3rd party plugin issue

Hello all,

I recently downloaded a couple of 3rd-party freeware vocoders, but they are not appearing in drop-down menus when I go to use them.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

Make sure they are present in the VST folder were all your plugins should be. The path is:
system drive/Library/audio/plug-ins/VST/
If you see them, try launching Cubase in 32bit mode. Some plugins are not “seen” when in 64bit mode.
If that doesn’t work either, the plugins you downloaded may be older than the VST 2.4 protocol, and you will not be able to use them in C7.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

Hello ipanema!

Thanks for the suggestions. I did as you recommended and found that the files were not in that folder, so I moved them manually. I checked and found that I’m already running Cubase in 32-bit mode, and that the plugs I downloaded are in fact version 2.4. Alas, they still do not appear in my dropdown menus, either as inserts or as sends.

I’m completely at a loss…

OK, now try to launch Cubase in 64bit mode. It will rescan all the plugins. Maybe this time you get lucky!

Ok, I will try that. Thanks!

You should probably check if they are appearing in plug-in information first and if not you should check your blacklist.xml

Also why not say what vocoders they are so someone else may be able to verify that they work or not.

Good point. One is the MDA vocoder, and the other is the TAL.

I can’t locate any blacklist.xml folder on my Mac.

Hang on, belay that. I found the VST plugin folder, and within it a folder called VST XMLs. Does it matter which of these I drag the new plugins to? Thanks a bunch!

Kind of a rude cliffhanger here.

You can find the blacklist at Library/Preferences/Cubase VERSION, it should be called something like “Vst2Blacklist” or similar. If you don’t see your plugins in that xml file, then they’re probably just not found by Cubase. If you do see them in there, then Cubase has a problem with them, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do about that. Not anything I’m aware of, at least.


If it’s the former, I don’t know where VSTs normally go on OSX (I know VST3; not VST2, which I’ll assume the freeware plugs are), but I’d suggest copying the plug-ins in as many places as possible that make sense (any “VST” folder), and if Cubase finds them on re-scan, start deleting the duplicates and running Cubase to check until they no longer show up.

Then when all that trial and error pays off, you’ll know where they and future VSTs can go.

Aloha guys, just to chime in,

I find 3rd party plugs in two places:

As well as
system drive/~/Library/audio/plug-ins/VST

The ~ being ‘User’ folder.

Some plugs work in both places and others (especially older ones)
seem to work in only one or the other.
{‘-’}

I have no idea if this issue is the same on a Mac but, on a PC this problem will sometimes rear it’s ugly head if the vst and CB are both not set to “run as administrator”. I can’t count the many hours I’ve wasted removing/reinstalling programs then relocating the .dll files to the proper VST2 folder only then to remember to set the newly downloaded vst to “run as administrator”.

This also happens frequently after installing a new version of CB (just like I did when upgrading from 7.0.6 to 7.5). The new version installed without the “run as administrator” box checked. Of course it works perfectly until several weeks later when I try to use a particular vst and find that it is no longer listed. That’s when I will typically think it is a vst problem and do the aforementioned removing/reinstall/move .dll process. When the issue would easily have been corrected if I just remembered to set CB 7.5 to “run as administrator”.

Hopefully writing this post will help me remember… “run as administrator”, “run as administrator”, “run as administrator”… :sunglasses:

Man, I am getting old. Funny but not really :slight_smile:

BTW… I’m not an administrator. I’m just a guy who wants to play and record the music of mine and others. So why do I need to run these as one? Holy moly.

:laughing: :laughing:
Thanks for the info, but unfortunately things are different on Mac.

True, but the user library folder is “hidden” as of OS 10.7. I’m not saying it’s entirely inaccessible, but it’s tricky to find. Then again even if you find it, what would you do in that folder? If they are where they belong and Cubase won’t see them, well, c’est la vie…

Maybe the xml way suggested by Grim and Plasuma will do the job, although seems unlikely to me, but I don’t know much about xml tweaking.

Wow, thanks everyone for the responses!

Unfortunately, none of them did the trick…I guess none of these will run on Cubase 7. Le sigh. Back to the ol’ drawing board, I guess.