VSTs are too small now in Reason 12

[crimsonwarlock]

Moreover, this gentleman, despite being demonstrably incorrect, talks down and is being dismissive.

I'm not talking down to anyone, I've tried to explain something, but you clearly have made your mind up about how things work. So let's see:

Can you make windows scale an individual window of a certain application, or a plugin in this case? ... No it can't, you can scale the desktop and EVERYTHING scales with it. However, you bring this as an argument as to how RS should be able to scale INDIVIDUAL plugin windows, something that windows itself does NOT do. I'm not wrong here, you are.

Next, you don't seem to understand (or know) how software uses frameworks and such (dare I say API if you know what that means) from third parties that are licensed, and you can only use them according to the license. Like Steinberg licenses the VST technology to plugin developers and DAW developers, on their specific terms. It is no problem if you don't know how this works, or something like VST plugin technology works, but you could accept some explanations when people take the time to explain it to you.

[Hoboys]

Also, seeing as there is an RS representative response in this thread AND the topic of the thread is quite appropriate, I feel like this is an ideal place to state they've messed up.

We all know they messed up and even they do as it was acknowledged as a priority for them all be it not everyone is affected in the same way, but there are a few things that you could do that would be more positive than arguing about it.

I would definitely be interested to know what vst's you are having problems with and I'm sure it would help others to, maybe someone is thinking about buying one which wouldn't be a good idea if it isn't working as expected.

If this is a problem that you didn't have in R11 maybe you could reduce your stress levels by using R11 as many have including me

If you really must know, about 95% of brainworx VSTs through Plugin Alliance are near-invisible with 100% windows scaling on a 4k screen. As a solution, I have swapped all my VSTs to REs as top quality replacements have recently emerged. I have only one VST remaining, which is still irreplaceable by the RE format, but it has scalable UI. Even so, I have contacted a RE developer that I like to help me go 100% RE. Going back to R11 after having paid for 12 is not going to reduce anyone's stress levels, trust me. I feel entitled to declare my having to pay around someone's shit job. On the upside, my stress levels are inherently very low.

[Billy+]

Fair play

Have you tried setting the high dpi settings for Reason under the compatibility tab?

Screenshot 2021-11-27 175305.png

I decided not to buy a 4K monitor so I don't have a problem but vst's might display better if you use override and choose system or system enhanced.

[Hoboys]

Can you make windows scale an individual window of a certain application, or a plugin in this case? ... No it can't, you can scale the desktop and EVERYTHING scales with it. However, you bring this as an argument as to how RS should be able to scale INDIVIDUAL plugin windows, something that windows itself does NOT do. I'm not wrong here, you are.

you CAN magnify anything in wondows - a window or even just the mouse focus in a circle or a rectangle. That's a reduction of the same windows tech that's used for scaling and it's called Magnifier.

Next, you don't seem to understand (or know) how software uses frameworks and such (dare I say API if you know what that means) from third parties that are licensed, and you can only use them according to the license. Like Steinberg licenses the VST technology to plugin developers and DAW developers, on their specific terms. It is no problem if you don't know how this works, or something like VST plugin technology works, but you could accept some explanations when people take the time to explain it to you.

For one, I'm not that interested, and secondly, you haven't explained diddly. You basically said it can't be done when I see a clear example of it already having been done, countering with "but that's not scaling"... whatever method you said it wasn't. I told you - I don't care what METHOD is used. I don't care if it's "scaling" or "API" or "DIY" or "DFDI". If windows did it by milking unicorns, RS should milk a unicorn.

[Hoboys]

Fair play

Have you tried setting the high dpi settings for Reason under the compatibility tab?

Screenshot 2021-11-27 175305.png

I decided not to buy a 4K monitor so I don't have a problem but vst's might display better if you use override and choose system or system enhanced.

Okay, this is cool, haven't tried this.

[Billy+]

Fair play

Have you tried setting the high dpi settings for Reason under the compatibility tab?

Screenshot 2021-11-27 175305.png

I decided not to buy a 4K monitor so I don't have a problem but vst's might display better if you use override and choose system or system enhanced.

Okay, this is cool, haven't tried this.

Well give it a try and report back

[Pepin]

Has anyone with this problem checked if it persists when using a wrapper around the problematic VST? Like Komplete Kontrol, Bidule, Kushview Element etc.

[Billy+]

Fair play

Have you tried setting the high dpi settings for Reason under the compatibility tab?

IMG_2880.PNG

I decided not to buy a 4K monitor so I don't have a problem but vst's might display better if you use override and choose system or system enhanced.

Okay, this is cool, haven't tried this.

Did it work?

Here's some background on the dpi scaling options

IMG_2879.PNG

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdevelo ... rs-update/

[Hoboys]

Okay, this is cool, haven't tried this.

Did it work?

Here's some background on the dpi scaling options

IMG_2879.PNG

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdevelo ... rs-update/

I'm on a vacation with the laptop (hence my forum activity ) until Tuesday, but I will definitely check this out. Again, thank you for this!

[Billy+]

I'm on a vacation with the laptop (hence my forum activity ) until Tuesday, but I will definitely check this out. Again, thank you for this!

No worries

I'm a little surprised that the option doesn't appear to have been mentioned before by anyone else who is having problems with small vst windows blurry text and a few other issues related to high resolution screens.

[crimsonwarlock]

Can you make windows scale an individual window of a certain application, or a plugin in this case? ... No it can't, you can scale the desktop and EVERYTHING scales with it. However, you bring this as an argument as to how RS should be able to scale INDIVIDUAL plugin windows, something that windows itself does NOT do. I'm not wrong here, you are.

you CAN magnify anything in wondows - a window or even just the mouse focus in a circle or a rectangle. That's a reduction of the same windows tech that's used for scaling and it's called Magnifier.

OK, last try to make this clear to you.

I've loaded a VST with scaling capabilities into RS and opened it on my desktop. It can scale down to 70%, and I did so to emulate a very tiny VST window.

Screenshot 2021-11-28 114348.jpg

Next, I used windows magnifier to enlarge this tiny window, and that looks like this:

windows-magnifier.jpg

But when I don't use magnifier and instead use the VST's own scaling, that looks like this:

vst-scaled.jpg

I hope you can see the difference. You can try this yourself with any plugin that is scalable. When you magnify a set of pixels, you can only stretch the available pixels without getting any more detail. This is what windows magnifier does. It cannot magically guess what is not available in the original screen.

Proper scaling of a VST plugin can only be achieved by having high-resolution graphics available that can interpolate to smaller window sizes, or having a vector-based UI that can be redrawn on higher resolutions. Both can only be handled by the plugin itself, and therefore can only be implemented by the plugin developer.

So there you have it. Windows can not scale a plugin window because 'blowing up' the pixel size is definitely NOT scaling. And I see very little use in RS making it possible to 'magnify' a VST window because that would be as ugly and unusable as windows magnifier, and on top of that Windows magnifier already does that so why implement that inside RS.

[Hoboys]

thank you for explaining the difference between scaling and enlargement. I thought I've made it clear with the previous few post that the idea is to make VSTs larger, regardless of pixelation, so I COULD SEE THEM. I'm not at my 4k screen right now, but here's what it looks like on my friends vertical 1440x2560 (2k screen?) and even here @ 100% windows zoom the VSTS are microscopic and not workable, but suddenly I can make out the labels at 150% windows zoom:

NOT WORKABLE100.jpg

workable150.jpg

But this is a problem even at 1080p, it just gets progressively worse the higher the pixel count of the screen. If it can't be scaled up, then it MUST BE ENLARGED - at the cost of pixelation or whatever, because that's the difference between being able to use a tool or not. I don't want to mess up my whole DAW and that's why I said it has to be enlarged INSIDE the DAW on a per-window basis.

[Hoboys]

Well give it a try and report back

Tried both modes of override on a 1440x2560 and they make the whole DAW blurry, unfortunately. Which is a bit weird, because when I used the same amount of windows scaling (which, as I've learned from this thread is in fact just magnification) in R11, it didn't make it as blurry if I recall correctly. Pixelated - sure, but not blurry. Could be just fond memories.

Oh well, as I've said, I only have one VST left and it's scalable internally. Thanks for trying, Billy!

[Billy+]

Well give it a try and report back

Tried both modes of override on a 1440x2560 and they make the whole DAW blurry, unfortunately. Which is a bit weird, because when I used the same amount of windows scaling (which, as I've learned from this thread is in fact just magnification) in R11, it didn't make it as blurry if I recall correctly. Pixelated - sure, but not blurry. Could be just fond memories.

Oh well, as I've said, I only have one VST left and it's scalable internally. Thanks for trying, Billy!

Well that's unfortunate as other than using a lower resolution then it appears that it will have to be within the child window implementation coded by Reason developers and clearly they haven't decided on a preferred method according to the previous post.

I'm also now wondering if you would need to clear the device cache if you make changes to such a setting as my understanding is the cache is built once for each zoom level.

I'm definitely adding this to my collection of reasons not to upgrade to R12 although I personally only have shaperbox that looks to be affected according to the current posts...

I wonder if izotope has problems?

Anyone using ozone 8 advanced and neutron 3 advanced with issues?

[crimsonwarlock]

I thought I've made it clear with the previous few post that the idea is to make VSTs larger, regardless of pixelation

Again, that is what windows already does, and it looks terrible. However, you expect Reason Studios to implement a horrendous looking option while they are in the process of making things look sharper. Yeah, that'll happen

[jam-s]

I thought I've made it clear with the previous few post that the idea is to make VSTs larger, regardless of pixelation

Again, that is what windows already does, and it looks terrible. However, you expect Reason Studios to implement a horrendous looking option while they are in the process of making things look sharper. Yeah, that'll happen

They could use some kind of AI upscaleing algorithm for this (I suppose they would have to train it themselves with lots of device images at various resolutions), but then people will complain that the VST scaling feature uses too much CPU. So I agree: it will most likely not happen (soon).
Another possibility might be to report a fake DPI setting to the sandboxed VST. This could possibly work but then of course it will be blurry.

[Loque]

They should sell it as an extra option or tool for 99$

[EnochLight]

I wonder if izotope has problems?

Anyone using ozone 8 advanced and neutron 3 advanced with issues?

I'm on iZotope Ozone 9 Advanced and Neutron 3 Advanced. Both of them scale fine on Windows in Reason.

[crimsonwarlock]

I don't see why any company would invest in developing tech for scaling other developers gui windows. New plugins and updated versions will all be scalable over time because the screens get higher pixel counts anyway. Older plugins that won't get updated, will fade out of usability pretty soon also because they are mostly written on the VST2 spec and Steinberg is on a mission to free the world from that VST version.

That also means that RS has to implement VST3 plugin compatibility, or they will lose the option to use plugins all together somewhere in the next few years.

[Billy+]

I wonder if izotope has problems?

Anyone using ozone 8 advanced and neutron 3 advanced with issues?

I'm on iZotope Ozone 9 Advanced and Neutron 3 Advanced. Both of them scale fine on Windows in Reason.

I'm still running ozone 8 as I didn't see the point in upgrading just yet, but thanks for the feedback.

[EnochLight]

I'm on iZotope Ozone 9 Advanced and Neutron 3 Advanced. Both of them scale fine on Windows in Reason.

I'm still running ozone 8 as I didn't see the point in upgrading just yet, but thanks for the feedback.

iZotope didn’t add GUI/UX scaling until Ozone 9, I’m afraid.

[Billy+]

I'm still running ozone 8 as I didn't see the point in upgrading just yet, but thanks for the feedback.

iZotope didn’t add GUI/UX scaling until Ozone 9, I’m afraid.

Yeah I get that but do the advanced modules in 8 look ok in R12 or do they suffer from the size problems?

[Faastwalker]

I don't see why any company would invest in developing tech for scaling other developers gui windows. New plugins and updated versions will all be scalable over time because the screens get higher pixel counts anyway. Older plugins that won't get updated, will fade out of usability pretty soon also because they are mostly written on the VST2 spec and Steinberg is on a mission to free the world from that VST version.

That also means that RS has to implement VST3 plugin compatibility, or they will lose the option to use plugins all together somewhere in the next few years.

This is how I see it as well. 100% agree. It’s sublime the way Reason incorporated VST. But I don’t see it’s their responsibility to make up for VST devs not offering scaling options for their plug-ins. I don’t use many VST’s. But the ones I do use have had scaling options forever (ImpOSCar 2, Arturia Buchla V). VST’s that don’t have scaling are going to look like postage stamps once we get to 8K displays. Nothing to do with Reason though. Also, yes RS need to pull their fingers out on VST3 support before this all largely becomes a moot point anyway.

[NMHindman]

How about this idea?...

What if they replaced the "navigator" pane on the rack with a "focus" pane. You could drag instruments you created in the rack over to the "Focus List" pane. This will maintain a list of devices you loaded into your rack that you want quick access to. There would be a picture of the the device with the patch name underneath it similar to what is in the browser. You could add/remove devices to the "focus" pane depending on what you happen to be working on at the time. Once you click on an item in your focus pane, it jumps to that device and zooms into it according to the project settings.

Very useful idea. It would make good use of the empty space below the navigator as well.

[loui]

We are currently testing a new Auto-scale implementation in the Reason beta. This feature allows the user to select which VSTs should follow Windows scaling, and which should have auto-scaling set to Off. Since all VSTs behave differently with Windows scaling we decided it's better to have an option to toggle auto-scaling On/Off on a VST-individual basis. In the Reason 12.2.4 beta, it defaults with auto-scale set to Off for all installed VSTs.

Read more about the new auto-scale implementation in our beta section.

If you wish to participate in the beta, please sign up here: https://www.reasonstudios.com/beta-test/signup and I will let you in.

Note, you are required to have a registered Reason 12 license, or a Reason+ subscription to run the R12 beta. If you have an older license, it will open in Demo mode as well.

/Loui