VST restore/save settings - Me wrong or Bug?

[Adger]

Last days I had the chance to fiddle around with several VSTs, some of them extremely high value professional products (for example: wave platinum, Z-Noise, et al.) While most VSTs work like charm there is one thing that really annoyes me: I failed in making PFOA to save the VST parameters. Only VSTs able to save setings within the VST itself are keeping their setteing.

All VSTs not able to save settings via the VST need to be reconfigured with every start of PFOA. I think that this is probably a mistake on my side but I can not put my finger on it.

Further experimenting made things odd:

By using "Save Mixer Setup" and / or "save preset" I managed to make exactly _ONE_ VST remember its settings, the first one in the DSP-chain and only the first one. I never managed to make more than one save it's settings or make a VST that is not the first in the chain have its settings stored and loaded. That makes me wonder wether this could be a bug?

If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be more than thankful.

[radio42]

I made a quick test and here the VST parameters have been saved and restored correctly.
On which mixer-channel are you testing (Input or Output)?
And what VSTs are you using for testing?

[Adger]

I just tried myself and you are right: It is indeed working with every DSP-chain in all default-mixers -- except for MIC1, which I was using in my trials.

I was using various gates, EQs, limiters etc. from many different companies. The most professional (and expensive) were from Waves and Z-Noise.

[radio42]

Maybe an issue with the Mixer-Input-Channels only, I'll take a look!

[radio42]

Please check with the new v3.0.11.11 - at least here all VST parameters are now restored correctly (also with the input-mixers).

[Adger]

Sorry to say so, but no, it does not work, but instead now other channels are forgetting their settings, too.

[radio42]

I just retested it here and it all worked fine.
However, there are some VSTs, which doesn't provide the appropriate parameter interface to save/restore their values (e.g. EasyQ is an example).

The VST2 API defines a clear set of functions to query all available VST parameters and to get all available 'Presets'.
Some VSTs (e.g. the above mentioned EasyQ VST) however doesn't provide such interface resp. they have not implemented it!
As such for those VSTs it is impossible to save/restore the parameters - nor does the VSTs by itself save and restore the last used parameters.

Please indicate which VSTs you are using and if the save and restore is really not working for ALL VSTs (as, as said, in my tests it is working)!

You can simply test, if a VST offers/implemented the above mentioned VST API, if you open the VST popup window and see parameters listed below.
If the VST popup window stays 'empty' (like for the EasyQ VST), this means, the resp. VST doesn't implement the required API functions.
In such case, there is nothing ProppFrexx can do about it and it is a lack within the VST itself, please contact the VST developer in such case.

[Adger]

You can simply test, if a VST offers/implemented the above mentioned VST API, if you open the VST popup window and see parameters listed below.
If the VST popup window stays 'empty' (like for the EasyQ VST), this means, the resp. VST doesn't implement the required API functions.
In such case, there is nothing ProppFrexx can do about it and it is a lack within the VST itself, please contact the VST developer in such case.

That's a very helpful hint indeed! Thank you very much!

I was just wondering why I am able to save settings for all VSTs in audacity (even several settings per vst) while PFOA does not provide this and I really really miss that for several reasons...

[Adger]

Well.. ok. I tried for two weeks now and I have simply given up at this point. I consider this being a lost case. PFOA does not work with VST and saving parameters for me. Regardless of which VST I have tried my luck with: I did not manage to make PFOA remember a single one setting in the input-chain when more than one VST is used anywhere in PFOA. As soon as I am using more than one VST - and I am talking about different VSTs not re-using the same VST for several channels - I can re-configure them all as soon as I restart PFOA. I have no idea for the reason but I seriously doubt that ALL programmers coding VSTs are getting "it" wrong, since the very same VSTs are working like charm - including parameter reloading - in a whole bunch of other host applications *shrugs*

[radio42]

That is a little bit strange, as I just retested it here and all VSTs I am testing with are just working fine and all settings no matter if set on an input- or output-mixer-channel are restored perfectly.
For example I have defined 3 VSTs on some output-mixer-channels and 2 VSTs on one input-mixer-channel.

So there must be something else going wrong in your environment.

Can you please provide me with your current .mixer file (e.g. the "Default.mixer" file or whatever you currently use).
You can fine them in your ProppFrexx AppDataUser directory.
Maybe that file somehow got corrupted?