I held off on updating to 3.5 because I was working on some songs using the previous versions of BFD3 and didn’t want to run into issues before finishing. Well I finished the songs a few weeks ago and updated today, but I wanted to go in and test out BFD3.5 on older projects. When installing 3.5 through the inMusic installer, I did everything correctly and installed the VST2. However, when I open these projects, the BFD3 track just shows an error on the plugin saying that the VST2 can’t be located.
I realized that in the previous install of BFD3, I selected a custom install path for the VST2 that wasn’t the default Common Files\Steinberg\VST2 location, so I tried moving the new BFD3.5 version of the VST2 file from the default location to the custom folder that the previous VST2 was installed to. However, I still get the error that the VST2 can’t be loaded. Interestingly, when I try to open BFD3.5 standalone through the inMusic Installer, I just get an error message that the VST may be corrupted. That led me to reinstalling the main BFD 3.5 software with the VST2 installed to the correct custom install path that the previous version of BFD was installed to. This didn’t fix it. However, I then realized that the inMusic installer tries to open the old version of the BFD standalone because when I go through the Windows start menu and open BFD3 standalone, it opens the new version correctly.
The VST3 version of BFD3.5 loads fine in new projects, but obviously that doesn’t solve the problem of loading old projects that require the VST2. I cannot figure out how to get this working, and it’s critical that I figure out how to maintain compatibility. Has anyone else encountered this issue?
different but similar issues here with BFD3.5, user defined locations and projects using older builds. Win10 >> Win11/VST3 only, noting a new 3.5 dll which is launched for the standalone, but uneven results reloading older projects with the VST2 version.
always saved presets by project name, just pulled up a couple of older projects that haven’t been opened since the update with BFD which seemed to work as expected. ()
Is there a reason it -has- to be VST2? still had the older dll in a custom dir on my system after the update, but renamed it to prevent any load conflicts. the DAW (cakewalk by bandlab) has a feature to replace VST2 with VST3 on load which seems to work, not sure about Ableton.
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fwiw, this was not the case a few months ago when nothing seemed to work despite best practices for file/content management. presets/kit pieces/mixer channels/fx settings all seemed to suffer some mangling on load. for the ones i had to revive at the time, i ended up rebuilding/resaving the preset to get something done.
still tbd, but the migration to Win11 may have been a factor here as well as possible sync issues with the new software center/authorization process and/or unfinished updating of 3rd party expansions. took multiple installation passes, “exercising” projects to get something working (daw issues?), but managed to get BFD3.5 to load in older projects. not sure that helps, more than a few moving parts, have tickets to file, jme.
Thanks Steve, that’s helpful even if it’s disappointing that this is the only way to use BFD3.5 with old projects. I never would have “upgraded” if I knew that was the case. If you have the installer sometime, that would be very helpful!
I think when you install BFD3.4, it includes the licence manager too.
Make sure to uninstall BFD3.5 first.
I had to do the thing with the presets when I upgraded from BFD2 to BFD3.
I do it now as standard practice.
I could be wrong about having to create presets for BFD3.5 but if they’re not loading then that’s probably why.
It’s because the new BFD3.5 isn’t compatible with the previous build so is almost the same as going from BFD2 to BFD3 in that sense.
It’s pain, but once you have created BFD3 presets for all of your projects, it kind of makes it future proof unless BFD4 doesn’t load BFD3 presets, but I think that will be pretty unlikely.
Loading old Projects etc for DAW’s has been an issue since Vst2 was being phased out for Vst3.
I went through this years ago with others when I was using a DAW more and was auditioning various DAW’s for workflow etc etc.
I posted some info for some of those myself and others were dealing with…may be some helpful info..
The Plugin ID was at the base of the problems
Some plugin vendors use a different plugin ID for the VST2 and VST3 versions of the same plugin.
Some could migrate Vst2 to vst3 but no guarantee of not losing parameters/settings etc etc.
as mentioned by Soundmill Bandlab/Cakewalk has the Vst2/Vst3 however I haven’t any experience with it..I used Sonar-X.
There were a few scripts.Command Line Programs etc that are/were out there..
Ableton was a late adopter for Vst3 and you’re solution of going back and saving the BFD3 Preset is/was the only workaround.
ABLETON
I did hear about a Python script floating around but couldn’t find anything more about it other than someone on Reddit mentioning it..
I probably should have been more clear about my expectations. I was fully aware ahead of time that there are issues with drop-in replacement of VST3 versions of plugins once they are released for plugins that previously only had VST2 versions. I wasn’t expecting that to work. However, BFD 3.5 does install a VST2 version of the plugin in addition to the new VST3 version. I was expecting that to work like it has for all of my VST2 plugins that have been updated in the past that can have the new version drop in as a replacement and have the settings still work, especially when there are no major changes to how the plugin works like with this release.
I guess i’m a little surprised by this because I updated to BFD 3.5 and found the VST3 version of the plug-in loaded automatically whenever I called up an old project that reference the VST2 version of the plug-in. Maybe I got lucky.
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