jBridge: 64-bit efficiency for UAD2 Plugs and other VST's

[TerryG]

This guy has created an app that happens to allow UAD2 plugs (among other VST/VSTi's) in Cubendo 64 with similar resource useage to standard 32-bit apps... Looks very promising, and very affordable.

Free beta demo available.
Test the demo and buy now for under €10 and receive free updates forever. No more waiting for developers to get on the 64-bit wagon...

http://jstuff.wordpress.com/jbridge/

[TAFKAT]

Very Cool,

There was another thread here about this a few months back from memory, when it was in its very infant stage..

Definitely one to watch and support.

I think the majors should be more than a little embarrassed that area was not focussed on more by them, and even more so that they have not bought the technology from this chap..

[TerryG]

Tested with Cubase 5 64-bit in Windows 7 64-bit and UAD2 Quad.
Works great!
Multiprocessing ON. No ASIO spiking. No AutoAffinity required.

It's a bit of a hassle writing a "This PlugIn Name.txt" file containing the plugin path and doing a copy/paste/rename of the "This PlugIn Name.64.dll" that matches the text file name for each plugin, but you'll only need to do it once... updated versions of this bridge will automatically see what's already there.

Aim Cubendo 64-bit at your JBridge folder for simplicity, and paste the text files and copied dll's there... don't aim Cubendo at the actual folder containing the original plugin path. The bridge takes care of referencing that position from the contents of the text file you've created for each plug.

You'll also find yourself minimizing Cubendo to reveal the hidden GUI screen for each plug you engage for the first time, just click "always on top" and away you go.

For example:

"C:\Program Files\JBridge" is the standard install location of the app.
It contains a "plugin_name.64.dll"...
Copy and Rename it (I created a folder named "JBridge 64" to store everything I've bridged) "UAD Cambridge.64.dll".
Then, create a text file named "UAD Cambridge.64.txt".
Inside the text file, type the actual plugin path WITH the quotes: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\Vstplugins\Powered Plugins\UAD Cambridge.dll"

Follow this type of process for every plugin you want to use.

Then, I opened Cubase 5 64-bit, told it to aim at "C:\Program Files\JBridge 64" for all my 32-bit VST/VSTi's, and I'm set.

[musicpete]

This is a great program, everyone should give it a go!

Recent version include the "jbridger", a tool which will semi-automatically set up all folders and references. You just need to tell it the folder locations. I did not try it, because I am a manual set up guy. ;)

Worth the 10€ I sent via Paypal, nearly instant support replies from the nice programmer and the best: It just works (on 'most' plugins). Finally I can load insane amounts of samples with barely noticeable cpu overhead!

Now I wonder: How come, a single talented programmer can put together a working high performance bitbridge in his freetime? While the combined efforts of high-paid (overpaid??) programming teams from ALL leading DAW developers were unable to come up with something that works even REMOTELY as good as this?? In how many years (isn't x64 around for since around 2002 - correct me if wrong!) were they unable to write something similar??? How much do their flagship DAWs cost????

Bottom line: Best spent 10€ in a long time.

[Sonomusic]

Terry, I guess it's a moot point for you, but for others you don't need to go to all that trouble with the text file. Just put the dll you want to bridge in it's own folder then copy the appropriate dll from the Program files/JBridge folder to the same, rename it as instructed and point Cubase to it.

You can actually bridge 64-bit plugs into your 32-bit Cubase. I'm loading up 20 + instances of Kontakt 3.5 beta on one machine then on top of that Jbridging 64-bit plugs through FXteleport on two other machines and am now using 16gigs of memory. ASIO meter hangs around 35-45% in full usage. This on a Q9450.

I tell everyone about it since it doesn't cost anything but time to try and very little to purchase.

Couldn't agree more that Steinberg and Cakewalk should be embarrassed by this guy's work.

Here's a pic of one of my projects. Notice that even when I've loaded all the bridged 64-bit plugs I can come back and load some 32-bit plugs since I haven't touched the memory space Cubase 32 grabbed for itself.

BTW, Win 7 X64. Works on Vista64 and XP64, too.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1243658/Jbridge.JPG

[Vinark]

Hi I tried it but couldn`t get BFD2 to get through the cubase 4 scan. Any body any succes with this plug?

[TAFKAT]

Bottom line: Best spent 10€ in a long time.

Triple ditto..

For any of us who have attempted to use Steinberg's pathetic VST bridge , this is a revelation, and I really do have to wonder sometimes WTF the developers at Steini (Cakewalk to a lesser extent) , are doing in regards to this area when these smaller independent guys constantly rub their noses in it...

I can't stress strongly enough how much this developer needs to be supported in this transition period to 64 bit, as its going to be a long and winding road for the majors to go completely native 64 bit plugs , and this application basically negates the vast majority of caveats attached in using "Bridges".

The ability to use 64 Bit plugs in 32 Bit applications in itself, is the one for me that will prove extremely useful for many not wanting to run the Native 64 Bit versions of the applications , retain the fully spec'ed 32 bit versions, but gain the ability to access the 64 Bit memory address space ( much like VSL ensemble allows now )

I vote we have a dedicated sticky if not a sub forum for the 64 Bit transition, and invite J here to participate directly..

[TAFKAT]

...I vote we have a dedicated sticky if not a sub forum for the 64 Bit transition, and invite J here to participate directly..

Quick heads up, I have just invited J via email.. :-)

[TerryG]

After testing the beta demo, and having to minimize windows constantly to find the plugins, I requested that he make "always on top" the default... he responded within minutes. J also makes some very handy 32 & 64 bit midi apps...

This guy definitely deserves all the support he can get.

errr... Now that I've managed to manually do everything outlined above in my excitement, I took a minute to read the JBridge folder contents and open the jBridger.exe...
...Well, isn't that special? :eusa_eh::eusa_wall:
The whole process is automated already. :sulkoff:
Sometimes I like doing things the hard way.... just to know. :D

[TerryG]

Now... thanks to J's work, if we can get the Dolby Digital Encoder and DTS to work under this veil, it'll seriously break Nuendo 64-bit wide open...

I don't have Nuendo 4, so I can't test the 64-bit version... This would remove one of my reasons for not upgrading by this point.

Someone please test this and report back.

[TAFKAT]

Terry,

Just a suggestion..

It may be a good idea to actually change the thread title to have the name of the J-Bridge listed , so that others can find it more easily. :eusa_think:

[foxysounds]

This thing sounds fantastic. I don't even have a 64 bit OS yet and I'm considering buying this because knowing my luck, by the time I go 64bit some major software company will have bought this guy up and will be selling his products for much higher prices :icon_rolleyes:

Simon.

[Vinark]

Hi I tried it but couldn`t get BFD2 to get through the cubase 4 scan. Any body any succes with this plug?
Ok latest demo works now, only get an error now on unloading BFD2, "Dispatcher opcode 1 failed", but it doesn't crash the host. One other issue, graphical activity in the BFD window causes asio spiking and crackles, so either keep the window minimised or disable the animations in BFD so the instruments don't glow orange when hit.
I just supported the developer!
Vincent

[TerryG]

I just loaded Nuendo 3 with the Dolby Digital and Surround Edition v2 in Windows 7 64-bit (even though Win7 reports that it won't do the SE install because of OS incompatibility).

All I needed to do was copy & paste in the .dlls from my XP install...
I then exported a 5.1 ac3 from Nuendo with three of the Octo plugs engaged in the 5.1 master out. No problems.

Then, I jBridged the Surround Edition plugs in 64-bit and loaded them into Cubase 5 64-bit... opened the N3 5.1 project file in C5, loaded a few of the Octo plugs, and they work fine in C5 as well.


jBridge... João Fernandes is his name.

[TerryG]

I read in another forum that a user was having problems with Kjaerhus plugs... both my GCO-1 and MPL-1 Pro are up and running fine... just had to do some creative window sizing to get to the authorization window hidden on the desktop under cubendo after the first opening of the plug in the app.

6/29/09: jBridge v1.02 released

This guy is on the ball.

[norbury brook]

I have got EWQL play 64 and Halion 64 running fine in Cubendo/Reaper 32.Working on a track here with over 4 gigs of samples loaded under windows 7 -64 RC.


MC

[RiffWraith]

So, I decided to give jBridge another run here. Not that I really need it, but I figured, let me have it on hand - you never know.

For those that have this working with Cubendo, do you find that the some of the plugs/VSTs that you have bridged are no longer available normally? ie - here, I bridge, say, Addictive Drums. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and Addictive Drums.32.dll in the same folder. I can now use Addictive Drums bridged, but can not use Addictive Drums within Cubase - it is simply not available in the vst rack. Anyone see anything like this?

[LEX]

I have to say, this is promising.

Steinberg should be ashamed at themselves for trying to pass off the BS that in order really use 32bit plugs in 64, you need 64 bit plugins.

F you SB. This has to be one of your worst excuses to date.

How does it work in Reaper?

LEX

[Vinark]

So, I decided to give jBridge another run here. Not that I really need it, but I figured, let me have it on hand - you never know.

For those that have this working with Cubendo, do you find that the some of the plugs/VSTs that you have bridged are no longer available normally? ie - here, I bridge, say, Addictive Drums. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and Addictive Drums.32.dll in the same folder. I can now use Addictive Drums bridged, but can not use Addictive Drums within Cubase - it is simply not available in the vst rack. Anyone see anything like this?
I tried renaming the ***.32.dll file and I can get that to work, but it's not easy. I havn't found a 100% working theory, but it seems that a naming difference in the first 4 or 6 letters of the plugin is needed. So if you would name the jbridged Adrums.dll (the 32 is not really necessary at least here on xp 32) the normal plugin might reappear. Changing folders sometimes also helps. Once it works it stays working is my experience. Since I only need to bridge a few plugins (a.drums BFD2 and kontakt) it took some time but was doable. It think the problem is the way cubase tries to prevent double plugins, by name and internal name. Apparently if the name is short enough you can beat the system. SX3 shouldn't suffer from this.
Good luck.

[BJF]

So, I decided to give jBridge another run here. Not that I really need it, but I figured, let me have it on hand - you never know.

For those that have this working with Cubendo, do you find that the some of the plugs/VSTs that you have bridged are no longer available normally? ie - here, I bridge, say, Addictive Drums. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and Addictive Drums.32.dll in the same folder. I can now use Addictive Drums bridged, but can not use Addictive Drums within Cubase - it is simply not available in the vst rack. Anyone see anything like this?

Yeah I got that too. Sometimes I could see the bridged version, but sometimes I get the unbridged visible in Nuendo. Using the two different methods described in the manual, I find that the one using the txt file, usually gives me the bridged version. Though, saying this, it could just be chance and the different methods don't give different results.

B

[paulwr]

I have got EWQL play 64 and Halion 64 running fine in Cubendo/Reaper 32.Working on a track here with over 4 gigs of samples loaded under windows 7 -64 RC.


MC

Wow, thanks for bringing that up. I have the 64 RC downloaded and ready to try. I usually don't mess with beta or early anything, but earlier in the year tried the beta W7 and it worked so well...... so 'snappy' that I'm tempted to go beyond just trying it on slaves. Now that MidiOverLan is supposed to be working in the "out" direction, per Alex and Music Labs, I MIGHT not have any stumbling blocks. We'll see.

-Paul

[RiffWraith]

Yeah I got that too. Sometimes I could see the bridged version, but sometimes I get the unbridged visible in Nuendo. Using the two different methods described in the manual, I find that the one using the txt file, usually gives me the bridged version. Though, saying this, it could just be chance and the different methods don't give different results.

B

Ok, I seemingly found a way around this. Copy the .dll file, paste it and rename it. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and AddDrums.dll - now I paste the jBridge dll into that dir., and rename it to AddDrums.32.dll - now Addictive Drums shows up, and AddDrums shows up as well; I now have the normal "in host" version, and the bridged version. Wierd.

[BJF]

Ok, I seemingly found a way around this. Copy the .dll file, paste it and rename it. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and AddDrums.dll - now I paste the jBridge dll into that dir., and rename it to AddDrums.32.dll - now Addictive Drums shows up, and AddDrums shows up as well; I now have the normal "in host" version, and the bridged version. Wierd.

Thanks I'll try it later. Do you think, then, that Steinberg/(Jbridge?) has a problem recognising example.dll and example.32.dll at the same time?

B

[Vinark]

From V4 steinberg has a system that tries to prevent double vst's. Which is a pain if you have multiple fxt slaves, as you loose the ability to address specific slaves by name. This with Jbridge is the same issue. It seems we have found a way around it by changing the plugin name in the first 4 or 6 letters. If you do it later on like Kontakt3jbridge.dll Cubendo checks the internal name which is embedded in the plugin and disables one of the two. As I posted earlier the .32 is not necessary to keep in the name.

[BJF]

From V4 steinberg has a system that tries to prevent double vst's. Which is a pain if you have multiple fxt slaves, as you loose the ability to address specific slaves by name. This with Jbridge is the same issue. It seems we have found a way around it by changing the plugin name in the first 4 or 6 letters. If you do it later on like Kontakt3jbridge.dll Cubendo checks the internal name which is embedded in the plugin and disables one of the two. As I posted earlier the .32 is not necessary to keep in the name.

Ah excellent, thanks for the info. I think I have run into the double VST problem before, but I didn't know about this workaround, so thanks.

B

[Vinark]

It's not exactly fool proof either. It took me some renaming and moving to get it to work, but once it works they luckily won't disappear again. I hope V5 hasn't fixed this hole...

[TerryG]

So, I decided to give jBridge another run here. Not that I really need it, but I figured, let me have it on hand - you never know.

For those that have this working with Cubendo, do you find that the some of the plugs/VSTs that you have bridged are no longer available normally? ie - here, I bridge, say, Addictive Drums. I now have Addictive Drums.dll, and Addictive Drums.32.dll in the same folder. I can now use Addictive Drums bridged, but can not use Addictive Drums within Cubase - it is simply not available in the vst rack. Anyone see anything like this?

I think jBridge recommends never putting their dll's into the same folder as the stock vst/vsti for the every reason that it can create conflicts.
I created custom folders named "jbridge32" or "jbridge64" corresponding to the 32/64 OS used for all my bridged plugs.

[norbury brook]

Yes thats what I 've done too.

marcus

[Vinark]

To get things clear, there are 3 ways to use Jbridge.
-On a 64 bit OS you can use Jbridge to run 32 bit plugins in a 64 bit host (instead of bitbridge), then you don't want to see the original plugs.
-On a 64 bit OS to run 64 bit plugins on a 32 bit host maybe like Kontakt 3.5 outside cubase 32 bit and you don't want to see the original either.
-On a 32 b it OS when you run out of memory space in for example cubase (which happens around 1.6gb ) you can then run a memory intensive plugin outside the cubase userspace in Jbridge and use your full RAM. That's the way I use it. I want to see the original plugs too, cause I only want to Jbridge in memory heavy projects. In the past I used FXT for that, running locally, but I have not decided yet which I prefer, both have some issues with BFD2. FXT can sometimes loose the tails of bfd2 samples which needs an audio engine reset of BFD2 and sometimes a bufferchange to get the full samples again. Jbridge crackles with the GUI of BFD2 open unless I set that jbridge process to low priority in taskmanager.

So that's why some people need to see both the original and the Jbridged plugin.

[paulwr]

I got Komplete a couple of weeks ago and jBridge will not allow sound finders to work in the programs like Absynth4, and also the instrument windows....... no instrument list. You really can't use those programs without an instrument list handy or ability to find sounds. I'm hoping it is something I'm doing wrong, or that J will be getting it corrected......... hopefully I'll get an email response from him.

-Paul

[paulwr]

jBridge is apparently fine the Komplete5. I just takes a good while for the soundfinder in Absynth to generate itself the first time.

-Paul

[TerryG]

jBridge is a no-no though. I found it very flaky and if I get a crash I have to spend half an hour loading.

I've been very happy with it, and recommending it to everyone like a fanboy! :wink:

The fact that Cubase/Nuendo freezes upon start as each plug is initialized after bridging is a known part of the process (but only for Steinberg apps) for setup. If you bridge 50 plugs, you'll need 50 restarts to finish the process.

I can understand guys going into panic mode if they never read the one page installation notes, but... that's their fault.
10 minutes of Cubendo restarts and it's all set.

I haven't heard anyone complain about jBridge who either never read (or misunderstood) the instructions; they panic and bail during freeze/restart; they failed to create a unique folder for the bridged plugs, or they failed to remove the Cubendo Plugin manager reference to their old plugins folders... which creates conflicts. The term RTFM comes to mind.

It may not be perfect for every VST/VSTi, but the list of known issues is very small, and to slam it as flaky without explanation may deter many people from realizing it might be perfect for them...

As a solution to UAD2/Quad Core/Cubendo/Vista ASIO spiking in addition to it's real purpose, it's been anything but flaky for me for the past 2 months in Vista 32 and Win7 64.

Joao has delivered 5 version updates since the demo 0.98 Beta last June... Currently at v1.03.

[musicpete]

I agree with Terry.

jbridge gave me some headaches, too. But it turned out that (as usual!) the problem often was located 50cm in front of the screen.... And in those cases where it wasn't, I got nearly instant email support, followed by an updated jbridge version shortly tereafter (which usually fixed my problem).

That being said: It may be worth investigating what exactely the problem is. As Terry pointed out: It could be anywhere... A bad installation, some rogue plugin, some quirk on your system, the list goes on.

I am running XP64 here in combination with C5 (x64), have bridged 90% of my plugins folder (exception are the 64bit plugins and a few rogue plugins which I found to be not working with jbridge - got rid of them and found free alternatives) and work with astounding amounts of plugin instances. Almost zero latency impact. So it CAN work.

[Livewire]

Hi guys,
I still have that annoying thing where the first time I load a Jbridged plugin into C5 after a clean boot it freezes. I have to manually kill C5 and then restart it and it generally works. Although sometimes the crash actually screws up the audio and midi in C5 and I can't get any sounds out of it which requires a total reboot and the whole process again. I read somewhere in the Jbridge documentation that this crashing is an issue with C5 and Jbridge and yet to be solved. I am running XP64 with C5(X32) and bridging both 32 and 64 plugins to it. I have made a Jbridge folder seperate to the usual vst plugins folder and renamed the jbridge dll's so they dont conflict with the originals, and besides the crashing problem when it does work it seems fine. I ended up making a project with an instance of Atmosphere purely to crash C5, but deliberately crashing C5 makes everything flaky from the beginning.
Have you guys had this problem? I can see Musicpete has been using C5(x64) and I wonder if that has ironed out the problem. Unfortunately I have stopped using it because I just can't seem to get any music done with all the crashes, restarts and reboots.

[musicpete]

This is really weird....

I though the crashing problem was supposed to happen only ONCE, right after the initial installation of jbridge. That is exactely what happened for me... Maybe you should write to the programmer. He might have an idea...

Things to try. We all hate those checklists, but maybe it will be helpful:

* Find out if a certain plugin causes the crash
* Try editing/deleting your plugin info cache file (or the blacklist)
* Triplecheck that you REALLY installed everything the way it is supposed to be
* Do you have the lastest version?
* Something tells me that either Cubase or jbridge should write something into some file so that the crash wont occur again. Maybe that is being prevented on your system? Antivirus? Firewall?

Something weird is happening with your setup. I only know that after the initial crash everything started to work just fine. However I did a serious amount of tweaking and eiditing of my Cubase installation to get everything working. No way of telling what exactely prevented the crash from happening all the time.

[TerryG]

The first thing to do when you notice a "new" problem is to open the Plugin Information window and make sure that Cubendo hasn't defaulted back to looking for plugins in it's Steinberg/VstPlugins or /Vstplugins shared folder.
Any time an original plugin dll is seen at the same time as the jbridge version, anywhere on the machine, you'll see conflicts.

And, there are some VST/VSTi's that simply don't want to be bridged. Identify them and post, we'll try to confirm and create a list.

[Livewire]

Thanks for the replies

I'll check out all of your points and report back

Erin