Problem loading Cabbage plugins (Csound) in Maschine

argyre planitia

I have built 2 VST instruments with Cabbage, a graphical frontend for Csound, as VST2 (dll) and VST3. The problem: in both cases only one of them is loaded, although the behaviour of VST2 and VST3 is a bit different..

In Samplitude I see all 4 versions and they all work properly - so it is clear, that this is not a general issue:

But... In Maschine only one VST2 is loaded, and the two VST3 are identical, even if they show up with different names:

To explain the technique behind Cabbage/Csound: if you export a Csound file (csd) as a plugin, a dll or vst3 is created, which goes into one of the usual plugin folders, together with the associated csd file. AB.csd then becomes AB.dll or AB.vst3, XY.csd becomes XY.dll or XY.vst3 In addition, Csound must be installed on the computer (and must be in the PATH).

Unfortunately AB.dll and XY.dll are absolutely identical, as are AB.vst3 and XY.vst3. Checked with MD5 checksum.

Assumption 1: the plugins only contain generic code to manage the communication between Csound and the host, the actual sound generation is done by Csound, at runtime the plugins only look for a csd-file which is named the same as the respective plugin. Therefore they are identical. There is no plugin-specific code in them.

Assumption 2: when scanning the plugins, Maschine notices that a dll/vst3 with identical content has already been loaded, albeit with a different name. Either the second plugin is then skipped (this seems to be the case with VST2), or both appear in the selection list, but behind them is the same Csound program (this is the case with VST3), so that I see both in the selection list, but effectively always load the same one.

With only 2 plugins so far I can still live with it, one is just exported as VST2, the other as VST3, then they do not interfere with each other. But at the latest with the third one I will get a problem.

Edit: forgot to mention: Maschine 2.16.1, Windows 11

What now?

JesterMgee

Not sure anyone here is on the same wavelength with this kind of issue, certainly not something I am familiar with.

argyre planitia

@JesterMgee : Yes, seems so. I hoped, that someone from NI can at least confirm my assumptions (in particular the one regarding the scanning process), but…

Think I will open a support call soon.

Jeremy_NI

@argyre planitia I got in touch with the devs, waiting for some feedback. I also see that you submitted a request to our support, will also keep an eye on it.

argyre planitia

Advice from the Cabbage Forum:

There is some useless text contained within the binary about how ‘this program cannot be run in dos mode’. Modify any of the letters from that string with another letter, save the updated binary. Swapping one byte for another in this case won’t break anything but should give your .dll a unique footprint.

Tried that, did not help. The binaries now differ, but the problem remains.

argyre planitia

Finally, I purchased a VST wrapper. This works fine for me. No a solution in the strict sense, but a good workaraound.