When I am rendering a file in Wavelab Pro 11 using the Space Control plugin (along with several other plugins), the beginning of the file is cut off by a few hundred milliseconds. I bypassed the Space Control plugin and the issue was resolved. Apparently this is a known issue. Here is the response I got back from Acustica…
Hello Audio Kemestry,
Sorry to hear you are having problems with Space Control. What you are reporting to us is a known error that occurs in WaveLab’s rendering with Space Control and our products. This happens because WaveLab does not give enough time for the plugins to load all the necessary emulations to start working. In other words, WaveLab begins to render when the plugins are not yet ready.
Some users have reported that playing back before rendering helps to mitigate this behavior, but it is not 100% effective. We recommend adding 10 seconds of silence to your projects at the beginning to give the plugins a chance to be ready. The latter is not the ideal solution, but at least it will allow you to use WaveLab with our products.
Also, we recommend that you contact Steinberg technical support because Wavelab should ask the 3rd party software, for example, a plug-in, if it is ready to render the information. If the 3rd party software is not ready it may render wrong information, for example, noise or silence.
The VST-3 setup operations are synchronous, which means they occur one after the other. Consequently, WaveLab cannot start rendering until the plugin is ready, unless the plugin is behaving improperly. Therefore, I am greatly surprised by this response from the manufacturer.
I’ve heard of Acustica users having to add 5 to 10 seconds of silence to the start of their files (or renders) to get Acustica plugins to render properly, and then having to trim and deal with it later.
I can’t imagine doing this all day every day for nearly every project. I don’t think any plugin, no matter how good it might sound is worth that kind of workaround.
There are too many great sounding plugins out there that render correctly, and only so much time in a day.
I been having this issue for years with their plugins, its very annoying, but if you really have to use it, as mentioned above, add 5 seconds minimum of silence at the beginning of the audio it usually does the trick,
Thanks for the comments/suggestions. Just heard back from their support team again regarding the issue. Looks like they are now conceding the problem is on their end (and not with Wavelab). See below:
Hello Audio Kemestry,
We have investigated a little more with the developers, and although we have not yet found the root of the problem or the solution, it seems that this behavior could be caused by our products being developed in VST2 format and then converted to VST3 by means of a wrapper. This is definitely something our developers need to look into in-depth together with the Wavelab developers, and this will take a while to figure out if they find a way to do it.
Unfortunately, we have replicated what you reported to us on our side. We have already reported it so that our developers can fix it. While we expect this to happen as soon as possible, the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of the new release is still unknown. We appreciate you taking the time to investigate and report this. Thank you for your invaluable input.
I’ve been saying something isn’t right with the performance of these plugins forever, so it’s nice to see them admitting to cutting corners and doing unideal things. No wonder they don’t really follow VST3 spec close enough to work well in WaveLab.
They really need to take a step back and work on the efficiency, stability, and overall user experience of these plugins instead of focusing JUST on the sound and modeling analog gear and the hype that comes with that.
I tried on two separate occasions to work these plugins into my workflow and they were nothing but a hassle to work with…and I don’t use cheap/old/slow computers.
They have a lot of trust to build up before I’ll consider touching them again. They might be fine for hobbyists that want something they think is like analog gear, but (with a few exceptions) I can’t imagine trying to work with these plugins in a busy professional environment.
That seems like a copy paste answer they have been using for the past 2 years, but they haven’t made any efforts to fix it, I have that reply for over 7 plugins ,