With what is most likely the final beta version of VoiceFX 0.3.0 being released, it's time to talk about all the improvements and changes that VoiceFX had to go through to get here. Let's take a look at all the new and upgraded things in it.
The Plug-In has been renamed to VoiceFX
This may come as a surprise to some, but the VST 3.x version was never actually called VoiceFX. It has now been renamed - along with an identifier change - to match the actual project name. This will break existing configurations/setups, so you will have to update accordingly, and no further renames are planned. This was mainly done to integrate other effects later down the line, and no longer potentially infringe on trademarks and branding guidelines.
Drastically reduced the Load/Reset Times
If you have used VoiceFX before, you've probably noticed and complained about the extremely long time required to load and/or reset the plugin. I wasn't able to remove it entirely - still waiting on NVIDIA to answer my questions - but I was able to significantly reduce it. As an example, instead of having to wait close to 18 seconds for Stereo playback with VoiceFX on in Adobe Audition, it is now only 3.8 seconds - almost 5 times faster!
Improved Buffering and Latency Detection
Due to the mixed bag that VST hosts are, I had to invest quite some time into a solution that was not just efficient, but also covered most of the possible bad situations. This led to a much more stable plugin with far better buffering (fixing Adobe Premiere Pro exporting), better latency detection and various other things. Many VST hosts are also now 100% compatible with this.
Text File Logs for improved end-user Support
With the mixed bag of VST Hosts that we have, I could no longer rely on the VST 3 and VST 2 standard as my only resource for problems users experienced. So I did what any Software does, and now write log files to a pre-defined location. You can find these at %LOCALAPPDATA%\VoiceFX\logs, and sending the last 2-3 files along with any request for support will drastically improve the chances of fixing the problem.
Support for VST 2.x Hosts
With 0.3.0 comes the promised integration into many VST 2.x only hosts, available to any Tier 2 or higher Supporter of mine on Github and Patreon. This integration took quite a while as the VST 2.x API is practically undefined if you want to stay on the legal side, so quite a bit of time was spent reverse engineering an API I had no actual information about, other than it exists.
Improved support for non-standard-compliant VST Hosts
As with any standard, there are always pseudo-implementations of it in Software and Hardware - and VST is no different. I've applied many safe-guards now to either make these VST Hosts work fine, or prevent them from crashing entirely, but there may still be a VST Host out there that does yet another thing differently from the actual standard.
With every update comes...
... a lot of testing. I'm currently running a public beta test of the new VST 3.x version, as well as a Supporter-exclusive beta test of the VST 2.x version - both are available in Discord. If you're less chatty you can still try out the new version linked on the official website (automatically updated short link) for it. If you have an NVIDIA Tensor capable GPU (RTX 2060 or better), why not try it out?