Waves Electric88

[elaw]

Folks,

I'm still evaluating Mixcraft but I'm *that close* to purchasing... I really like it!

But there's one hiccup I've found: I bought Waves' "Electric88 piano" about a week ago, installed it on my music machine, a couple of other music programs I've tried (most notable Cantabile) seem to recognize it, but Mixcraft doesn't!

If I go to the plugins list, there's an effect called "Electric88 reverb" (I think, I'm at a different machine now) but no "Electric88" instrument.

This is 64-bit Mixcraft eval version on 64-bit Windows 10.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Waves on their website has a lot of "How to get XXX to recognize Waves plugins" articles but none for Mixcraft.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

For some reason, Waves wraps its plugins in a shell. Mixcraft is "assuming" the shell-wrapped virtual instrument is an effect. We'll fix this issue in a future update, but for now, you can use a utility called Shell2VST to break the plugin out of its shell so that Mixcraft can recognize it as a virtual instrument.

Greg

[elaw]

Gah... this is driving me nuts!

I tried Shell2VST and after some fiddling with use of different folders, I managed to get it to the point where Electric88 appeared as an instrument in the selection list, but as soon as you select it Mixcraft would crash... hard. Such that when you reopened it, it said it couldn't access the audio driver and it would continue doing that until the machine was rebooted.

Then I tried putting the original Waves dll in the folder above the one containing the one Shell2VST created and that improved things a little. Electric88 again appeared in the list and you could select it without crashing Mixcraft but a few moments after selecting it, Mixcraft would pop up a message that the plugin had crashed.

The behavior is the same with the 32- or 64-bit version of the Waves DLL, and happens regardless of whether it and the Shell2VST-generated DLL are in their own folder under the C: root or in the program files\vstplugsins folder.

I tried another program that some people claim is better than Shell2VST called "VSTWrapperBuilder" and while it seemed to do its thing without any errors, it couldn't make Electric88 show up as an instrument.

Any other ideas? Should I be contacting Waves for support?

[Rolling Estonian]

Waves will usually give you the standard, "Mixcraft isn't a supported DAW." I can't speak for any vsti but the vst work fine for me, the few I have. They do have a pretty complicated system to avoid piracy, it's not just a simple dll file, the shell is very important and everything has to be done through Waves Central. You can try calling them to see but I've heard mixed reviews about their customer service, from great to nonexistent. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

M

[elaw]

Hi,

For some reason, Waves wraps its plugins in a shell. Mixcraft is "assuming" the shell-wrapped virtual instrument is an effect. We'll fix this issue in a future update, but for now, you can use a utility called Shell2VST to break the plugin out of its shell so that Mixcraft can recognize it as a virtual instrument.

Greg

So, is that change definitely on the Mixcraft "to do list"?

I think I'm going to go ahead and purchase Mixcraft because in general I love it, but it really stinks not to be able to use that plugin.

[elaw]

They do have a pretty complicated system to avoid piracy, it's not just a simple dll file, the shell is very important and everything has to be done through Waves Central.

Yeah I have to say in my 30+ years working with computers, that had to be one of the most annoying software purchases I've ever made. Having to go through the lengthy download & install of "Central", then deal with confusing login information (it asks for a "userid" that I never created, I figured they used my email address like everyone else but no...), then another very lengthy download of the plugin, and not only don't get asked where to install it but they don't even tell you afterward! And I'm pretty sure when the install completed, I saw some tiny little guys with machine guns patrolling around my computer. Sorry - can you tell I don't care for companies that treat their customers like criminals?

I will say to their credit the instrument sounds nice... really nice. But with all the associated BS and the fact it doesn't work in MIxcraft, I don't expect to be making any more purchases from Waves.

[Rolling Estonian]

When you download Central, it has shells in a couple places and you dl all the vst too, when activated you're given access through Central. Maybe vsti are different than plugins, I have a couple and they work fine. But overall, not a perfect process for sure.

How's it sound? I just can't imagine there's something out there that's not better, you know? When I think Waves, I think plugins not instruments.

M

[Mark Bliss]

I think the core problem is related to how Mixcraft sees VST and VSTi differently, and the way Waves wraps and packages the plugin causes a compatibility issue.

I have not used any Waves VSTi, but have used quite a few plugins. No complaints here, and hey, cant blame a company for trying to protect against piracy. Their method while more complex than some, has never really caused me much trouble. There's certainly far worse out there.

There certainly are other Rhodes emulations around that are pretty good IMO, including in Mixcraft I believe. I also have a Toontracks/EZKeys version, though I seldom use keyboards beyond acoustic piano lately it seems..........

[elaw]

While I do like that plugin's sound, I do have to admit I didn't compare it to many others. A friend who's into recording turned my on to it, I liked the sound, "tweakability", and built-in effects, and it was on sale ($40 I think? vs. regularly $100) so I bought it.

I did find another solution to the problem although it's a bit of a kluge - I just used rewire and hosted the plugin in Reaper. I was a bit apprehensive as I'm new to this stuff and people say rewire can be difficult, but in this case it "just works".