Author Topic: MusicBee 3.1.6466 VST Host seems broken  (Read 6060 times)

Michelle911

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Cannot get any VSTs at all to load on today's latest release (9-16-17)

The path is entered properly into preferences as always but they are not listed in the DSP list (and also do not load, not just hidden from list).

sveakul

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Hi Michelle,

Do you see the same issue with the 3.1.6468 version Steven just released via the 3.1 patch link?  I posted about a similar problem in the Plugins/VST Host forum recently that was with the 3.1.6462 rc4 version:

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=13022.45

For the time being I am using the dsp_vst.dll Winamp VST host plugin which shows/loads fine with MB 3.1.6468.

Steven

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i cannot reproduce any issues. Are you using Plugins/mb_vst.dll dated 4-jan-2017 ?
if so, can you confirm you are happy to run a debug version of the plugin
Last Edit: September 17, 2017, 09:53:24 AM by Steven

sveakul

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Steven and Michelle:

I found the answer to this for 3.1.6468 at any rate!  Installed mb_VST plugin again, which then shows as enabled by default, and as I reported in the Plugins/VST Plugin forum,  the VST plugins showed up successfully in the DSP window, yet selecting one showed no signal being sent through it.  This time I tried disabling, apply/save, then re-enabling mb_vst through the Plugins window.  Selected VST now definitely is activated and in use!  So after the initial install of mb_VST, it is necessary to first disable it then re-enable to actually activate.  Hopefully this does the trick for Michelle too.

Thanks Steven for the plugin, much rather use this one than an 8-years old variant made for another player.

ultradust

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Steven,

I'm part of an ongoing discussion in the VST EFFECTS PLUGIN topic; please see my posts starting here:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=13022.msg134192#msg134192

Specific issues include:

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1. Plugin scanning crash

I've installed the VST Effects plugin in MusicBee 3.1. In Preferences, I changed the VST location to my preferred 32-bit VST plugin location.


When I restarted MusicBee, initially (for about 2 seconds) it looked like it was scanning plugins. Then I get the error:
"Runtime Error! Program: C:\Program Files (x86)\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe R6016 -not enough space for thread data"

The error dialogue provides an OK button, but when I click it the same error immediately pops up repeatedly. There is no way to proceed except to crash MusicBee via the Task Manager.

I've tried restarting MusicBee a few times, but the errors occur almost immediately.

I am using high-quality plugins that do not cause any crashes whatsoever in DAWs and several other VST hosts, neither during initial scanning of the entire batch of plugins in those hosts, nor with actual use of the plugins. I have hundreds of VST plugins, so trying to add them one-by-one to figure out which ones are (possibly) problematic would be extremely tedious. Plus, the error MusicBee is providing looks more like a resource overwhelm issue as opposed to a specific plugin issue. I suspect something is wrong with the MusicBee VST scanning process itself, rather than the plugins.

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2. VST Plugin Host doesn't work with my plugins

Just to get around issue #1 above, I've created a unique MusicBee VST folder, set the MusicBee VST plugin to use that folder, and copied just one core monitoring plugin, Sonarworks Reference 4, into the folder.

MusicBee successfully scans the Sonarworks plugin and lists it under "Equaliser and DSP Settings", which is good. I can activate the Sonarworks plugin, launch the plugin interface and make edits. The problem is, anytime I make a change to the plugin, the change is not reflected in the audio output unless I uncheck (deactivate) and recheck (activate) the plugin again in the Equaliser and DSP Settings window. I can literally perform the most audio-mangling changes in the plugin interface, and nothing changes in the actual processing until I uncheck and recheck the plugin. Effectively, it seems like the MusicBee VST plugin just takes a single snapshot of the Sonarworks plugin settings at activation and uses those, regardless of changes, until the plugin is deactivated and reactivated.

I tried another plugin, DMG Audio's TrackControl, and making changes in its interface does nothing to the audio output whatsoever, even after deactivating and reactivating the plugin.

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At this time, it appears the MusicBee VST plugin may be in a fairly broken state. Other users are reporting this issue in the aforementioned thread. The plugin host obviously works with some plugin selections, but it's looking like some of the basic plugins I'd want to use simply don't work through its hosting mechanism.

I'm currently using a workaround combination of Winamp VST Host ( http://www.pcjv.de/applications/winamp ) plus Blue Cat PatchWork, but I'd rather not rely on the old, non-maintained Winamp VST host. I'd prefer to use the native host you wrote for MusicBee.

I would be glad to test a debug version. Can you help?

Bee-liever

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"Runtime Error! Program: C:\Program Files (x86)\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe R6016 -not enough space for thread data"
Most of the VST Effects .dlls were originally written for Winamp and so use older C++ versions.
As the newer versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable are not perfectly backwards compatible,
make sure you have all (2008 thru 2017, x64 and x86) C++ Redistributables installed to overcome those Runtime error problems.
MusicBee and my library - Making bee-utiful music together

sveakul

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Hi Bee-liever and Steven,

I'm continuing to have part of the same issues as ultradust, and have all the Visual C++ redists installed.  Namely, while the VST plugin shows in the DSP Plugins list and is selectable, in order to activate it I must de-activate/re-activate the plugin every time I open MusicBee otherwise no signal is being fed through it.  Farther up the thread you can see that I thought I had fixed the issue by the single restart, but this has turned out to be not the case.  The plugin works as expected in other player's hosts, and even in MusicBee if the old Winamp VST Host is used instead, but I would much rather be using the much newer native MB multiple plugin host.

After my first post about having the problem Steven offered to let me try using a debug version of mb_VST.dll to see if the problem could be isolated.  As ultradust has volunteered to do that here in his post from the 16th, I'm hoping Steven can get a debug dll over to him instead, as his broader range of usage and symptoms encountered would produce a much more informational debug log for Steven to look at.

wealstarr

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i cannot reproduce any issues. Are you using Plugins/mb_vst.dll dated 4-jan-2017 ?
if so, can you confirm you are happy to run a debug version of the plugin

I will contribute the the development of MusicBee's VST feature, if you tell me where to begin.

I've made a post with the errors I had with all the testing I did.

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=13022.msg138891#msg138891

Steven

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musicbee's vst plugin is a very light wrapper around the bass_vst.dll
the source code for bass_vst is here:
https://github.com/r10s/BASS_VST

this is the source code for the musicbee wrapper:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/c52fxbm4epu3mr5/MusicBee%20VST%20source%20code.zip

even just compiling the bass_vst.dll with the right dependencies will save problems for some users

sveakul

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Thanks wealstarr for offering to help with the development of a revised mb_vst, and to Steven for posting the access links to the source codes.  There are many users out there who would benefit from this and we will be happy to provide any needed beta testing of the result.

wealstarr

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musicbee's vst plugin is a very light wrapper around the bass_vst.dll
the source code for bass_vst is here:
https://github.com/r10s/BASS_VST

this is the source code for the musicbee wrapper:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/c52fxbm4epu3mr5/MusicBee%20VST%20source%20code.zip

even just compiling the bass_vst.dll with the right dependencies will save problems for some users

I apologies Steven, I don't have any coding knowledge. I can tweak a few thing but to actually unpack, debug the code, re-compiling is beyond my expertise.

What I meant with contribution is that I can test the plugin under different conditions with different effects/ hosts etc and provide you the logs to analyze, if that can be of any help.

sveakul

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wealstarr I noticed that the bass_vst.dll available via the Github address posted by Steven is newer than the one included in MusicBee, albeit with a conflicting version number progression.

The github 32-bit bass_vst.dll is version 2.4.0.8, dated  2/27/2015 , vs. the MB one dated  9/17/2013 but as version "2.4.5".  In the BASS forum at un4seen the author notes:

"I just added to the above Git repository (https://github.com/r10s/BASS_VST) the related windows binaries for the last stable version 2.4.0.8 (compiled with VS2010, platform toolset v100).
v2.4.0.8 contain the following enhancements:
1) BASS_VST_Get/SetChunk added: plain binary parameter data handling
2) BASS_VST_Get/SetProgramParam length parameter added: to yield better .Net interoperability
3) Default/last parameter value handling optimized: as some VSTs can dynamically add/remove parameters"

Could you test using this version with mb_vst to see if it makes any difference?  Your better collection of VST hosts/plugins would provide better results than the couple of free ones I play around with.  ultradust, if you're out there please give it a try also.