Purchased a New Waves Plugin now no Waves Plugins Work in Acid 11

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 6:58 PM

Longtime user of Acid Pro 11 here. My Waves plugins like J37 Tape, Api-2500, Puigtec, etc. plugins were all working great up until today when I just purchased 1 new Waves Plugin (today), updated my other ones on Waves Central and now none of the Waves plugins work. I am devistated as my projects are completely messed up balance and effects wise if I can't get them working again. Is there an easy fix for this? I did everything I could on Waves central, and repaired all the C++ stuff in the apps on my computer. Nothing works and I'm assuming this is an issue regarding Acid Pro 11 not being able to handle Waves version 16. Is there a way to go back to an earlier version of their plugins or get Acid to recoginze the plugins? I've been trying to install Waves Central Version 15, but it just installs the latest one (16) and Acid 11 won't recognize my Waves plugins at all.

Eric

Comments

SP. wrote on 4/25/2026, 7:40 PM

@Eric-Penington Yeah, for some reason, Waves seem to not correctly adhere to the VST standard, so they only guarantee that their plugins can be loaded in the programs listed on their website.

There might be a somewhat hacky workaround. For this, your need to install the free demo version of Music Maker 2026. Then you need to copy and paste the following files from the Music Maker program folder to the Acid program folder (make a backup before you do this!!):

audio_plugin_server.exe

audio_plugin_server_x64.exe

audio_plugin_scan_server_vst3.exe

audio_plugin_scan_server_vst3_x64.exe

audio_plugin_scan_server_vst2.exe

audio_plugin_scan_server_vst2_x64.exe

The files from Music Maker are pretty new, while the files included in Acid are about five years old and might have problems loading newer plugins.

I hope this helps with loading the newer Waves Plugins. If not, do a VST path rescan in Acid.

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 8:31 PM

Thanks! Now I'm not entirely sure it's ACID 11 that's the issue. I opened Reaper and couldn't find any of the Waves plugins. I contacted Waves too so I'll try to figure this out. I'm not great at tech stuff at all and I'm not sure if I can revert back to (say) a version 14 of the wavs plugins instead of 16 at this point. I honestly can't even find where the Waves plugins are on my computer because they aren't in the same folder as all of my other plugins due to Waves's new system. This sucks because the plugins like the J37 Tape, Puigtec, and Api-2500, etc. I used a lot. I don't know if ACID will ever do another update to better accomodate these updated plugins or if this is an issue with the Waves installation of the software.

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 8:38 PM

I found the legacy versions (of all the Waves V14 plugins) and am installing them now. That's a step in the right direction. Hopefully this works out!

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 8:41 PM

Didn't work. It said the "plugins are not installed on this system". I'll keep working on this.

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 8:47 PM

The plugins didn't load properly when I opened the project, but I was able to find and load the plugins so that part is working... just not sure if I'll be able to get them to load exactly the way I had them in the orig. project. I wonder if that's 'cause I had V12 instead of V14? Or V10? I think I had V12, but do I need the legacy version 12 instead of 14 to get the plugins to load exactly how I had them?

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 9:13 PM

This is what I get when I open an Acid 11 Project that has a bunch of Waves Plugins:

An error occurred while loading the project file...

An error occurred while loading a plug-in or plug-ins. The plugin(s) specified are not installed on this system

Plug-in: 'J37 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'J37 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'J37 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'SSLComp Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'NLS Buss Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'API-2500 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'PuigTec MEQ5 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'API-2500 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.
Plug-in: 'PuigTec MEQ5 Stereo (VST3)' failed to load. Please make sure the plug-in is properly installed.

When I hit "OK" the tracks in my project are missing those plugins, but I'm able to access all of the Waves plugins and add them back to the tracks and they are working... it just sucks that I'll have to remix and re-balance everything. I'm still wondering if when I open the project and have the correct version (like V12 instead of V14") if ACID would recognize it?

Eric-Penington wrote on 4/25/2026, 10:40 PM

Finally figured out the problem. After installing and uninstalling several legacy versions, it turned out version 13 of the Waves plugins included the vst 3s and the others didn't for some reason. Everything is working as usual finally! Stinkin Waves, what a pain in the ass!