Cubase 9 - I missed the implication of being 64 bit only for stability

rob aylestone

Moderator
Was on v8.5, and decided to upgrade to 9. I'm pretty much settled with cubase, so I rarely use their forums unless I have issues and can't figure it out, so didn't do much reading apart from the new stuff which made it worth the upgrade fee.

I totally missed the new helpful plug-in blacklist - where virtually all my favourite plugins now reside - the ones that earn me money and I really like. What a bummer.
New Plug-in Sentinel scans all your plug-ins at start up to check which are valid and which might harm your system’s stability
Running in 64-bit only makes sure that you benefit from the most modern technology available
This was the clue I missed. Didn't give it a moment's thought that opening up old projects was going to be no good at all. Of course for the moment, I can run 8.5 - and there does seem to be something called jbridge that might it appears, let me use my plug-in collection that I have built up over the years.

It's progression - but surely Steinberg must understand that plug-ins often cost lots of money, and just a few years life makes software synths nowhere near as good value as buying a real keyboard.

Anybody else find this strange?
 
Yes, jBridge is supposed to let you use 32-bit plug-ins inside a 64-bit DAW or other host software.

I haven't gotten around to cranking up Cubase Elements 9 yet, but hopefully everything will be fine. I always get 64-bit plug-ins if there is a choice between 64-bit and 32-bit, but I do have a lot of 32-bit plug-ins.
 
I switched operating systems this year and found that 99% of all plugins I owned had 64bit versions available.

Maybe check to see if you have updates? I feel like everything but abandonware and some freeware has to have 64 bit versions.

The suck of that though is a couple were paid upgrades (Ozone, I was on 3 lol) and melodyne (again at least 3 or 4 versions behind).

Paying to upgrade ozone didn't bother me because I saw they had added a lot of features that were not existent in 3 (it was $100 to upgrade, kind of rough on the wallet but eh it's fine). Melodyne on the other hand was a bit more irritating because it really didn't offer much more.


The only thing that really irritated me (and I get it) was the fact that I couldn't authorise Steven Slate Platinum 3 in kontakt and Slate has long abandoned it. They offered me a discount, but it was not enough to bother upgrading (and it's usually cheaper on sale). SSD 4 didn't appear to add enough new content (samples) to want to give them as much money as they wanted to upgrade, although I know the UI is much better (buddy owns 4 and I have played around with it). $350 software that I can't use unless I give slate another $99 minimum.
 
The DAW I generally use the most is the 64-bit version of Acoustica Mixcraft, and it can run either 32-bit or 64-bit plug-ins without any problem. I don't know whether they're using jBridge to do that, or something else-- maybe even their own code-- but I certainly didn't need to install jBridge separately.

Also, I'd thought that jBridge is free, but I see that it isn't! :(

If jBridge can do this, and if Mixcraft can do it, then I don't understand why all 64-bit DAWs can't-- or won't-- do it, too.

As for their usual remark that "If you want to run 32-bit plug-ins in our 64-bit DAW, you can use jBridge for that," it seems like a cop-out, pure and simple.
 
Even with jbridge, opening old sessions will be a hassle. The 32 bit plugins will be in a special jbridge folder, so the session will look for them in the wrong place and throw up an error.

You will also lose all the plugin settings.

What I have learned after going through this too many times is always print stems and effects as audio once you are done. Plugins come and go, but wav files will always come up in a session.
 
That is excellent advice - and something I rarely do, but now - I will on the important jobs. I've got some old Korg software versions of elderly synths, and one of my favourite samplers is still Collossus, although my preference shifted from this to Garritan.

I downloaded the demo, and most, but sadly not all, of the plugins now work - but I agree that it's a real pain to have to reload the new version from the bridge folder. The critical ones I've got going, and the few instruments and reverbs I have lost can be lived with. The jbridge software is cheap anyway, so now I know it works, I shall gladly pay for it to get me out of a hole!

I just wish they'd made it more obvious - it was a shock. I never really thought about the plug ins I was using every day even being 32 bit versions - they just worked 5 years ago, and I can't remember the 32/64 bit issue coming up.
 
That is excellent advice - and something I rarely do, but now - I will on the important jobs. I've got some old Korg software versions of elderly synths, and one of my favourite samplers is still Collossus, although my preference shifted from this to Garritan.

I downloaded the demo, and most, but sadly not all, of the plugins now work - but I agree that it's a real pain to have to reload the new version from the bridge folder. The critical ones I've got going, and the few instruments and reverbs I have lost can be lived with. The jbridge software is cheap anyway, so now I know it works, I shall gladly pay for it to get me out of a hole!

I just wish they'd made it more obvious - it was a shock. I never really thought about the plug ins I was using every day even being 32 bit versions - they just worked 5 years ago, and I can't remember the 32/64 bit issue coming up.

5 years is a lifetime in software development. 64 bit is now, 32 bit was then. Why would you be shocked that an old architecture is no longer being supported. I would bet that your computer would not recognize most software or hardware from 6 or 7 years ago.
 
I had a project get back-burnered for a few years. It was pretty much done, but got put on the shelf for 6 years. When I opened the session up, half of the plugins I used didn't exist anymore and the newest Drumagog version didn't remember the old samples and settings.

I had to start over with the mixes. That's when I learned to print stems, effects and samples.
 
It was a nuendo upgrade that made dx plugins a no go. There were a bunch of really cool dx plugins that I used all the time. And Drumagog was a dx plugin at first, iirc.

I have a lot of long term clients that do the project, then worry about selling it. So Sometimes it takes forever. Also, they will go back to things that never saw the light of day and rework them.

Luckily, I don't have the brick and mortar studio anymore. I gave all those clients everything I had, so I'm not responsible for keeping everything forever.
 
I'm not mad that everything is going 64bit. I think cubase has been on that since version 4 so it's not shocking that they are trying to ditch 32 bit plugs and vst2 plug. Although as far as I can tell cubase still runs vst 2 plugins, I installed no vst 2 plugins though if I could help it.
 
I've stopped upgrading Cubase at Pro 8 after I lost the use of Nebula when I demoed 8.5 on a friends computer. Being a songwriter/musician first and an engineer by default, I try to spend my valuable time making tunes. As long as Pro 8 keeps working (no doubt it will run into a snag down the line especially since I'm also using Win7), no upgrades and I will start the long process of turning stems into wave files for 80+ tunes. Excellent suggestion!!

TKeefe | Terry Keefe | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
I am in 64 now but I finished all of my projects before converting. Most plug-ins had a 64 bit version available. But this issue is why I simply don't use a lot of plugins.
 
Well - as of today I'm now fully operational again. I lost in the end just a couple of plugins that jbridge couldn't sort - but the rest are working fine now. The good news is that the old car files can find the new versions without having to do it manually. I looked at upgrading my samplers and instruments to the latest versions, and the price was simply terrible - just the ones I use all the time, without the rare ones would have been about two and a half grand to move across to - far too much, and the new ones do more than I need of course, but also are not backwards compatible, so I'd have to revoice loads of the projects. Jbridge is well worth just the few quid it costs for the full version, and I'd recommend it to anyone upgrading to Cubase 9. Some of the new features are actually quite handy - like being able to add a reverb direct from the mixer, without having to first set up an effect track - that's sensible, and lots of other tiny things I guess I will get used to. I also had to update my drivers for my M-audio 8x8 MIDI interface and my Tascam 1641 - both were fine with 8.5, but I got terrible MIDI delay - play something on the MIDI master keyboard (OR - very oddly, a vsti direct on the screen and there was a near half second delay before the note sounded. This same delay happened on audio tracks already recorded - you'd see the waveform pass the cursor - then hear the sound. This continued until both MIDI and audio drivers were removed and replaced - the 1641 with exactly the same version??

Taken me quite a while to get everything sorted, and new routings labelled and tweaked. I do think Steinberg could have pointed out that this upgrade was not like the previous ones. Frankly I don't care if some of my plugins are 32 bit at all. I do think manufacturers have a responsibility to make legacy purchases work for the same length of time a real instrument would last for. Imagine the furore if the manufacturers changed the input specs on guitar amps so no older guitar suddenly made any noise!
 
I'm not planning on upgrading past Cubase 8.5 myself, especially now since they dropped 32 bit support. Version 8.5 has more than I'll ever need...and I haven't noticed any delay in midi that was stated in this thread. I use it on a powerful Win 7 64 bit PC, which I will never need to upgrade past Win 7 either.

When it comes to older software, I use it on a computer & OS that will run them. Actually most of my older 32 bit VSTi's & plug-ins are installed on Win XP PC's with legacy Cubase, which I run as slaves via Steinbergs VST System Link.

And if I ever had a Cubase version beyond 9, I'd just keep using my older 32 bit stuff on older PC's, with a Cubase version that will run them, as I do already.
 
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