Patchwork Issues

[dmbaer]

I have started playing around with Patchwork and have several things to report/ask. I am on a Windows 7 PC and everything is 64-bit. All things (include BC software) that can be VST 3 are VST 3.

First a feature request for Patchwork in standalone mode. If I save a preset with a synth that is not available in a standalone version, it would be nice to create a shortcut to Patchwork in which a preset name follows the program name on the command line and that preset would be automatically loaded. That way, for example, I could have a shortcut named Omnisphere2 that would immediately start that synth running under Patchwork without having to do the extra step of explicitly loading the preset after Patchwork starts. I don't know how this works in the Mac world, but I suspect there's something similar there.

Now on to observed problems. The worst problem is seen when loading MeldaProduction VST 3 modules. In both standalone and under Cubase 8, when loading a Melda VST3, we see a large empty window frame with nothing in it. It won’t take long after that for Patchwork standalone or Cubase 8 to then stop working. I tested this on several Melda plug-ins and saw the same behavior in all cases. To test, you can use one of the plug-ins in the free bundle (I used MOscilloscope).

Also, there is a minor inconsistency in initial displays of loaded plug-ins, both in Patchwork and the BC Mixer when running under Cubase 8. In some cases the plug-in UI comes up in front of Patchwork/Mixer and immediately gets moved to behind it. Sometimes this happens so quickly, it looks like the initial positioning of the editor is, in fact, behind Patchwork/Mixer. If the UI of the plug-in is small, this can be especially confusing since the plug-in window is totally obscured by the larger BC window.

Next a suggestion for documentation. I was pleased to see that I could access my Waves plug-ins within Patchwork, but it took a bit of head scratching to figure it out. If you load the Waves shell, you then get a dialog box asking which Waves plug-in you want to load. This is far from intuitive and it would be good to mention this in the documentation, given that Waves plug-ins are pretty commonly found.

Also I noticed that the Cubase plug-ins show up nowhere when wishing to load them under Patchwork or BC Mixer, but I don’t think this is the fault of Blue Cat. Steinberg tells everyone where they must install their VST 3 plug-ins and then apparently ignore their own rules – I guess that the Cubase plug-ins are kept internal to Cubase in some fashion. But something in the documentation might be of help to first-time users.

Hope this has been useful, and I especially hope you can get a handle on the Melda incompatibility issue.

[BBFG#]

While your at it...
Please add a 'Control Input/MIDI Channel' select to the Stand-alone also.
It's useless for me to have it respond to all Controllers in Omni instead of picking the ones I want.
I often use it to create and check balance against the other boards I'm using and need these to be completely independent of each other.
As it is now, I have to load it in my DAW to be able to do that.
(So the Stand-Alone becomes useless.)

[dmbaer]

Bump. Any response? Thanks.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Sorry for the late reply.

- Direct preset loading when drag & dropping on the app/ launching from command line is indeed a good idea. We'll see if it can get implemented in the future.
- About the MeldaProduction VST3s, we have indeed noticed a bug in their implementation which has been reported to them, and according to Melda, it should be fixed in an upcoming release. The VST2 version should work without any problem.
- For Cubase 8, are you using the "Always on Top" option for the plug-in window? I am suspecting that Cubase is changing the z-order of the window after it has been opened, so we cannot do much about it, unfortunately .
- we should indeed add a line about how to load VST2 shell plug-ins (mostly Waves but I think there are a few (old) others.
- The Cubase plug-ins can indeed be found in the C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 8.5\VST3 or C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 8.5\VSTPlugins . But I think you can load most of them only from Cubase.

[dmbaer]

- Direct preset loading when drag & dropping on the app/ launching from command line is indeed a good idea. We'll see if it can get implemented in the future.

- For Cubase 8, are you using the "Always on Top" option for the plug-in window? I am suspecting that Cubase is changing the z-order of the window after it has been opened, so we cannot do much about it, unfortunately .

Not the first time I've experienced odd window placement behavior under Cubase. Fortunately, this is just an irritation and not a show-stopper.

- The Cubase plug-ins can indeed be found in the C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 8.5\VST3 or C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 8.5\VSTPlugins . But I think you can load most of them only from Cubase.

When I looked, I only found a few of the synths but no effect plug-ins. I'll check again in case I missed something. Once again, not a show-stopper, at least for those of us who are serial group-buyers. I've got countless plug-ins of all variety courtesy of a number of bundles acquired over the years. Most of these are things I'd never have a use for, but Patchwork and Mixer make them interesting choices after all.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Most effects are probably not available as VSTs, indeed - that's what most DAWs do for bundled effects: they are usually not available for third party hosts.

[dmbaer]

Good news - the issue with Melda VST 3 displays seems to have been corrected in the latest version (10.00).

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like they were finally able to release their fix. That's good news!