Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Sat Apr 09, 2022 11:32 pm

I have an old track I'm beefing up with the wonders of modern technology. I got a new M1 Mac and had to migrate to the new workstation with Rosetta and/or switching from VST2/3 to using Audio Units in mind. So in prep for the new machine I just stripped all plugins out of the Live set that are not Live native. I migrated the set by doing a Save As to a new folder, Collect All and Save, then copied the new folder to the new computer. Since the whole thing is going to be remixed I only need the arrangement, in use audio files, and the midi patterns. The plan was to come anew.

The set was created in Live 8, launched/saved in Live 9, skipped 10 altogether, and now has been imported into a fresh install of Live 11 on a new Mac that I did *not* setup from a backup or use a files and settings transfer migration on. All software was installed fresh and Live sets were copied over via Ethernet.

Which brings us to where it gets weird... There's a popup every time I launch Live stating that "some plug-ins could be loaded or are disabled..." They're both VST2, which I don't even have enabled in Live Preferences this time. I have checked the tracks in the set multiple times and cannot find any more plugins.

Is there another way to remove them from the set... maybe with a text editor or a Live feature I don't know about?
Could this be some weirdness from Ableton's implementation of Group tracks around that time??

Any suggestions on how to flush them out and/or silence the warning would be appreciated...

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 12:12 am

If you can reproduce this 100%, I'd definitely send support@ableton.com a copy to check out. There's been times they've been able to help people get something like this sorted, and I'm sure it would help them to see the file regardless.

I can't think of anything on your end though. Can you save it on your old computer in Live 10 or 11 and see if it happens there too? Are you running Live 11 in Rosetta mode on the new computer? Maybe try it not in Rosetta and resaving it?

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 12:27 am

To help keep track of plugins, do you have Device Slots enabled so that you can see at a glance the plugins on each track?

Although, to be fair, this doesn't show you what plugins may be lurking deep inside Racks.

https://www.loopmasters.com/articles/20 ... -On-Tracks

Othewise, could you do the delete-a-track > re-save > re-open and see it if throws the error runaround until you locate the offender?

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 12:52 am

@Tarekith - I brought it over like that. It was doing it on the old Mac too, but I hadn’t stripped everything yet so I just ignored it. I made it in 32 bit Live and there’s a lot of bowed instruments tracks from AAS String Studio that got dinged when everything went 64 bit. I figured it was one of the muted tracks or something - until I removed everything and opened it on the new Mac. I might hit up support… I know they’re busy though and this is a minor inconvenience, not a show stopper at all

@Paddy - that’s a good idea. I don’t think that’s enabled. I’ll check when I get back to the studio and give it a look

Thanks for the replies guys

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:31 am

Interesting that this project was originated in 32bit Live.

In my experience I’ve had the occasion where some old 32bit things (libraries, drivers etc) got automatically translated moving between different mac systems quite happily, then there’d be a hardware or software change and suddenly the low-level 32bit component isn’t being translated any more.

Maybe on your old machine a dependency such as that was just a reach too far for the new system?

But you’re right… I’d suspect a sub-component of a sound library to be the problem, or some similar dependency.

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:46 am

Ok... This was all a weird segue...

First off, thanks PB for the Device Slots option suggestion. I couldn't find it and then looked deeper at what you posted - specifically the link. How odd that you have to enable a feature that (clearly) exists in Live in such a way. Why do they hide it so??

I'm paid to be a wiz in Windows, but certain aspects of Mac OS still elude me because I mainly only use a Mac as a DAW and typically don't even have internet turned on.... So the text editor without an option to save as a .txt file was... different. I'm so used to Notepad (Microsoft's second best application), and have even hand coded websites with it. So once I found the Mac version, saved as .html, stripped out the html, and changed the file extension via Get Info to get the options for Device Slots sorted, I looked and found no trace of the VSTs. Cool feature though, and I'll be leaving it on.

My next idea was... 'maybe if I freeze all the tracks, close the set, relaunch, and unfreeze all the tracks the act of disabling/enabling will shake the ghosts out and leave only actual plugs'.

It was during this process while I was trying to select all the tracks at once (to keep freezing wait times to a minimum) that I realized that there was a Guitar group that I had folded. Expanding it showed me the plugins causing the errors. Neither plugin should have been on tracks in the group and I swear I looked last night, but it's a single guitar; the only other tracks in the group were prior takes anyway. It shouldn't have had String Studio MIDI (Violin) track in a group of guitar Audio tracks. Must have been a drag/drop mistake at some point and I glazed over because I was searching for VSTs.

So mystery solved. User error.

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:40 am

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 10:52 pm

H20nly wrote: ↑
Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:46 am
Why do they hide it so??
…
So mystery solved. User error.

Who knows why it’s a semi-official feature, not yet brought into the fold?

Not so much a case of user error, you’re being too hard on yerself! Just one of those things that crop up when you do a platform shift - feels like you do 150% of the effort to get back to a solid 90% of what you had before… so that later on you have the benefits of moving forward.
In my band the number of times we’ve rebuilt our audio and video show, and the hardware to deliver it on… every time we do it there’s this big running around phase to bring everything into the new normal. Going through it right now as it happens, we’re in the process of moving our video performance software from Modul8 to VideoSync (an amazing app/video solution for Live BTW)

https://videosync.showsync.com/

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:30 pm

holy cow! that software looks amazing. I'd love to see one of your shows...

Regarding platform shifts, yeah... I just got the SSL UC1 and UF8 installed. Couple that with the new Mac Studio and I'm sufficiently mind blown.

I'll post up some pics in your show us your studio thread soon - once I get all the wires as tidy as I can and figure out where all the permanent homes of the gear will be moving forward.

steko · Post by **steko** » Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:44 pm

In TextEdit "Make Plain Text" = Shift-Command-T (Menu: Format - Make Plain Text).

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:14 am

Pitch Black wrote: ↑
Sun Apr 10, 2022 10:52 pm
Who knows why it’s a semi-official feature, not yet brought into the fold?

It was a test feature way back in Live 4 and never has been touched again. If I remember right, the reason was that once you start using Effects Racks (which came out in Live 5 I think?), it becomes impossible to actually use this function since you can have parallel chains of effects, etc and then there's no clear way to show those.

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:40 am

steko wrote: ↑
Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:44 pm
In TextEdit "Make Plain Text" = Shift-Command-T (Menu: Format - Make Plain Text).

that's a keeper!
fast enough, meet shortcut

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:06 am

Tarekith wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:14 am

Pitch Black wrote: ↑
Sun Apr 10, 2022 10:52 pm
Who knows why it’s a semi-official feature, not yet brought into the fold?
It was a test feature way back in Live 4 and never has been touched again. If I remember right, the reason was that once you start using Effects Racks (which came out in Live 5 I think?), it becomes impossible to actually use this function since you can have parallel chains of effects, etc and then there's no clear way to show those.

In my case, it's safe to say I'll be running a lot through the SSL channel and bus inserts the next few months. It should be helpful enough to know that a track has one of those on it at a glance in Session view

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:10 am

Yup! It's really useful and it works really well... EXCEPT for showing the contents of Racks

H20nly · Post by **H20nly** » Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:26 am

meant to hit cancel on that edit. walked away to get a beer and started rambling when I returned.

gonna go full restore

Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

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Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

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Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

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Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

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Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]

Re: Ghosts of VSTs Past... Need an Exorcism on a .als File [Solved]