I spoke with a support agent via a support ticket and they recommended I post this here regarding the lack of VST2 backwards compatibility with plugins that are version V15 or newer.
Currently, if I update from V14 to V15, it removes all the VST2 plugins (which are working fine in their V14 versions), which shouldn’t be happening as this ruins backwards compatibility for almost all projects in my archive of projects.
I, as I assume the majority of producers do, have multiple project versions saved at different stages of each project and each project has many tracks (sometimes 100+), with multiple Waves plugin instances in each track. The officially recommended solution of downgrading to V14 and then manually adjusting all plugin instances in all projects one by one to VST3 and copying over the settings is an impractical, impossible solution that would take an eternity to implement. Because of this, I request that we need to have the option to solely update VST3 plugins going forward or have it built into the update script to leave past VST2 plugins intact.
To solve this issue globally for everyone, the official Waves instructions would need to change from the convoluted and impossible solution that is currently offered to:
- Install V14 (or whatever the latest version was that worked for the DAW being used) so the working VST2 plugins install for backwards compatibility.
- Upgrade VST3 PLUGINS ONLY to the latest version (to V15 or whatever the latest future version is as they’re introduced, such as V16, V17, V18, etc.).
— we would need an option to solely upgrade VST3 plugins unless Waves wants to build it into the update script directly to leave past VST2 plugins intact
We need Waves to stop automatically removing the VST2 plugins and only update the VST3 plugins. This solution needs to be implemented for backwards compatibility. It should be a clear winner when compared to the currently offered solution which makes no sense to officially post publicly for producers of any skill level.
I view it as a bug that V15 automatically deletes my past VST2 plugins. If Waves doesn’t want to automatically leave the VST2 versions untouched when upgrading, we at the very least need the option to select whether we update VST2 and VST3 plugins together, or whether we solely update VST3 plugins exclusively.
Please take this seriously as it is a very serious issue and I’m sure I’m not the only one pointing it out as everyone is affected. This includes producers of all skill levels who use your plugins, who are inevitably also upset over this.
3 Likes
Thanks for this explanation! I would have definitely liked to know this before upgrading to v15, because Fl studio upon scanning the v14 plugins combined vst2 and vst3 versions into one (I suppose to unclutter the plugin database), however this means that upgrading to v15 all references to combined plugins are broken eventhough in newer projects vst3 instances were technically used. Upon rescanning the plugin database FL studio just adds _2 to every v15 vst3 plugin’s name making it essentially a unique new plugin leaving all old plugin references completely broken. I am still figuring out how to downgrade to v14, in hopes of fixing this. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard for waves to have a checkbox before installation asking you to keep legacy vst2 plugins or someting like that. I suppose in FL studio, if the user checked the box to combine vst2 and vst3 plugins into one reference upon scanning the plugins, it is from that point onwards pretty much impossible to upgrade to v15 without breaking all your projects (even if they are technically using vst3).
Installing V15 deletes any VST2 versions you had previously installed since VST2 isn’t supported in V15.
I can’t speak from personal experience since I don’t use FL Studio, but I don’t think FL Studio is combining the VST2 and VST3 plugins in the database. It’s likely only seeing VST3 plugins now because the VST2 plugins were deleted. I’m guessing the _2 was previously being added due to FL Studio scanning the VST2s first and then adding the _2 when the VST3s were scanned in after that to differentiate since both the VST2 and VST3 in any pair of VST2 and VST3 plugins would have the same name otherwise. Since the scanning process only sees the VST3, there’s no need to add the _2 anymore.
I spoke to Waves customer support and they said DAWs like Ableton, FL Studio, etc. are apparently supposed to account for the deleted VST2 plugins on their end and migrate VST2 instances to their respective VST3 instances, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening in Ableton, which I use, or FL Studio, based on your personal experience that you shared in your post.
I was told by Waves support that you can’t have a VST3 installed in one version while a VST2 in another version is installed and they have no plans on changing that, which is annoying, so I guess unless enough people complain, we’re stuck using V14. I agree with you that they should have a checkbox to leave the latest VST2 versions you are licensed for installed, which would solve this issue, but again, customer support said they have no plans to do this and even went so far as to suggest having a separate machine with V14 installed for opening old projects, which I find to be a bizarre and convoluted recommendation.
In any case, to help you out, here’s the article related to manually installing V14. Keep in mind you’ll have to uninstall V15 first before installing V14 with the offline installer:
https://www.waves.com/support/how-to-roll-back-to-waves-v14
Thanks for the extensive reply.
I have by now succesfully downgraded to v14. I would still at some point like to upgrade to v15 though, after all I just paid for the new plugins.
There is one thing I would still like to figure out, perhaps it is still possible to download and install only the plugins that are new to v15 and have the bundle license apply to those plugins only whilst keeping the other older plugins at v14.
Having a dedicated machine only for projects still utilizing vst2 is silly. And anyways apparently in FL studio even projects technically using the vst3 versions break if the reference to the vst2 plugins is lost.
I feel the same about wanting to upgrade to the latest version of what I paid for, so I hear you. And I agree that having a dedicated machine for VST2-related projects doesn’t make sense as a recommendation. Neither does the recommendation to manually copy over the settings of every VST2 instance you’ve used to a replacement VST3 before upgrading to V15.
And that’s unfortunate that the VST3 plugins you used have their references broken in FL Studio when the VST2 references are lost. That’s not a problem in Ableton, though the missing VST2 plugins problem is still a problem there.
Regarding what you mentioned about only downgrading specific plugins in your bundle, I asked about that as well. What was offered to me as a solution, which I haven’t done yet, was to install the V15 version of my bundle, manually delete the V15 plugins that I specifically want to downgrade (important not to skip this step), then install the V14 versions of those plugins using the offline installer you can find in the guide linked to in my last post.
Customer support shared the following link to help me with the above solution:
https://www.waves.com/support/how-to-uninstall-waves-products#:~:text=Uninstall%20unused%20individual%20plugins%20manually%3A
You can probably find a V15 offline installer somewhere on the Waves site if you want to install your bundle as V14 and then individually want to add the plugins new to V15 as well. I’d rather do the above though, just so more of your plugins are installed as the latest version, as long as you have a list of all the plugins you’ve used in all your old projects. It seems these would all need to be V14 given both of the problems you mentioned in FL Studio.
I hope this helps and I’m hoping we eventually get a better solution.
100% agree, thanks for posting this. Absolutely insane not to provide backwards compatibility. I switched to a newer iMac, updated to v15 for $240, and now VST2 plugins won’t show up in Reason on EITHER iMac. Was lucky and paranoid to save a lot of my best stuff by exporting individual .wav files but still, lost a TON of stuff. Some people have lost every important project they’ve ever worked on.
It’s art, it doesn’t take 5 seconds, sometimes you work on things over multiple years. Of course when you are loyal to Waves like me and have multiple plugins on multiple tracks in multiple projects over multiple years, those sounds need to STAY THE SAME. Unreal. Needs to be fixed
UPDATE: managed to get stuff working on my old machine by using the Waves v14 offline installer, activating the 2nd license w the v15 plugins and then installing the v14 plugins.. anyways.. still crazy time-consuming on some of these sound creation songs I did to go in to every track and one-by-one swap out the vst2 for vst3 plugins.. so, could be worse, could definitely be better
I understand your problem, but VST3 was first introduced like 10 or so years ago now. That was the writing on the wall to slowly migrate our systems and projects toward VST3. They were never going to continue to support VST2 indefinitely. Ultimately, it was killed off a number of years ago.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before DAWs and OSes won’t support it at all. So with all the effort you take to try an preserve compatibility, which I totally empathiser and understand, it will be all for naught in couple of years.
My advice would be to either preserve your systems as they are, not update a single thing or begin migrating everything to VST3. Which might take quite bit of effort, but in all fairness, you did have around 10 years to do it initially.
1 Like