on monitors with more resolution, especially the < > buttons.
You mean especially the width of those?
Generally spoken, VeeSTeeEx has the concept, that it should work for all VST 2 plugins, such with only a total width of 200 pixels and such with a width of 2600 pixels.
Thus the defaults are rather small, especially since the most important fields - the two which display the filter/bank name and especially the preset name can have as much space as possible.
You can totally change the look of the 'Pilot' (how I call this area) by manually editing the file which will be selected in Windows Explorer if you use 'Menu'->'Reveal in file explorer'->'GUI file'.
Unfortunately I didn't find the time yet to give instructions/tips on how to do that.

Thank you, it works as you said.

I forgot to mention that, when moving a VeeSTeeEx wrapped plugin, then also the automatically created sub-folder should be moved, especially when one has already imported presets and did some manual tagging.
This sub-folder (automatically created when first loading a VeeSTeeExtified plugin in any host) contains (by default) 3 files:

• The presets database file ('[PluginName]Ex.VeeSTeeExPresets').
• The main GUI file ('[PluginName]Ex-GUI.xml').
• The settings file('[PluginName]Ex.vld').

And this sub-folder itself is named '[PluginName]Ex'.

The sub-folder as well as the mentioned 3 files will be automatically created, if the do not exist, but used as they are, in case they already exist.

Thus if you already VeeSTeeExified a plugin - let's say 'Dexed' - you will have something like this structure:
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Dexed.dll
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx.dll
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx.VeeSTeeExPresets
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx-GUI.xml
D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx\DexedEx.vld

Now if you want to move D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Dexed.dll resp. D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\DexedEx.dll to e.g. 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Digital Suburbs\Dexed':
Move 'Dexed.dll', 'DexedEx.dll' as well as the 'DexedEx' sub-folder from 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs' to 'D:\MyPlugins\VSTs\Digital Suburbs\Dexed'.

It gets a bit more complicated, when you have your plugins in a write protected folder like 'C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins', because then, VeeSTeeEx cannot (usually) auto-create the sub-folder under this location and instead will create it under 'C:\Users\[UserName]\Documents\ZonderP\VeeSTeeEx'.
And for this case the sub-folder created there will not be just 'DexedEx', but instead 'DexedEx-[SomeNumber].
I'll describe this behavior and how to move a plugin located in a write protected folder in more details in a later version of the manual.

Fantastic, this thing can give life to so many plugins out there that people end up using less because of the lack fo a proper preset manager...

A question to the developer: i accidently during a session turned on the "dark mode" for the preset pop up window, and i really enjoyed it, but unfortunaly after closing the pluginthe menu got white again as default... how do i use the dark mode? i searched for information and options in the menu, but couldn't found it...

either way, great job.

(found some issues on reaper though, per example my reaper is automated to latch the plugins with touch, so every time i want to automate a parameter i just click on the button and after touching the knob, reaper recognizes it and opens an envelop lane for automation design... this doesn't happen when using your wrapper, other than this, its stable and it works in most DAWs i tried.

Thanks!
A dark mode is planned, but why you get something like this currently - I have no idea and I never saw this behavior.
I PM'd you regarding the latch/touch/automation problem in Reaper, since I have no idea about how that works.

I discovered this app yesterday and I'm really liking it. It's incredibly useful, it gives a new life to old VST plugins. Many congratulations and thank you.

I have a question about future updates. Due to the manual way wrappers are currently created, i.e. one by one, if new revisions of VeeSTeeEx appear in the future we will have to re-create and rename them all again to benefit from possible new features. Are you planning to replace this method with one where, for example, the individual wrappers simply point to a common dll for each architecture (32 and 64-bit), so that by updating those two dlls each wrapper will automatically benefit from it?

Thanks Sahul!
I know that upgrading is annoying, but the approach you mentioned unfortunately doesn't work at all. For sure I tried this, but using whatever kind of links (symbolic, shortcut, whatever) just doesn't work at all. This is due how loading dll files works on Windows. It seems it might work, if you have just a project with one VeeSTeeEx wrapped plugin, but if you have several wrapped plugins, then you will encounter very strange behavior. Try it yourself to see.
I have written a basic application, which should be able to make 'VeeSTeeExtifying' of plugins and later on upgrading of those 'installations' easier, but it currently is not yet in a releasable state.
In fact I didn't look into it for at least half a year. I would need to finish it and then also write a manual for it. I hope I can find some time to do so, but it will not be anytime soon.

No rush, take your time. I see VeeSTeeEx is not updated in short cycles, so it is not a big problem to redo the wrappers every x months. In any case, that upcoming Dark Mode you mention seems like a great and worthwhile addition.

As I said above, I think VeeSTeeEx is a clever idea. For different reasons, I use daily several wrappers (32 to 64-bit, VST2 to VST3...), even combined, and it is surprising that almost none of them pay attention to preset management. Even something as simple as adding two buttons for "next preset" and "previous preset" is not usually present (i.e. Bluecat Patchwork or Kushview Element). So your plug-in really fills a niche. And the centralized preset database is the icing on the cake.