nszmilekEZD3 Audio engine Inactive in ACID Pro 10 Suite. EZD2 works just fine. Within ACID Pro 10 EZD3 freezes up and doesn’t offer the Audio/Midi Settings durng the ACID 10 Pro session.
Beat6erPlease forgive me for my first post on this. I totally butchered my grammar and my sentence logic. Here is my second attempt at what I think. I have the very same problem. Perhaps we can share each other’s insights to help one another. I have found that easy drummer 3 works just fine when used as a standalone application. As a standalone application, you can access the midi in and out panel located in the right bottom corner. I can assignor my audio engine is my midi audio interface, and all is well. When I try to use easy drummer three as a instrument within acid pro 10, on a midi track, just like we did with easy drummer 2, we can’t access that little panel where the Midi in and out selectors are because that panel instantly gets covered up by the audio engine inactive message. I have been interacting with Toon tracks about this. The reply I received told me that EZD3 is a VST3 and not a midi program. We all know that Easy drummer 2 was a midi program, and therefore we naturally opened it up on a midi track. Toomtrack told me that it’s a VST3 and not a Midi application. That totally confused me. The reason being, I cannot figure out how to activate a VST3 instrument application all by itself on a track. Worse yet, I’m now thinking on an audio track. I’m thinking, “How do you do that”? It has always been my understanding for quite a few years that a VST or a vst3 is an effect, like reverb, compression or delay and vst effects are used to enhance or modify an audio signal. Now we both know that Acid Pro 10 has a vst3 because it comes with a vst3 plugin resident as a track fx. I now think that the VST3 (Sidechainer) is ok working inside Acid because a side chain isn’t a musical instrument However, I’ve been doing a lot of digging around and i have learned that contrary to what I previously believed, there are such things as VST3 instruments that are musical just like vstis. But I still don’t understand it completely. Some VST3 instruments if the DAW doesn’t provide direct access to the audio engine, will only work if they are inside a “Wrapper”. From what I have gathered so far, a wrapper is a vst itself, which is equipped with single or even multiple pairs of midi ins and outputs. It’s purpose of the wrapper, is to handle the audio engine connections and a VST3 instrument resides inside the wrapper and the vst3 instrument is what makes the music. I’m beginning to think that the reason EZdrummer 3 throws up that “Audio exngine inactive” sign that covers up the midi selectors, that we can “see “ when EXD3 is started as a standalone, may be because when EZD3 is started as a stand-alone, it looks to the computer to access the audio connections. But when EXD3 is started inside a some, but not all DAWs, EXD3 looks to the DAW for its access to the audio interface. So, I think it’s like this. When EXD3 starts as a stand-alone, it does fine. But when EXD3 is loaded inside of some DAWs, it looks to the the DAW to provide its connections, and some DAWs just aren’t “wired” to provide those connections. So we can see the picture of EXD3 if we try to run it as midi, but it ain’t midi, so there is no sound. And if we try to run it as a vst, it won’t even appear in Acids fx list. All of this is just my theory. Let’s keep digging sharing and we’ll soon crack this nut. I’m just beginning to learn that “ and I’m still not confident in my terminology” but some DAWs don’t “render back the audio” I think I read that somewhere. But don’t hold me to that. So, perhaps a wrapper may be the solution to Acids inability to provide audio engine access to EXD3. I did know that wrappers can act as a host itself for even any ordinary vst like overdrive, reverb, delay, whatever, entire chains of vst’s to work as stand-alone effects . Where you don’t even need a DAW to use them. What great news for a guitarist. Imagine going to a gig and all the gear you need is your guitar, an audio interface (mine is a Behringer Uphoria UMC204HD , no bigger than a change purse, and a laptop and the house takes it from there. So, it stands to reason if a wrapper can make any vst operate as a stand-alone, it could also make and vst, vst3, operate inside a DAW. I’m likening the wrapper to a “conduit” that connects the “instrumental” type vst3’s audio engine’s audio needs, to the DAW’s audio access. Let’s keep digging and sharing.
BradAll though I don’t use Acid Pro, I would assume that it manages the connection between it and your audio interface. EZD3 as a plug-in, gets MIDI and audio through your DAW.
That’s the way it works in Studio One and Pro Tools (which I use) and any other DAW I know of. You should only need a wrapper in cases where a DAW does not support the plug-in format you are using.
for example, I used a plug-in that was only compiled in VST format on Pro Tools, that only supports AAX by using a wrapper (Blue Cat Patchwork). As far as I know acid pro does support VST3 plug-ins, which EZD3 is.
Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)
BradI did find this thread on the Magix website,
https://www.magix.info/us/forum/ezdrummer-3-not-working-in-acid-pro-suite–1299637/
never mind I believe that is your post…
Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)
Jesse HaysHello Nicholas,
So I can chime in here, after a month of back and forth with Magix staff, they have admitted this is a bug on their end. Unfortunately it looks like there is no fix and no fix coming. The engineers at Magix are aware of the issue but have no interest in fixing it as they have moved on to newer versions. This to me is infuriating. I’ve been an acid user since the late 90’s…..now I’m going to jump over to reaper and learn a new way.
This isn’t a TT or EZD problem, it would be cool if they had a workaround but honestly it’s not on them to provide one. Below is the last correspondence with Magix Acid support…
”
From: MAGIX Support Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 3:16 AMTo: jessehaysSubject: Re: [Ticket#2022050717003001] VST3 Not working at all
Hello,thank you for your message.I’m afraid I will need to escalate the issue to the developers. I can’t find any issues with the DxDiag, and there have been other reports of VST3 functionality issues from other users. Can you give me a list of the VST3 that are not working with ACID? Thank you!.–Best regards,MAGIX Software GmbH XXXXXXX (Removed for privacy, it’s not this persons fault and they did everything they could to help)Supportmanagerhttp://www.magix.comGeschäftsführer | Managing Director: Denis Burger, Jan Gackenholz, Klaus SchmidtAmtsgericht | Commercial Register: Berlin Charlottenburg, HRB 127205
Please make sure to include your original correspondence when replying and leave the subject line unaltered. Changing the subject line may cause your mail to be improperly assigned and result in a delayed response.”
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Thanked by: BradBeat6erThank you Brad,
You were spot on in telling me a wrapper was not the way to go. I certainly appreciate your advise. I haven’t attempted this yet, I left my computer for some time today and enjoyed some Father’s Day activities. A fellow forum participant with the handle Rednroll was thinking along the same lines as your instruction. The problem is indeed within Acid, and your answer made me realize that a wrapper would just terribly complicate things for me. The last thing I needed was to go racing off the road and into a ditch somewhere just trying to fix something which I know little about. This is what Rednroll suggested and he said it worked. I can’t wait to try it.
Here is Rednrol’s post:
I ran into this same problem with EZDrummer 2 as well as Superior Drummer 3 when working with Acid Pro. I’m guessing since I don’t own EZD3…..but it’s likely the same problem.
What you may notice is that all ToonTrack Plugins are currently VST3 plugins. What I noticed is that all my other VST3 instrument plugins install with a “.VST3” file extension for the plugin, where ToonTrack’s plugs install with a “.DLL” file extension instead. By default, they get installed to your PC’s “C:\Program Files\Common Files\ VST3\” plugins folder.
For some reason Acid Pro seems to have a problem with the the different file extension and being located in the default VST3 plugin folder but Reaper doesn’t as mentioned.
So how to get it to work?
1. Navigate to your VST3 plugin folder : “C:\Program Files\Common Files\ VST3\”
2. Find the EZDrummer3 plugin file
3. Copy or move that file to your VST2 64bit install plugins folder, typically located at C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins\ or C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins\ (ie which ever folder you have Acid setup to scan for 64bit VST2 plugins).
4. Restart Acid. Acid will go through a re-scan of your plugins and EZDrummer will now load and function correctly.
I don’t visit here often since I’ve moved onto other DAW programs but may fire up Acid via re-wire from time to time if working with loops. This should likely be stickied to the top of the forum, if Magix isn’t going to get around to fixing the issue. I responded to a few other posts in the past with the same issue of ToonTrack plugins not working in Acid after I had the same problem and eventually figured out how to solve it.
Brad, Thanks again. I am grateful for the advice and instruction I receive from you and other contributors on forums just like this one.
I’m in your debt.
Beat6er
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Thanked by: BradJesse HaysSorry to be a downer Beat6er
but yeah, that “workaround” from the Magix forum does not address or fix this issue with EZD3, nor does it fix the VST3 of Superior Drummer 3 also EZbass VST3 is also broken in Acid. If you try it and it works for you thats awesome, however I did try it myself and had no luck whatsoever. Unfortunately the original poster doesn’t have the issue we do and the workaround is not for us.
I hope you have much better luck than I did.
Beat6erThanks Jesse for the heads up. You’re the third forum contributor that told me that work around doesn’t work. So, yeah, that is a downer. I hadn’t tried it yet so I don’t have any time invested in that work around. But just so I didn’t lose my 79 bucks (somehow I got a $20 discount) i’m going to be heading to Reaper. I think it’s gonna be good to have 2 DAWs anyway. I think it’s gonna be fun learning how compatible they are working with each other. Acids got its strengths, but I heard a whole lot of good things about Reaper. Being that it is recognized as one of the best DAWs in the industry, and for 60 bucks, plus getting lifetime updates, it’s a no brained. I can’t leave this post Jesse, without thanking you. I think it was great to be able to learn from guys that have already blazed the trail that I’m trying to follow. You guys keep me from straying off into the weeds. Not only is seasoned advice a great timesaver, it also protects my operating system from dangling leftover files, when I realize I installed something I shouldn’t have and the uninstall goes sideways. This is a great forum and thanks for your help.
Beat6er
nszmilekI have not heard anything from the folks at Magix I they have already closed my ticket for the third time without fixing anything.
Looks like I am going to Reaper.
I was with ACID since it was Sonic Foundry,.
I am done.
Everyone needs to ditch Magix ACID family of music software.
Diego CisnerosI have been running into this issue since finally upgrading too ezd3 after maybe almost 10 years of using the original and two as well as Superior 2. And I can tell you that those other versions will definitely work on acid pro, however ezd3 is not an option for the time being. I will be writing to magix with the same regards. Hopefully they might fix the issue if enough users make enough noise. I have enjoyed acid pro since the 6th version and the 7th and you stand for many years until I purchased it and are currently up to where it is now. I can still use Superior drummer 2 as well as kontakt room sound obviously not as a drag and drop AI songwriting tool but only when I am just activating it with my electronic Roland drum kit.
However, one of the coolest parts of ezd3 is the dragging and dropping and ai that helps you write songs plus the new products like the bass/keyboards etc. I will also be purchasing reaper to be able to utilize ezd3 to its full capabilities because I am also unable to write with it via my electronic kit on acid pro. It’s a damn shame because I am also such a big fan of acid pro and I consider it my main daw. But it will also be good to learn how to use the reaper daw.
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