I have Cubase Pro 15.0.30 running under Windows 11 on a new PC. Not long ago I transferred all my Cubase projects from another windows PC to this one. I also installed my third-party plugins on the new PC.
In some of the projects I copied to the new PC, I had used Amplitube 4, a VST3 plug-in, as an insert effect on certain tracks. When I open those projects on the new PC, Cubase says the plug-in is missing, and its copy settings option is greyed out.
In fact, the plug-in is installed, and appears in the VST Plug-in Manager list as available, with exactly the same name it has when used as an insert effect, but it is marked as missing on any track in the project where I have used it as an insert effect.
I could simply reinsert the effect from the track’s insert effect drop-down menu, but that creates a new instance of the effect with its default settings, not the settings it had on that track in that project. What I want to do is recover the exact settings the plug-in had as a track insert effect before the transfer to the new PC. Is there a way of doing that?
I still have the old PC and Cubase, the projects, the plug-ins etc are still on it.
Have you confirmed that the plugs mentioned have the same ID number? Unfortunately, a plug in Plug-in Manager can have the identical name. However the ID number can be different.
If possible can you download older version(s) of this plug?
Thanks, but how do I ascertain the ID number(s) for the plug-in? ID number is not a column in VST Plug-in Manager, and does not seem to appear in the Plug-in Report. The track insert effect does not show it either.
Is it possible you used a VST2 version of the plugin on the original PC and are now using the VST3 version on the new PC? I know I’ve seen that sort of thing in this sort of scenario. If so, perhaps enabling Cubase’s VST2 support on the new system (in Plugin Manager) could let you load the plugin version on the project (assuming, of course, you’ve installed both VST2 and VST3 versions of AmpliTube on the new system). Once you can do that, you could save a preset from what is used inside the track, then I think AmpliTube would let you replace the VST2 version with the VST3 version and still load a preset that came from the VST2 version.
(BTW, this relates to what Greg was saying about the plugin ID numbers. If a plugin vendor makes the ID numbers the same for VST2 and VST3 versions, then the VST3 version can replace the VST2 version, though possibly not if the VST2 version is still installed – I’m not sure on the details of where this does and doesn’t work.)
which suggests I may need to copy the folder C:\Users\your_username*\Documents\VST3 Presets\Steinberg Media Technologies from the old machine to the new one. I’ll give that a try.
There are usually two different folders for user presets of 3rd party plugins:
If you have saved a user preset as a Steinberg vst3preset then it’s inside the above mentioned default folder with each plugin having a dedicated subfolder. It’s saved in this format (*vst3preset) if you use the save function at the top left of the Amplitube window.
If you have saved a user preset as a native 3rd party plugin format then you’ll have to look someplace else because native Amplitube user presets reside in a different folder on their own. These type of user presets are generated if you use the save option inside the Amplitube window.
I’m not at my rig right now so I can’t pinpoint the exact default location. You should be able to find out yourself by looking at Amplitube’s settings or by saving a test user preset. If you are having trouble to find the location let me know.
Actually, I have just realised that I’m almost certainly not looking for a preset. Normally I simply saved the plug-ins settings with the Cubase project, not separately as a plug-in preset. I assume Cubase keeps those plug-in settings somewhere in the project folder, which I have copied to the new PC. The issue therefore seems to be that Cubase is not finding the plug-in I used as a track insert where it expected it to be.
Oh my, I should’ve read your initial post, too. Yes, in this case it’s not about user presets. @Greg_Purkey suggested to look for older versions (installers) of Amplitube. Can you check if they are different on your old rig?
But on the new PC the second folder also had an instance of AmpliTube 4.vst3 rather than AmpliTube 4.dll. Having rectified that, Cubase is now finding the track insert of AmpliTube 4.
So this seems to have been solved, although I have no clear idea why! Thanks for all the suggestions.
The first location is reserved for vst3 files and it’s their manditory location. Cubase will look noplace else for a vst3 file.
The second location hosts the VST2 version of the plugin (*dll) which has no such manditory directory.
Sometimes, VST3 files work as VST2 (dll) and vice versa. In this case, your old project must have used the VST2 format and Cubase was expecting a *dll.
And I’ll add that this decision is up to the developer as to whether or not they change the ID. I had horrible issues with Sonic Academy Kick 2 a few years ago, with first a VST2 then VST3 released and they had several VST2 versions and some VST3 versions. Then an ID change, then certain .vstpresets would not work as expected.
Older versions AND different VST ID numbers. In my case, it was about .vstpresets because they existed in Explorer, however they would not show up in Media Bay. And to make things worse, I had both VST2 and VST3 installed.
The plugin settings would be stored in the CPR file itself. (This is why I was suggesting, if the old version happened to be using VST2, so this project was looking for the VST2 version, that enabling VST2 plugins in Cubase, then loading the project might work, then you could save a preset inside AmpliTube, and load that preset in the VST3 version – i.e. to essentially copy the settings from the VST2 version to the VST3 version.)
Seems a bit bizarre, but glad to hear you’ve got it working.
