Unwanted "fan blade" effect / VST3 instrument settings not saving

TVThemeGuy wrote on 8/26/2023, 12:04 PM

Hello!

I think I have a rather unique problem in that I cannot find any information on this particular issue.
I graduated to Magix Music Maker Premium 2023 back in April.  I'd been using the Premium 2013 version for 10 years and it served me well, but there were certain issues that caused me to upgrade.  Since moving to 2023 and not really having had time to play with it, it sat for a few months.  I recently replaced my computer with a faster one, so now I was ready to dive into MMM P 2023.

I've found that my 32 bit VSTs won't load.  By and large, I fixed this using JBridge.  In my quest to replace certain instruments, I found the BBC Symphony Orchestra Discovery plugin for use with Spitfire.  It sounds great and I want to start authoring in it, but here's my problem:
There are two flavors of BBC Symphony Orchestra that appear in my Instruments List.  One is "64 Bit" and the other is "VST3."  To my ear, they sound the same.  The problem is that when I export from the 64 Bit version (either to WAV or MP3), the output file contains a kind of "fan blade" effect (think about when you were a kid and talked into a box fan).  This effect appears on every track that uses BBCSO, but only while there is sound on that track.  It does not occur during the silent portions.  The more tracks with audio playing, the worse the effect.

This brings me to part 2 of the problem.  If I select VST3 instead, the export sounds great and there is no "fan blade" effect.  I save the project file and I can quit MMM.  However, when I re-open my project file, I find that my instrument settings for anything that uses BBC Symphony Orchestra (VST3) are not saved.  I receive an error that states "The following VST plug-in cannot be loaded: BBC Symphony Orchestra."  This means that I need to go back into the instrument editor for each track that used BBBSO (VST3), reselect it, select and instrument and adjust its properties and HOPE that I got it the same way as I did before.

In short:
I'm looking for a way to fix the "fan blade" effect when I use BBCSO (64 Bit)
OR
I'm looking for a way to fix the fact that BBCSO (VST3) isn't found when opening a project file.

Any help or insight will be greatly appreciated!!

Comments

SP. wrote on 8/26/2023, 1:03 PM

@TVThemeGuy There might be an incompatibility with Spitfire sample player and Music Maker. In the past Music Maker had problems with VST3 plugins (for example showing no GUI).

On the other hand, not all developers adhere exactly to the VST standard and only test the major DAWs for compatibility problems. So it might be possible that the saving/loading/rendering process doesn't work correctly in Music Maker.

You could try Pluginguru Unify. There is a free demo version available here: https://www.pluginguru.com/products/unify-demo/ Sadly, the demo doesn't allow saving and loading, so you can't test if everything loads correctly after reloading your project.

Load Unify as a VST instrument on your track and then load the orchestra VST instrument inside Unify. Unify should then take care of loading and saving the instruments correctly. Music Maker only loads the Unify instrument.

To solve the rendering problem it might be enough to simply change the audio driver in the program to Direct Sound before exporting. After that, change the driver back to ASIO.

TVThemeGuy wrote on 8/26/2023, 6:47 PM

@SP. Thank you for the suggestions! I went with the simplest fix first. The whole problem with rendering turned out to be insufficient buffer space allocated in ASIO. I bumped it up to 2048 and that has taken care of the issue.

As for VST3 not saving instrument settings, as that's specific to BBCSO and as adjusting the buffer space in ASIO fixed the 64 bit rendering issue, I consider the matter solved to my satisfaction. Thank you so much for your help!