Since I do a lot of work with headphones I use Waves' Abbey Road Studio 3 with both my DAW (REAPER) and BIAB. I routinely put the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin in my BIAB Master track (along with PG Reverb and Waves' SoundShifter Pitch). The issue is that the next time I open the BIAB project Abbey Road Studio 3 is missing from the Master track; the other plugins are present, but not Abbey Road Studio 3, which means I need to add it to the Master track again. BIAB displays no error.

Any idea why the Waves' Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin is not retained after closing a BIAB project?

Thanks.

Are the other plugins also on the Master track?

Yes, usually PG Reverb (first, moving left to right), and sometimes Waves' SoundShifter Pitch.

Master Track plugins in order:

PG Reverb, Waves' SoundShifter Pitch, Abbey Road Studio 3.

Thanks.

OK, I will try to reproduce the issue.

I tried this exact combo on the Master track, and saved/loaded the song:
PG Reverb, Waves' SoundShifter Pitch, Abbey Road Studio 3.

But I cannot reproduce the problem.

Perhaps you could email the problematic song file to support@pgmusic.com (attention Blake).

Also, you could try loading the example song file that I saved:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/350uizp5gpnlfm2/Waves%20Plugin%20Test.zip?dl=1

Thank you for your response and testing Blake. Much appreciated! I downloaded and opened your file and sent a copy of one of my files to your support e-mail for your examination.

When I opened your file it automatically opened PG Reverb and Waves SoundShifter Pitch, but it did not load Waves Abbey Road Studio 3. This is the same behavior I experience with my own BIAB projects.

I suspect this issue may be related to a plugin scanning problem I've reported here before: When I ask BIAB to scan for plugins, it spends several minutes on the Waves shell VSTs, e.g, WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll, while repeatedly displaying yellow messages saying something along the lines of, "WaveShell1-VST... does not appear to be a VST2 plugin." Then, once the scan gets past that, BIAB crashes (closes) entirely. Subsequent scanning for plugins causes BIAB to crash immediately until I reboot my PC and restart BIAB.

When I re-open BIAB and try to view the yellow VST errors via Help->Utilities->Display Log Text File of Yellow/Green Messages, there is no record of the yellow messages I saw during the plugins scan.

There was a fix related to Waves plugins being excluded during a scan. It was fixed in the latest build, which has not been released yet, but you might want to try installing since it addresses the problem you are experiencing:
https://dl11.pgmusic.com/support/patch/bb2021_win_update_build835b.exe

You should check if the particular plugin (or WaveShell host plugin) is excluded in the Plugins Settings dialog, and un-exclude it.

Thank you for build 835b. I installed it. Issues:

- You suggested I check my plugin settings for excluded plugins, but I don't see any option in the plugins dialog to do this? There's an option for adding plugins to an exclude list, but none for viewing existing exclusions?

- I searched the BIAB install directory and inside \DX Settings I found plugin_list_Exclude_x64.txt and plugin_list_Exclude.txt, both packed full of excluded plugins, so I renamed these text files and re-ran the scan. Result: BIAB still crashes during the scan, and now with build 835b no Waves plugins are available to BIAB.

I found plugin_scan_log.txt. Here are the contents:

8:03:59 AM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\sforzando VST_x64.dll
8:03:59 AM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\sforzando VST_x64.dll). Reason is unknown. It is possible that this is not a VST 2 plugin, or it is not installed properly.

8:03:59 AM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 11.0_x64.dll
8:04:00 AM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 11.0_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

8:04:00 AM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
8:04:04 AM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

8:04:04 AM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
8:04:12 AM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

8:04:12 AM : Reading VST plugin file at: S:\Program Files\VstPlugIns\BIAS Pedal_x64.dll

Is there a way to get my Waves plugins back into BIAB? At least some Waves functionality was better than none. Should I re-install BIAB version 833?

Thanks.

In the Plugins Options dialog, if you click on [Exclude Audio Plugins], any items in the menu that are checked are excluded. You can click on them to un-exclude them.


It sounds like the original exclude list (the one you renamed) is preventing a crash during plugin scans. If so, you should recover this file before doing another scan. Do this before launching Band-in-a-Box. Then, go to the Plugins Options dialog and look for the specific plugin that you want to un-exclude.

I restored the exclusion files and went to the plugin settings and un-excluded any Waves plugins (somewhat cumbersome task because the dialog closes each time I exclude an individual plugin; there are probably over 100 plugins on the lists, including about 20 instances of PG Vocal Remover, for some reason). Below are the scan results. BIAB crashes when it gets to BIAS Pedal_x64.dll, despite the fact that this plugin is on the exclude list. Still no access to Waves plugins.

12:08:10 PM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\sforzando VST_x64.dll
12:08:10 PM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 11.0_x64.dll
12:08:11 PM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 11.0_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

12:08:11 PM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
12:08:11 PM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

12:08:11 PM : Reading VST plugin file at: C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
12:08:13 PM : Error: Could not connect to plugin (C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll). This is a shell plugin, but no individual plugins were found.

12:08:16 PM : Reading VST plugin file at: S:\Program Files\VstPlugIns\BIAS Pedal_x64.dll

UPDATE: I added BIAS Pedal_x64.dll to the exclude list again, and this time when I ran the scan I got an access violation error; I e-mailed the report to your attention. Thanks.

I kept re-running scans and identifying the plugins that were causing BIAB to crash and adding them to the exclude list (the two biggest issues were with DD Delay.dll and BIAS Pedal_x64.dll). Now finally, the scan runs without crashing, but the scan log is full of errors. At least I got Waves Abbey Road Studio 3 back, however, per the OP, BIAB does not retain it after I close a project.

Thank you again for your help.

Note that this does not actually indicate an error, it just means there were no new Waves plugins scanned & added.

If you installed some new plugins using the Waves Central application, then there would be new Waves plugins to be added during the scan.

You should take a look at the file that contains the successfully added plugins:
\DX Settings\plugin_list_Audio_x64.txt

The Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin should be listed in there with the ID NARS.

TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo;ID=NARS;SHELLID=NARS;PATH=C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll

Note the actual file location. For me it is on my C drive, but perhaps yours is on a different drive?

For sanity purposes, this is what my mixer looks like when I load your song file:



Since you are able to manually add the Abbey Road plugin to a song, I am curious when exactly does the problem start? For example:
1 - if you go to File > New, then re-load the song file again, is the plugin loaded?
2 - or does the problem only start if you exit Band-in-a-Box, and run it again? (ie the problem starts after starting a new program session)


What happens if you try to load the plugin from a TGS file?


There are 3 different versions of the Abbey Roads plugin, so perhaps you could try loading these TGS files and see what happens. Perhaps try loading them onto a different track instead of the Master track.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jf602muczdtdi1n/Waves%20Abbey%20Road%20Studio%203.tgs?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oum5k16p3u3mgzu/Waves%20Abbey%20Road%20Studio%203%205.1.tgs?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kg55dng79dt04pg/Waves%20Abbey%20Road%20Studio%203%207.1.tgs?dl=1

Here are my Abbey Road entries in plugin_list_Audio_x64.txt. Note there are two sets of entries, one set for WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll and one set for WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll. (Earlier this year I contacted Waves regarding the various WaveShell1-VST files on my system, and they told me which ones I could delete and which ones I should keep.)

TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 5.1/Stereo;ID=NARE;SHELLID=NARE;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 7.1/Stereo;ID=NARG;SHELLID=NARG;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo;ID=NARS;SHELLID=NARS;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll

TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 5.1/Stereo;ID=NARE;SHELLID=NARE;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 7.1/Stereo;ID=NARG;SHELLID=NARG;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo;ID=NARS;SHELLID=NARS;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll

I also have two sets of Abbey Road plugins when I load from BIAB. Only the first entry of each set will load, so the first Waves Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo (highlighted) loads, but not the second (nothing happens when I click on it).

Interesting. My mixer looks like that when I load that song file except there's no Abbey Road.


1 - No, the plugin is not reloaded.


Nothing happens when I attempt to load any of those three TGS files.

I think this explains what is happening. When you load a song file or a TGS file, Band-in-a-Box is looking for the first plugin that has a unique ID. In this case that is NARS. Since you have duplicates listed, it tries to load the first one which happens to be one of the non-functioning plugins.

I am guessing that these are the non-functioning plugins because they are version 12.6:
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 5.1/Stereo;ID=NARE;SHELLID=NARE;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 7.1/Stereo;ID=NARG;SHELLID=NARG;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo;ID=NARS;SHELLID=NARS;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.6_x64.dll

Or it could be the 12.7 plugins, but that is less likely:
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 5.1/Stereo;ID=NARE;SHELLID=NARE;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 7.1/Stereo;ID=NARG;SHELLID=NARG;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll
TYPE=VST;NAME=Waves: Abbey Road Studio 3 Stereo;ID=NARS;SHELLID=NARS;PATH=C:\Program Files\vstPlugins\WaveShell1-VST 12.7_x64.dll

You should:
1. close Band-in-a-Box
2. copy (or cut so they are deleted) the version 12.6 lines from plugin_list_Audio_x64.txt
3. paste those into plugin_list_Exclude_x64.txt
4. save both .txt files
5. launch Band-in-a-Box and try loading your song file

The plugin selector dialog should no longer show 2 versions of the Abbey Road Studio plugin. The song should load correctly as well - if not, then perhaps it is the 12.7 versions that are problematic and you should repeat the steps above, but by cutting & pasting the version 12.7 lines into the exclude list and putting the 12.6 versions back into plugin_list_Audio_x64.txt.

Yay, hey hey! That works! The 12.6 files were the problem. Thank you SO much!

This morning I opened Waves Central to see if there was anything to do there, but nothing regarding different versions of Abbey Road. I ran the Repair function (which re-installs all the Waves plugins), but the problem remained.

I should also note that REAPER shows two entries each for Abbey Road, so I'll forward this on to Waves' tech folks and see if they have anything to say.

Thank you again Blake for helping me to resolve this.

Great!

I think we will add a way of seeing the differences between duplicates in the plugin selector dialog, or at least a way of seeing the file paths for them.