I’m running Mountain Lion on a Mac Pro. I have tons of old projects with East West libraries using PLAY 3 in Nuendo. I talked to East West about this and they said someone else called about the same problem but they couldn’t fix it. They told me to contact Steinberg and maybe it’s a Steinberg issue. I updated to PLAY 4 and when I open older projects where I used PLAY 3 it takes me to screens saying it can’t fing the library and to press “OK” or “Abort” to find the library but the screen freezes and I can’t select it. Also when I start a new project and use the VST Instrument Rack Nuendo crashes. I add one instrument with PLAY 4 and then when I try to add another int the VST Instrument Rack it crashes. I also have Logic Studio and I have no problems opening older libraries or running Nuendo. Does anyone have a solution out there for me?
I assume you have recently acquired SD3, because PLAY 4 has not been released as an update for PLAY 3 yet, and I don’t think very many people (even including Steinberg maybe) have access to PLAY 4 to test this issue. According to some users, P4 is still buggy and EastWest are still working on it. This applies to Nuendo 6 as well. It is very unlikely that Steinberg will stop all their work and try to fix your problem very soon, especially when the incompatibility problem which you are stating involves a newly-released, buggy software. Don’t get me wrong, I use Nuendo and PLAY everyday and would love to see them improved. My point is that you should look for work arounds for now. Fixes will happen in future updates/versions which certainly take time.
My suggestions:
Open a standalone instance of PLAY 4 and make sure all your libraries are recognized. If not, add them to the standalone instance.
Try opening your projects in Nuendo 5.5 and see if the problem is still there, or that it happens only in Nuendo 6.
Use VSL Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 instead of the VST instruments rack and all your problems will be gone forever. If you don’t have it, you can download a demo which works for a month.
Sorry, I don’t understand the “running Nuendo” part.
Do you mean you have crashes even without PLAY 4 as well? Which version of Nuendo are you using?
It is always safer to open your older projects with the same version of Nuendo in which you created them.
chrisn3901 wrote:
Also when I start a new project and use the VST Instrument Rack Nuendo crashes.
I meant when I load PLAY 4 in the instrument rack multiple times it crashes. Like in slot 1 I’ll load PLAY 4 for the double bass patches, slot 2 for cell is, etc.
You are right about being buggy. I’m probably better off using PLAY 3 till there is an update for Nuendo. I will try Nuendo 5.5 though to see if that works…Thanks!
Since Play 3, Kontakt 4 and 5, Omnisphere and a dozen other VIs are working just fine in Nuendo 6 here, I wouldn’t wait too long before pushing back on East West. Play has a history of instability being a custom sample player, though in all fairness, Play 3 has been mostly fine here.
Play 4 seems to be a significant update, so it is bound to have problems. Another test would be to see if similar errors appear in another DAW - I wasn’t sure if you are saying it is fine in Logic Studio or not, but that’s a good place to start.
Yes everything works fine in Logic Studio with the use of PLAY 4. I was thinking it was a Steinberg issue. East West told me someone notified them of the same problem I’m having but it was in Cubase 7.
AFAIK, Play 4 is only available to SD3 owners. I’d love to try Play 4. Do you mean it has been released as an update for Play 3? If so, where can I find it? There’s no trace of Play 4 in the support page.
I own SD3 and I have received links to the Play updates from emails from East West. They also mention in the email to not distribute or post these links.
I don’t think Play 4 is available as an update for Play 3 yet.
No, you don’t. There is nothing new with Play 4 that Nuendo has to support - Play is a VST instrument. As long as it meets VST spec and is programmed correctly to work as any other sample loading VI should (Kontakt, etc), it should work.
I would report it as a bug to East West. They will tell you it is Steinberg’s fault until you insist it isn’t. If Kontakt 5 and Play 3 work fine in Nuendo for you (both do here), then that’s a good start and pretty good evidence it is a Play 4 problem. Anything is possible, but it seems highly likely it is a problem with Play 4 since it is new, a significant upgrade, and has had problems in the past.
Of course they will blame it on Steinberg! It is the easiest answer. As csd says, Nuendo opens all standard VSTi’s and has nothing against Play per se. Play 4 is simply new, so is Nuendo 6 and therefor anything is possible, but Play 4 is more likely to have caused the problem.
Good news is that Play 4 is now officially released for all users, and I will soon test it with VE PRO 5 and report back. I will also test it with Nuendo 5.5
I agree with the above posters. PLAY either supports Cubase and Nuendo or it doesn’t. If it does, it is EW responsibility to make it work properly. If they can’t because of a Nuendo bug, it is their responsibility to contact Steinberg and sort it out directly. Telling a user to do it is basically passing the buck because they can’t be bothered to sort out their own buggy software.
I briefly tested Play 4 in Nuendo 5.5.4 which is installed on my slave PC as a trial version. I loaded three instances in the VST Instruments Rack, each having 2-4 patches. All went OK. My current setup doesn’t allow me to test it in Logic Pro or Nuendo 6 because all my EW libraries are on the slave machine. I also don’t have SD3, only the Hollywood series.
The other test was in VE PRO 5 which seems to be going well so far. I admit I took a risk to install Play 4 on the slave machine and continue working on a big project (about 50GB of ram occupied by Play 4 and other sample players in VE PRO) connected to Nuendo 6 on my Master Mac Pro, however, I had heard that Play 4 was sounding better than Play 3 in certain legato patches and I couldn’t resist it! Sounds promising so far.
@chrisn3901
I experienced a bug while loading or replacing patches in VE PRO where Play 4 stopped loading after occupying a certain amount of ram, but that’s not new. Also a crash on exit in Nuendo 5 which is not new either. Other than these all went ok for me. As far as I remember, you had planned to test it in Nuendo 5.5 as well. Did you?
I have not had any problems with opening older projects created with Play3 in Nuendo5.5 or 6. The projects open correctly and load Play4 without issues.
This is on Windows, see specs below.
