Ableton Forum

Hi there,

I have recently gone to setup Ableton on my Macbook Pro running Windows 8.1 (for pc only VST plugins I love)

In the past I had used them fine with this version of Ableton, but I was running XP / 32bit type stuff. I'm not sure that matters.

The way I used to do it was I had this nice organized folder with various sub folders of free / non installation needed VST's that used to just show up.

Now when I scan them (it tries and thinks about it for a bit) ultimately nothing shows up in the VST folder.

I've never encountered this before. I'm also pointing to a custom folder where I would be installing all my future VST plugins as well.

Ableton Rocks!

Thanks!
Caleb

If Live is 64 bit in windows and the vsti's are *not* 64 bit they won't show up. They have to match, 32 bit Live/32 bit vsti's, same for 64 bit live, 64 bit vsti's. Unless you buy JBridge to bridge between 32 bit and 64 bit. That's my guess as to what the issue is.

can i install a 32bit version of ableton on a 64bit machine ok? i'm sure these plugins are all 32bit (old stuff) so that does explain that.

Thanks!
Caleb

I had a similar issue (not exactly the same) a while back and the way I solved it was by moving the plugins folder out of the C: drive and into a data drive and that solved the problem. I assume the problem was related to folder permissions.

Araz

part12studios wrote:can i install a 32bit version of ableton on a 64bit machine ok?

I'm guessing that most people (Windows users, at least) are running 32-bit Live on 64-bit machines. Just make sure your 32-bit VSTs are where Live can find them.

yep that did the trick.. 32bit version installed fine (figured it would, but wondered if there might be any known performance / stability issues with ableton) and yes now the plugins are recognized. what a relief!

Thanks,
Caleb

To deal with the same 32/64-bit divide, I created a "Vstplugins 64bit" folder at the same level where my actual, working 32-bit Vstplugins folder is. Every time I install some plugin, I toss its 64-bit version into that 64-bit folder.

It's just to make me feel good. This i7 will likely be scrap long before the 64 folder ever sees action as I'm hardly an early adopter. But hey, there's order!

yea that's good forward thinking.

part12studios wrote:yep that did the trick.. 32bit version installed fine (figured it would, but wondered if there might be any known performance / stability issues with ableton) and yes now the plugins are recognized. what a relief!

Thanks,
Caleb

Good news!