Emu Emulator X3 with Gig Performer

Recently I got a Windows Laptop that is able to run music software and virtual instruments pretty well. So I downloaded Emulator X3 and it’s working well on my PC standalone. I downloaded the trial for GP to see how well it works on my PC. GP is working fine on my Windows computer but Emulator X3 does not appear as a plugin in Gig Performer. Has anyone been able to use Emulator X3 in Gig Performer? I’m running Windows 8.1 Thanks!

Which plugin of Emu do you use? Vst3, vst? Vst3-s are automatically placed in the right folder so they should appear automagically, ‘normal’ vst-s (vst2) can be placed anywhere, but you have to tell GP the folder (somewhere at the bottom of the plugin manager window). It has to be 64bit. 32bit vst-s are not possible.

64 bit . Emulator X3 opens in Reason 10 and works fine fwiw. I’ve read that some have had problems with opening Emulator X3 in some DAW’s. Also I believe they stopped developing it around 2006.

Then it is probably a vst2. Did you point GP to scan the folder where the vst is solved?

Yes.Gig Performer rejected it

That would mean it is not a valid vst or a valid dll. It could also mean that the dll tries to load other dll’s but can’t find them.

Is it a free plugin or one with a trial version? Then I could try it out for you to see what’s happening.

It’s free, I’m not good with links but if you do a Google search for Emulator X3 it’s on a archive site…Actually a shame that it was abandoned because it’s really a good software instrument. Thanks for looking into this!

I just downloaded and tried it… didn’t initialze in GP!
So the VST might most probably be faulty somehow and since it is only available on an archive site, you can be pretty sure it won’t be maintained in any ways anymore.
My personal advice would be: Drop it and get something else which actually works reliably!

I’ve downloaded it. The GP plugin scanner runs into a crash when trying to load it. Reaper (x64) does load it and runs it, so GP is a little more picky.

Where are seeing this crash?

What’s the link for the plugin?

Edit: ok - I found it but - uh - has anyone checked this thing to make sure it’s not malware?

OK - I installed it on a VM and tried to load it but couldn’t. So then I ran the dependency walker (http://www.dependencywalker.com/) on it and it listed a ton of missing DLLs that probably need to be on your system - that’s probably why our scanner failed.

The dlls (reported by depends) that are pointing to tons of non-existing dlls are all dlls that are installed with Windows by default (shlwapi.dll, SHELL32.dll, etc.), so they can’t be the problem. A library like SHELL32.dll is almost mandatory to have, so if that one is at fault, lots of other apps would have the same problem. That would include GP:

image

OK - then maybe old version of some of those things are needed. The documentation that comes with that plugin suggests really old versions of the runtime DLLs

Still waiting for this crash information — when I tried, I just got nothing back, suggesting that the DLL couldn’t even be loaded.

I thought you had that, because Windows eventviewer points it out, but I have it prepared, so wait a few minutes

Emulator_Crash.zip (5.2 KB)

It is very well possible that EmulatorX is not fully up-to-standards. The application version has also problems with some ASIO drivers like JackRouter, but that isn’t conclusive, because Jack has its own issues to deal with…

And yes, EmulatorX is old.

To be clear: I’m not the stakeholder. I’m just the proxy (sort of :grinning:)

Thank you both Frank1119 and dhj for checking this out. Obviously being that Emulator X3 is old software from nearly 20 years ago that it would have issues. It does work well standalone and in Reason 10. It’s too bad that the software was abandoned.

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Arturia has an Emulator plugin.

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That is a good plugin. This PC laptop I have is the first Windows computer that I’ve ever had that actually works pretty well with music software and virtual instruments. All my others never really worked very well.

My guess is it’s using an older version of the VST spec and only hosts that have been around when that version was the latest continue to support it for legacy reasons.

Edit: out of curiosity I tried stepping through the code and that VST doesn’t understand some basic dispatcher commands (host invoking commands in plugin) and that’s why it’s failing.

I’m not going to spend any more time on this.

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