Problems with Blue3 plugin - program changes, VST2 vs. VST3

VST Live
1

I recently installed the Blue3 organ plugin from GG audio.

There are some problems when using this within VST Live - first of all the VST3 plugin does not respond to program changes - my plan was to use a shared instance of Blue3 in VST Live and then program changes in the layers to select the sound for the song.

I tested the stand-alone version of Blue3 and sent some MIDI program changes - worked fine.

I have heard that some VST3 plugins may have problems with program changes (tried my various U-He VST3 plugins - all worked fine). So I reinstalled Blue3 with the 64 bit VST2 and VST3 plugins and the 64 bit standalone selected.

But VST Live still only showed the VST3 Blue3 add-in, so I checked the preferences - my error, the 64 bit VST path (C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins) was not yet configured in VST Live as all plugins I use in there are VST3 versions.

So I added this path to be scanned and restarted VST Live. Now all plugins I have installed in VST2 and VST3 versions like the U-He and Elektron plugins showed both versions in VST Live, same names but marked with // and /// to distinguish the 2/3 versions (so the scanned path was correct).

But Blue3 still only showed the VST3 version (checked that the VST2 Blue3.dll was really in the VST2 folder) . So I uninstalled Blue3 again and this time only installed the VST2 64 bit version and the standalone.

Now finally the Blue3 VST2 plugin appeared in VST Live and program changes worked without a problem.

So there seem to be two problems with the VST Live and Blue3:

• Program changes are not recognized correctly by the VST3 version of Blue3
• Concurrent VST2/VST3 plugins of Blue3 installed only show the VST3 plugin

I am not sure if this is a problem of VST Live as a host or of the Blue3 plugin, so I also contacted the developer and will update this topic with potential feedback.

If you want to do a test of your own, a demo is available as a free download, only some crackles added after 2 minutes.

2

Additional info, Blue 3 seems to be configured in both the VST2 and VST3 XML files when the VST2 and VST3 versions are installed. But only the VST3 version is shown in VST Live.

Vst2Plugins.xml

<Plugin groupDir="C:/Program Files/Steinberg/VSTPlugins" path="C:/Program Files/Steinberg/VSTPlugins/Blue3.dll">
  <Info damaged="0" valid="1" versionnumber="1.0.0"/>
  <Architecture type="0"/>
  <Values name="Blue3" vendorname="GG Audio" created="Tue Jul 6 20:20:56 2021" size="34178560" vendorpluginname="Blue3"/>
  <Properties receiveVstMidiEvent="1" numInputs="0" category="instrument" uuid="1d1038ba-4672-d8de-a141-048633424747" uniqueID="1195852339" transmitsEvents="0" receivesEvents="1" numOutputs="4" isInstrument="1" sendVstMidiEvent="0"/>
  <Enabled state="1"/>
  <Compatibility uuids="56535447-3362-4742-3365-756c00000000"/>
</Plugin>

Vst3Plugins.xml

<Plugin groupDir="C:/Program Files/Common Files/VST3" path="C:/Program Files/Common Files/VST3/Blue3.vst3">
  <Info damaged="0" valid="1" versionnumber="2.4.0.0"/>
  <Architecture type="0"/>
  <Values name="Blue3" vendorname="GG Audio" created="Thu Jan 7 02:16:13 2021" size="34359808" vendorpluginname="Blue3"/>
  <Properties rescan="false" receiveVstMidiEvent="1" categoryItems="Instrument" numInputs="0" category="unkown" uuid="56535447-3362-4742-3365-756c00000000" uniqueID="0" transmitsEvents="0" receivesEvents="0" numOutputs="0" isInstrument="1"/>
  <Enabled state="1"/>
  <ClassCategory name="Audio Module Class"/>
  <Compatibility uuids=""/>
</Plugin>

<Plugin groupDir="C:/Program Files/Common Files/VST3" path="C:/Program Files/Common Files/VST3/Blue3.vst3">
  <Info damaged="0" valid="1" versionnumber="2.4.0.0"/>
  <Architecture type="0"/>
  <Values name="Blue3" vendorname="GG Audio" created="Thu Jan 7 02:16:13 2021" size="34359808" vendorpluginname="Blue3"/>
  <Properties rescan="false" receiveVstMidiEvent="1" categoryItems="Instrument" numInputs="0" category="unkown" uuid="56534547-3362-4742-3365-756c00000000" uniqueID="0" transmitsEvents="0" receivesEvents="0" numOutputs="0" isInstrument="1"/>
  <Enabled state="1"/>
  <ClassCategory name="Component Controller Class"/>
  <Compatibility uuids=""/>
</Plugin>
3

… we’ll check. Thank you for reporting,
Michael.