9.5 from 8.5

Cubase
#1

I purchased 9 yesterday not realising that 9.5 was this close! I unwittingly caught the Grace period and saved

I was a bit underwhelmed with some aspects of 9 from 8.5, but having just installed 9.5, I am already impressed. I had no problems with installing the update.

At first glance things for me that are great are:

Adapt To Zoom - works well and will save me time
16 inserts and moveable pre/post line
Bezier curve automation
Halion Sonic SE update - sound selection now visible in main GUI
Colour scheme choice

There’ll be loads more, but it’s the first time I’ve been excited in a while

#2

Good for you, I was just about to order Cubase 8.5 to Cubase 9 upgrade when I noticed the 9.5 was already out. Wonder why Steinberg was out so early with this update unless they want to get rid of their customers. Anyway, I am not going to buy 9.5 unless I get it for the price I was expecting, which was less than 100€ what was the price for 8.5 to 9 upgrade.

#3

In addition I’d like to say it’s very unprofessional that we must play current kind of guessing games to get the grace period right. Eventually nobody will be happy. Instead there should be something like one week discount time to get the grace period upgrade AFTER the new version has been announced.

Steinberg, I’m waiting for my 99€ upgrade offer…

#4

Your loss for trying to exploit grace periods.

#5

I paid £80 for upgrade 8.5 to 9. But because of the timing, I got 9.5 for no further outlay. Taking the two jumps together I got very good upgrade for the money. 9.5 so far is doing well, no crashes, no nasty surprises.

The only problem I have encountered is that Virtual Guitarist even when bridged to 64 bit is not allowed by eLicensor. I have all other 32bit plugs bridged and working. I am hoping the helpdesk can resolve. I rarely use it, but it would be handy for backward compatability, especially long term, which doesn’t seem to be important to many. I’ve been at Cubase since it’s launch in the eighties, so long term is a thing.

#6

Same problem here. Plus, I can no longer use it in Cubase 9.0 (where it was working)
Fix please (pretty please)

#7

Hi John, how are you? I have an open support ticket re license failure, but no response as yet. If I get anywhere I’ll let you know. VGTR is working fine here in 8.5.

Since you have had it working in C9, it’s clearly not a problem bridging 32bit plugs, definitely license. That’s handy info for me. If you need any files rendered to keep you moving either PM or email me.
P

#8

Hi Pete,
All good here thanks (except for the VG problem)
Thanks for the offer :slight_smile:
I’ll keep you updated on my progress (if any)

John

#9

[update]
Interestingly, I tried to ‘rebridge’ VirtualGuitarist to a new ‘bridged’ folder, but I couldn’t get JBridger to bridge the .dll
(I’m assuming that’s because elicenser has an effect on the process?)

#10

I managed to get VG working in 9.0 by running the eLicenser as administrator.
Tried the same trick in 9.5 but the whole process hangs and Cubase 9.5 won’t launch …

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#11

When I ran eLicenser in Administrator, I couldn’t even see the licenses, just that same blank page. What is interesting is that it threw up a license error warning even though I had no project loaded. Running elicenser normally (not Admin) it opens and displays my licenses in normal fashion again.

#12

It might be time to visit J??? at Jbridge to update it to be compatible with 9.5. He’s usually pretty quick about that.

#13

I have just updated to the latest Jbridger, 1.75 beta, but this hasn’t solved the licenser issue. My support ticket is still open, but no response as yet.
(7 days)

#14

Thanks for the update Pete …
I’m checking the eLicenser page from time to time for any updates
https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/elicenser.html

JP

#15

Well I have now survived the latest Windows update. I had to run the eLicenser in Admin, then run maintenance before Cubase would load, but it now seems normal. I’d hoped that with latest JBridge it all might work beautifull, but no change to VGTR.

I did check and VGTR is still running (bridged by jBridge) in C8.5

#16

I have had a series of useful chats with Joao at JBridge and as a result tried a number of possible workarounds. Despite his best efforts we weren’t able to make 9.5 see the licenses. So, I am betting that it’s an issue in 9.5 software. Vgtr continues to work, bridged in 8.5 and unbridged in SX3 (which was a 32 bit test subject)

Fingers crossed that Steinberg Support will be able to throw some light on it eventually

#17

I suspected it was down to S’berg. I’m assuming that the latest eLicenser update will coincide with the next W10 update (Build 17035)
Hoping sooner rather than later …

#18

RANT Alert.

I have had a support response from Steinberg’s Miguel Morales. There is no provision that I can see to correspond further. The ticket now says (optimistically) “solved”…

"I think the Problem is actually that Cubase Pro 9 it is not compatible whit Virtual Guitarist at all. Unfortunately, the development of Virtual Guitarist and Bassist has been discontinued. As a result, maintenance updates or installation kits for current operating systems are no longer available.

We don’t recommend to use the bridge solutions because we can’t guarantee its properly behavior.

You can use your Cubase Pro 8.5 to work with 32Bits based Plug-Ins. You don’t need a new license to do so. Your Cubase Pro 9 licences allows you to open all lower version from the generation 9 and older. "

…Since people have reported that VGTR works in C9, this is clearly not the whole truth, it’s a cop out. But it doesn’t look hopeful for a solution. I am ok in that I still have 8.5 installed and indeed SX3 to fall back on for access to much older work, others moving from C9 to 9.5 must expect problems.

I have been in this game for 42 years as a professional and seeing long term backward compatibility treated in such cavalier way pisses me off greatly. If want to access projects from even 5 years ago, I have to cross-stitch and patch across programs.

Final note to end rant. The moral is, don’t trust your Steinberg software licenses to last into the future, even though you paid for the instruments. This is the only software I own that has been treated like this.

#19

Virtual Guitarist 2 isn’t Steinberg software, it was developed by Wizoo which doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the old Steinberg plugins besides Halion, The Grand and Halion Symphonic Orchestra weren’t actually developed by them, that’s why they were discontinued.

Just like the stock plugins that were developed by one of Wizoo’s programmers (Embracer, Monologue), they likely never had the source code for Virtual Guitarist 2 and there’s absolutely nothing Steinberg can do. They can’t stop moving forward for the sake of plugins that were discontinued almost 15 years ago.

All of Steinberg’s current plugins have a safe future. They were all programmed by Steinberg’s Halion team and they are all 64 bit VST3 plugins, which wont become obsolete any time soon.

#20

… the least they could have done was to give us a ‘heads up’.
To some extent I’ve moved away from VG2 by investing in other products from UJAM, Musiclab and NI. Thankfully I made my move on ‘Black Friday / Cyber Monday’