Blank Plugin GUI in 32bit Mode

WaveLab
1

I’ve just upgraded from Wavelab 7 to Wavelab 8. I was really hoping it would fix some buggy behaviour I’ve been having on my system. Unfortunately it’s just swapped one set of problems for another.

I’m on a Mac Pro, by default, Wavelab 8 launches in 64bit mode. Fine, except that as many people have noted, there’s little to be gained and plenty of potential pitfalls in 64bit - most notably the fact I can’t access my 32bit plugins which I don’t want to have to “bridge” with yet more 3rd party software. No problem, I checked the 32bit tick box a re-launched. Fine. Expect now, all of my UAD Plugins have blank - white - GUIs. The plugin surround is there, with the menu bar for bypass, solo etc, but the main part of the GUI with all of the controls is missing. If I turn the display of the plugin off in the master section - the missing part of the GUI then appears where it should have been - expect now it’s not movable, clickable and doesn’t even disappear if I alt-tab to another program - it’s just “painted” onto the screen. How ironic - this exact same behaviour (except for the last bit) happened in Wavelab 7 - BUT, get this, it happened in 64bit mode and was FINE in 32bit mode - which is what I used. Oh, and Slate FG-X, one of the main reasons I want to run 32bit also has a completely white GUI - with half the VU’s showing at the bottom of the window. Waves Mercury on the other hand is completely fine, as is Plugin Alliance stuff and Steinberg’s own stuff.

Does anyone have any ideas/similar experience? Please understand - I’ve paid my upgrade and I’m not here to bitch for the sake of it; but I have an on-going issue with 7 that Steinberg support have been very unhelpful and uninterested in fixing - the some total of their advice being re-install and delete preferences, which I had obviously already done - as I told them when I asked for support. Using 7 at the moment means rebooting the system after every 2 or 3 tracks - and keeping an eye out to make sure plugins don’t “self adjust” - mad I know - talk about “ghost in the macine”. I was really hoping with 8 I could just forget about all that and get on with Mastering. I am getting to the stage where I just need a solution, urgently - and although I don’t want to change and have been using WL since v3 with Houpert DDP Solution - if getting a working system means changing then that’s what I’ll have to do.

I’m running 10.8.3 - it’s a brand new install - in a Mac Pro 4,1 with 12Gb Ram and an ATI5770 Video Card; UAD2 Quad, latest 6.5.2 software (loath to try 7 til it’s had the inevitable bugs ironed out), Mercury, Slate, Plugin Alliance etc.

2

I will have to try reproducing what you describe in 32 bit, right now I can’t answer.
But on the Mac, I advise the use of 64 bit plugins because these plugins have to use the so-called Cocoa technology, which is the up to date Apple technology. WaveLab is based on Cocoa.

On another hand, 32 bit plugins, espescially VST-2 plugins, use the old “Carbon” technology, more or less given-up by Apple, and more sensible to conflicts with Cocoa applications.

Important plugin manufacturers provide 64 bit versions of their plugins nowadays, I guess.

3

Ok, thanks for your reply Phillipe. It helps to understand what is going on from a technical viewpoint. I guess I will have to give up on Slate FG-X, which is a shame as it’s a great sounding plugin. They have been promising an update for absolutely ages now; I guess either they can’t be bothered or there’s no financial case for it. Thanks again, Mark.

4

I know this is an old thread, but I’ve also had this issue with FG-X… but! dude… if you put it into Generic Editor view then you lose a few of the detailed “Settings” sections, but it is possible to work with it, without the thing locking Cubase or going blank. It’s a great mastering plugin

5

Have you updated to the 64-bit version of FG-X? Since FG-X 2 is taking so long to develop they did a intermediate fix to get FG-X 1 working in 64-bit environments.

I haven’t used it much in Wavelab so I can’t say how well it works but it does exist.

I use a lot of 3rd party plugins and it seems like the white GUI problem hasn’t come up on a long time now.