Hi DG,

I know that Play is not (yet) supported. Though I also know that many users referred here their positive results with it.

And by the way, I tried J-Bridge, but the problem is still the same: a blank dialog appearing instead of the GUI, with the title reading "product not found". I tried all the possibile combinations between 32-bit and 64-bit version, but I can't manage to have Play correctly loaded in VE Pro.

I would have never written here if I hadn't known that some users with a similar hardware configuration as mine got some successful experience with Play under VE Pro. For example, CSTeam: I would really appreciate if he could reply to this and explain what to do.

Thanks anyway for your reply.

I have been using Play 32bit in VE Pro 32bit server on vista 64bit with success. However when I try the same approach in a Win7 partition It comes up with the same problem as you. Blank. When I first used JBridge it came up with the same blank screen but I removed all Scans for VST plugins in VE Pro (except Vienna Inst) and just let JBridge find them and it works a treat in 64bit VE Pro. (as suggested by DG in another post i think).

Seems it's a bit hit and miss as to what systems VE Pro and  PLAY will or won't work on.

Have a search on the forum and i'm sure you'll find alot of different things to try

Paul

Hi Paul,

thanks a lot for your reply and your suggestions. I will certainly give them a try! And I will let you know what happens.

Luigi.

 OK, next suggestions:

1. Try another VST host and see if PLAY loads?
2. Try another VST host and see if J-Bridged PLAY loads?

If both of those are OK, then you know it is a VE Pro problem. If either one doesn't then you know it's not.

DG

Hi DG,

I've just tried with Chainer and Play loads correctly (at least the 32 bit version). So, as you said, it's a VE Pro problem. And this conclusion is pretty obvious having said that Play is not (yet) supported under VE Pro.

Again, my only curiosity regards the way some people managed to make it possible in a similar configuration (Windows 7 64 bit): as an IT Engineer I can't believe it's just a matter of humidity, pression, temperature, pollution or some other kind of meteorological conditions! [;)]

And if it's a matter of IT conditions, that environment has to be reproducible.

Can you load Chainer in VE Pro?

DG

I managed to load Chainer under VE Pro (32 bit) and Play under Chainer: I could see Play's GUI, by I couldn't interact with it (pressing button doesn't seem to work anyhow).

Then I tried a different approach: I opened Chainer and loaded Play into the first slot. The GUI works fine there, then I was able to load a patch of Voice of Passion. Now I saved that configuration as a preset. I went back to VE Pro, opened a VST track with a Chainer instance and loaded the preset I saved earlier.

The strange thing is that now I can interact with Play's GUI.

The strangest thing is that Play doesn't play (ahahah): I can see the incoming MIDI led activity on VE Pro track, but Play doesn't produce any audio.

Gemini,

Sorry for your problems.  The only two things I did was one to remove the Vienna Instruments and make sure I loaded them last if I wanted to use Play.  Also, and I had a similar problem to you, I would get a similar error that the product could not be found.  I would ignore it and even though the screen was white I would save the metaframe.  Then close and reopen VE Pro.  Play would then load normally.

Here's a picture of one of my instances fully loaded with different Play instruments.  All this on a Win7 64 mahcine built on an X58 chipset motherboard and using a Core I7 920.

Don't know if you can see but on the very right of the picture, I overlayed the VE Pro Server to show it was running on 64 bit.

Here's the Server running.

THANKS A LOT CSTEAM!

That helped so much!!!

Actually, I also forgot another trick I read in another thread: to switch on the audio engine BEFORE loading the Play's VST.

Now the problem of uninteractive GUI still remains... But I believe that I can solve it somehow trying to create some preset with the standalone version of Play and load that just after creating the VST instance...

I will try some tricks and I will post my results with a reproducible procedure to make it work!

Thanks again!

@Gemini said:

Now the problem of uninteractive GUI still remains... But I believe that I can solve it somehow trying to create some preset with the standalone version of Play and load that just after creating the VST instance...

Glad to hear that you've got some solutions. The GUI problem is solved for me by using J-Bridge and un-embedding the GUI of PLAY.

DG

The interface goes blank as soon as you change view and go back to Play instrument.

Whatever it is, visible or blank, it's impossible to interact with it (the entire VE Pro window loses the focus when you click in the Play's GUI area).

I remember that Play showed a similr behavior when I loaded it into FX Teleport, if too many other instruments were loaded before it: also there it was not possible to interact with the GUI and the entire FX Teleport's window lost the focus.

@DG said:

The GUI problem is solved for me by using J-Bridge and un-embedding the GUI of PLAY

Thanks DG: I will give it a try.

Ok. J-Bridging Play solve the problem of the un-clickable GUI.

And now, even though the J-Bridged Play engine is not able anymore to see the Library folder ("favorites") of the installed product, you can manually browse and load from the local folder where it is located.

What I'm wondering is: CSTeam managed to load, use and interact with Play without the need to J-Bridge it.

Has this something to do with Windows interface capabilities? In fact, from the picture posted by CSTeam, it is clear that he has AERO effects activated, which is not my case, as I optimized my machine to deactivate all effects in the interface. Just an idea, though.

Just to be clear and in case someone else is trying to make Play work in VE Pro, this is the complete procedure to load and use a Play VST.

1. J-Bridge Play, paying attention to move the original DLLs in a different folder than the one where VE Pro scan the VST DLLs.

2. Open VE Pro Server (32 or 64 based on your preferences)

3. Activate the audio engine in VE Pro

4. Remove the VI channel that is automatically created in an empty instance

4. Create as many Play channels as you need

5. Configure each channel based on your needs

6. Save the entire server state as a metaframe

This worked for me. CSTEam managed to load and use each Play VST instance without the need to J-Bridge it: I'm still wondering what is the trick! [;)]

Gemini,

No these are the X64 versions of Play not Jbridged. 

Just to make sure..did you save one of your unusable Virframe instances of Ve Pro/ Play where it the GUI was misbehaving and then reload it?

I used to have those same problems but mine all work on both my Win7 and Vista 64 system.  Don't know what else to tell you?

BTW, I love Jbridge.  I was very early on with the beta on this.  The developer is very helpful.  He really deserves a medal from the VI community.

CSTeam,

thanks for your efforts helping me. Unfortunately your last suggestion doesn't solve my problems.

Even if I save both the VIFRAME and the METAFRAME, when I reload the entire setup, Play's GUI behaves the same way as before: no interaction at all and – what is very strange! – the entire VE Pro interface loses the focus (the title bar goes "gray", as you had clicked outside the window area or activated another application). This happens only for the strict area of Play's GUI: if you click outside it (yet inside VE Pro), VE Pro gets the focus again.

My only guess is that it could be something hardware-related (video card?).

Gemini,

It could be graphic card related though my Vista64 uses two ATI (3870) cards and my Win7 machine uses two Nvidia (9800 GT) cards and I have it working on both.  Could be a driver issue though.

Certainly not worth swapping machine hardware for software deficiencies.

Best of luck. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Thanks again for your feedback.

You need to know that my new server (the MASS) where I run VE Pro is based on a Tyan server motherboard with integrated VGA. Though, since I control it through a software KVM solution (KaVooM), I don't have any video cable attached to it, for I see that server's screen through the LAN on the monitor of my host machine.

It's just a guess that it could be a kind of video driver related problem... but I can't understand why, considering the same configuration for any other software running on that machine (I've just tried FX Teleport and Play is loaded and works regularly), only VE Pro should be affected by a possible hardware driver issue.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking time to consider my problems: I appreciated.

I had to give up trying to make VE Pro and Play work together on my hardware setup (even though it is the same of other users who claim to have successful experience with that).

Until an official support for Play is integrated in a future VE Pro release, I had to accept the compromise of using both VE Pro (for any plugin but Play) and FX Teleport (for Play only).

Everything work like a charme even if I can't take advantage of the preserve function of VE Pro, so I have to wait the loading time of the samples in Play. It's not a big issue, but an integration of Play into VE Pro could simplify enormously the workflow.

Thanks to everyone here helping me out with my problem, particularly to CSTeam for sharing his experience with me.