Just as I’m starting to get used to Adobe Premiere CS5.5, I notice that its audio effects listing (in menus etc.) does not my system’s VST collection. Most annoyingly, because of that, my iZotope Ozone effects are excluded from Premiere. Seems unreasonable, given my long track record of employing such plugins in Sony Vegas.
I spent a good hour or two trying to understand and solve this, including much googling. At the end of that, I’m not sure what the problem is exactly, but it does look to me like Premiere is slightly lacking with regard to its ability to interface to VST effects. For a start, one of its assumed registry entries appears inappropriate to Windows 7 64-bit. Having hacked that into shape, Premiere at least noticed the existence of Ozone (and other VST effects on my system) then found itself unable to load it.
The best solution I found was really a work-around. Prom Premiere timeline, [aClip >RtClk> Edit in Adobe Audition]. That application has no trouble recognising iZotope plugins. However before getting too blinkered, try the native Audition effects first, including Noise Reduction, because they are pretty-good.
Research (Web & Experimentation):
- http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7f16a.html#WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7f0fa
- If you previously installed a VST-compatible application other than Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro finds VST effects in the VST folder that already exists. Inside the Plug-ins folder of the Premiere Pro application folder, there is also a VST Plugins folder with plug-ins that are used only by Premiere Pro.
- The locations where Premiere Pro searches for VST plug-ins are as follows.
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VST\VSTPluginsPath (Windows)
- C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins (Windows)
- System HD/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST (Mac OS)
- System HD/<user>/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST (Mac OS)
- …If you already have an audio application installed, there should be a VST plug-ins location in the registry stored here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VST\VstPluginsPath
Premiere Pro should use the path specified by that registry key. It should be set to something like this location: [Program Files]\Steinberg\VstPlugins]- But as explained below, this path is incorrect, at least in Windows 7 64-bit…
- Experiments:
- The registry path [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VST\VstPluginsPath] does not exist in Windows 7. Instead, it is [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Wow6432Node > VST > VSTPluginsPath]
- Placing a duplicate of the latter at the former (where Premiere wrongly expects it) allows Premiere (on start-up) to at least see the directory containing the third-party VST Plugins.
- How to tell it’s working: The progress of plugins-loading at startup is recorded by Premiere in the file [Plugin Loading.log] at [C:\Users\…\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Premiere Pro\5.5].
- Examining this log-file before and after the registry entry fix (each time, restarting Premiere) confirms that the fix allows Premiere to see the requisite folder.
- However it also reveals that Premiere rejects these plugins:
- Example entry for the VST plugin [iZotope Meter Tap.dll]:
- Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Vstplugins\iZotope Meter Tap.dll
- The registry tells us to cache so the plugin will be loaded from the cache.
The plugin is marked as Ignore, so it will not be loaded. - In what sense is it “marked as Ignore” ?
- Example entry for the VST plugin [iZotope Meter Tap.dll]:
- Workaround: Send the Audio for editing in Adobe Audition
- In Premiere:
- Select the clip (Video & two Audio channels).
- [theClip >RtClk> Edit in Adobe Audition]
- In Adobe Audition:
- First time, get it to import the VST plugins: [Effects > Audio Plug-In Manager]
- Check that the directory containing the VST plugins is listed there.
- Click button: [Scan for Plug-Ins]
- In Premiere:
- http://forums.adobe.com/message/2994407
- Jeff Hunt:
- Looking on Isotope’s site, I could not find anything about Ozone’s compatibility with CS5, and also it only shows it for up to Vista, and not Win7
- Also, many VST’s will load, but PrPro cannot work with them. I have a few of those, and on the very first loading, PrPro reports that it cannot work with that particular VST
- tfi productions 44:
- ozone installs into the x86program files folder
- ozone installs 64bit dlls into the vstplugins folder of the ‘program files’ (which is the 64bit programs folder)
- i wonder if the problem is because ozone isn’t truly 64 bit (if it is installing into the x86programs folder)
- Ann Bens:
- A plugin needs to be 64 bits for it to work in CS5.
- If it install itself in x86 its 32 bits and its a no show.
- tfi productions 44:
- {Workaround now obsolete. SoundBooth no longer supported, use Adobe Audition instead. Not sure if the registry fix is needed by Audition, but if so then it is a more elegant way of allowing that app to see the VST plugins, as compared to copying them to some folder specific to Audition (say)}
- finally got the ozone fixed
- you have to copy the 32bit ozone .dll files from the 32 bit ozone folder into the plugins folder of soundbooth
- once the dlls are installed soundbooth sees it but only from the effects tab at the top of the soundbooth window so any clip you need to tweak audio on can be right clicked and edited in soundbooth then replaced back into the timeline.
- Jeff Hunt:
- Some of my older blog entries relating to the “iZotope plugins in Premiere” issue:
- http://forums.creativecow.net/archivethread/138/606229
- I searched on the Adobe forum. I found out that…
- …if you see this (“The plugin is marked as Ignore, so it will not be loaded”) in the plugin log for any plugins,
you should start Premiere Pro while holding the SHIFT key down.