When upgrading Waves plugins the new plugins or upgraded plugins do not show in Bitwig Studio straight away sometimes. Here is a guide on how to fix Waves plugins in Bitwig Studio. This technique can also be used for other VST plugins that you have lost access to.
If you are trying to load your Waves plugins in Bitwig Studio but you cannot find them, follow these instructions in order to make the vst plugins available.
In order to resolve this issue, the best way is to delete the Bitwig Studio VST cache for the plugins and it will force Bitwig to search for new pluging.
Find Waves VST plugins on Windows / PC
for the PC you need to delete the following Folder
C:\Users\your_username/AppData/Local/BitwigStudio/index
and the following file:
C:\Users\your_username/AppData/Local/BitwigStudio/cache/vst-metadata
Note the metadata file may have a number after it. It is ok to delete any of these as they will be rebuilt if not there.
Find Waves VST plugins on Mac OS
The Mac files which need to be deleted are as follows. The folder:
/Users/your_username/Library/Application Support/Bitwig/Bitwig Studio/index
and the file:
/Users/your_username/Library/Caches/Bitwig/vst-metadata
Again, the vst-metadata file may have a variation on that name. The best way to do this is via terminal on the mac and use the command:
sudo rm /Users/your_username/Library/Caches/Bitwig/vst-metadata*
This will look for any files beginning vst-metadata and remove them.
I found putting the command in a script which can be run as and when required will allow the plugin database to rebuild when necessary.
There are plenty of scripting examples on the internet to help you learn how to create a script. This just makes it easier to run a command the next time this happens and helps get back your Waves VST plugins much faster.
If all else fails, there is always Bitwig support to contact and get some help.
Don’t have any VST plugins to use? Why not take a look at our Audio Plugin Deals page and see if there is any VST plugin that takes your fancy.
