How To Add Plugins To Cakewalk
Laila Berri
I have quickly outgrown the plugins/vst's that are included in Cakewalk by BandLab and so I pulled the trigger on SampleTank Custom Shop. After doing a lot of research I decided that this will suit my needs - and then some. Kontakt was totally out of the question because of cost. I also don't need the kazillion sounds that it has in order to do what I'm gonna do musically.
Being a total newb at working with vst's and plugins, I want to make sure that I don't make a mess when I install it. This is my question... where do I install it? Do I need to put it somewhere in Cakewalk? Or do I just install it as another program in C/ program files/SampleTank? If so, how do I access it from within Cakewalk once it is installed?
VST2 and VST3 plugins install differently. VST2 installers let you choose where to place your plugins; I simply have all my mine in C:\VST. You have to manually tell Cakewalk where to look for VST2 plugins you install via the Plugin Manager. VST3, on the other hand, is automatic -- all VST3 plugins will install into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 no matter what. Again I'd recommend going into the Plugin Manager (it's in the Utilities Menu I think?) to make sure Cakewalk is searching in that folder.
I phoned Sweetwater, where I bought ST4, and the tech showed me how to get them installed. I'm glad that I did call because there were a few system options that had to be changed. I would never have found them on my own. He then did a couple of installs while I watched him doing it and then had me do a few while he watched, just to make sure I had the gist of it. He even opened up Cakewalk to make sure that everything was showing up properly. (they did/do)
Yes, as you say, once I was shown how to install the samples they automatically put themselves in the SampleTank folder on "C:\Program Files\IK Multimedia\SampleTank". . Easy stuff. I'm going to have to have a better look within SampleTank itself because I'm thinking that I may not have found all of the instruments and samples. I just haven't had a lot of time to mess around with it.
So far, as much as I can tell, the only problem I'm having is the way it will crash without warning at times. I know this is being caused by SampleTank because once I have a sound in Cakewalk and I shut down SampleTank there hasn't been even one crash. But there were a few crashes when I was running SampleTank as a stand alone. I'm pretty sure that my computer is equipped to handle running ST4...
Most plug-in installers will look for this variable and plug it into the dialogs as the default instead of the "Program Files\Steinberg\Vstplugins\Whatever" that I would otherwise need to delete and type in the actual path of my VST2 folder.
If you're as much of a free plug-in 'ho as I am, and/or you ever need to rebuild your DAW system, it is a very nice thing to have in place. I install both the VST3 and VST2 versions of all plug-ins, if they have such, because I've found that some hosts play better with one or the other
I'm not going to post full instructions on how to set environment variables, because it's just south of regedit as far as being able to cause trouble if you don't know what you're doing and mess something up. If you know, you can do it, if you don't, it's a good excuse to learn how.
Hi there! I am new to using Cakewalk, I installed it for the first time two ago. I recently have followed a YouTube video on how to set up and start using Cakewalk. Here is the link to that video. After I followed the step of settinm up the vst plugins, my plugins don't start to work. Cake walk says that is ditects 44 plugins, but I'm not able to use any of them in the software. I've attched a photo to this post that shows that I have Instrument plugins installed in my plugins. (They are 32 bit however my friend says that it doesn't really matter) Neither of us could figure what was wrong. I am wondering if anyone here has had the same problem or can shade some light on what I need to do! Thank you!
Do you have the Studio Instrument Suite installed? It has to be installed through the BandLab Assistant. Just to the right of the Cakewalk button is a down arrow. Clicking on the down arrow opens a new window with check box selections for the Studio Instrument Suite, a trial version of Melodyne, The Cakewalk (GUI) Theme Editor and the Cakewalk Drum Replacer.
Hi Nigal! Thank you for you response! I see what you mean and I do click on the instruments when I do "Add new" Resetting in Preferences didn't work, is there another way I can put my uncatigorized instruments into the instruments section in my plugins?
I'm sorry, I mispoke. The Studio Instrument Suite of virtual instruments are DXi virtual instruments, not VSTi virtual instruments. However you should be able to find them in the media browser; likely under the Uncatogorized folder.
If you use one of @Colin Nicholls' themes or my own Racing Green, they feature a more differentiated set of icons in this location which Colin created and kindly allowed me to use. Each icon also has its own color, making it so that you don't have to squint to see right away.
And I do recommend using a custom theme if you can find one you like. A good theme can make Cakewalk easier on the eyes, more inviting to use, etc. I chose green because my eyes "relax" better with it. I go back to the green-on-black monitor days and still like that color combo.
Another plugin that I would like to know how to get working is Free Alpha and that much like Vital produces no sound. Free Alpha is much like Omnisphere 2 and Nexus in that it has sound banks and presets but I can't get the audio to play.
And finally, I have a MIDI keyboard and specifically the Worlde Panda Mini and that isn't working for some reason. I connected the keyboard, I tried to select all the parameters I needed but the "Input" section in the MIDI keyboard section from the Preferences tab is blank. There are no options on there for my keyboard so that led me to believe that my keyboard just isn't compatible with Cakewalk and maybe the same might be true for my plugins. I don't want to have to buy a new keyboard but if I have to then at least give me some compatible inexpensive keyboards.
Your hardware MIDI controller needs to be connected to the INPUT of the MIDI track. Your hardware MIDI interface (USB or whatever) should be showing up in Edit>Pref>MIDI>Devices and made available to select from in the MIDI track's input.
If you try to put any instrument into a track's FX bin that was not designed for that job, you will just get silence. Some developers ship an additional FX version of their instrument as a separate plugin, but that will usually include "FX" somewhere in the name.
That being said, there are some virtual instruments that have FX that do allow the processing of sounds that are external to the instrument. For years I used Z3ta+ to process audio from non-Z3ta+ virtual instruments. More recently, I have done this with Surge.
Yes. For one, Vital is indeed a synthesizer. For two, I tried to install Nils' K1v but I didn't know how since all the files are dll files and none of them actually did anything. So if you could explain to me step by step on how to download K1v, then I would be very grateful.
(1) I've had Nils' K1v for a little while and I forget how I installed it. I probably used the basic method: (1) using the K1v installer and (2) re-scanning my plug-ins with Cakewalk's scanner (which is found under [P]references > File > VST Settings). I never just copy or move around *.dlls. I have heard of others doing that, sometimes with problems. So, I generally just use the manufacturer's installer.
Other hosts are having no issues, and Cakewalk will load the plugins if the user manually moves the actual .vst3 file itself out of its .vst3 bundle folder, removing said folder and any remaining contents.
I just updated to Scaler 1.8 (Windows VST), and now all my projects cannot find Scaler (message about missing plugin). I can obviously re-insert the plugin, but all my work in progress where I was using Scaler is now gone. Surely this is not intentional? When you update a plugin, the DAW needs to see the updated plugin as the same as the previously installed plugin, or else all current projects will be messed up. This happens to me in Live and Cakewalk by Bandlab. Thanks.
Hi,
I just re-ran the install process to confirm. The existing plugin version was 64 bit VST3 (DLL named scaler_x64). I reinstalled the update, and made sure to select both VST 2 and 3 in case that was the issue. The install path was the standard 64 bit VST path that all my plugins use, including the previous version of Scaler. After installation, I opened an existing project, and got an error that Scaler was missing. I then reinstalled the previous version, and the project worked again. So to confirm, the path is the same, I installed 64 bit versions of both VST 2 and 3, and the DAW sees the update as a new plugin. I am now left unable to update and take advantage of the new features, as I have too many existing projects that will break after the update. Please assist, thanks.
Given you are both using Cakewalk have you tried to delete the currently installed Scaler versions and tried to clean the plugin cache (list of CLSIDs) then install the new version and rescan your plugins ?
Are you able to provide details of which registry keys to edit, and what the values are meant to be? I have many Waves and Native Instruments plugins and none of them break on update as Scaler does. Thanks.