WL11 Acustica Plugins Automation Bug?

WaveLab
1

Hi folks, reporting an issue with automation of VST3 Acustica Audio plugins. I’m aware the compatibility of WaveLab and Acustica has been imperfect in the past, but my experience has been very good until trying to automate them in WaveLab 11. I’ve confirmed these issues on both Acustica Ivory 5 (which is a recent release) and Cream 2, but haven’t tested any others.

  1. The line between automation points is not a straight gradient, but a right angle at the next automation point, despite the parameter working as a non-stepped knob on the plugin’s GUI. This ‘right angle’ behavior also happens in Presonus’ Studio One, but works correctly as a gradient in Reaper, so I assume it’s not solely an Acustica issue. The knob on the plugin GUI and the sonic effect are consistent with the visual line in WaveLab (i.e. they suddenly jump to the next automation point when they reach it, rather than gradually moving towards it). ‘Automation Smoothing’ is also not available. The right angle can be seen in the video linked below.

  2. If automation is drawn onto a clip, and then the user ‘resizes’ (trims) the start of the clip by dragging the left side towards the right, the starting automation point and horizontal line connected to the right of it move slowly towards the value of the next automation point on the clip - almost as though following an invisible linear gradient towards the next automation point. This is not just a visual issue, the plugin GUI and sonic effect follow the unintended change too. This behaviour can be seen in the video linked below.

  3. WaveLab always immediately crashes when user clicks ‘Start Rendering’ in a session which has Acustica plugin automation. A very small (corrupt) audio file is created in the output path before WaveLab crashes. Removing the plugin or deactivating its automation in the ‘Automation/Envelope’ pane resolves the issue completely and no crashes occur when rendering. Though of course, no automation occurs then.

Video of issue - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-phZGReAnxTWZsP6g5h3R_b1lrieF15n/view?usp=sharing

My relevant specs:
Acustica Ivory 5 VST3 & Cream 2 VST3
WaveLab Pro 11.0.0
macOS Catalina 10.15.7

This aside, I’m really loving v11, so thanks PG! I’m really hoping to see plugin automation make its way over to the track, group and output effects soon. Maybe even sidechain functionality too if I’m lucky. Hope you’re well and thanks for your time!

James

2

  1. The problem comes from a design mistake of the plugin: it declares the parameter value to have 1000 steps instead of being “continuous”. This means this is a quantized parameter, hence it must have a quantized envelope. Therefore WaveLab and Studio One behave according to the VST format.

  2. This is indeed a bug with quantized envelopes in WaveLab. This will be fixed in 11.0.20

  3. The crash happens inside the plugin, not inside WaveLab.

Aside from this, the plugin sometimes does not open (no GUI), and I don’t know why.

I will write an email to this company because there was already a contact established in the past.

1 Like
4

Thanks for this detailed response and intention to pursue the issue, I appreciate it. Have a great day.