This article describes an advanced solution for organising 32- and 64-bit plug-ins in different folders. This approach can help increasing the overall stability and avoiding conflicts between different plug-in types as much as possible.
Basic information on using 32-bit plug-ins on 64-bit systems can be found in this article...
The separated organisation of plug-ins is mainly applicable on Windows systems. Since the 32- and 64-bit versions of Cubase under Mac OS X share the same preferences folder, it is very elaborate to manage different folders for the two "Bit Modes" of Cubase on a Mac.
In general, it is recommendable to separate the different plug-in types by using three dedicated VST plug-in folders:
| Plug-in Folder Path | Plug-in Folder Content | scanned by |
| *Your Path*\VST Plug-ins | 64-bit plug-ins only | Cubase 64-bit only |
| *Your Path*\VST Plug-ins (bridged) | bridged 32-bit plug-ins only | Cubase 64- & 32-bit |
| *Your Path*\VST Plug-ins (x86) | 32-bit plug-ins only Can be omitted on systems which are fully 64-bit where a few 32-bit plug-ins will be bridged. |
Cubase 32-bit only |
As the chart is showing, Cubase 64-bit will need to scan the VST Plugins and VST Plugins (bridged) folders only.
If Cubase 32-bit is also present and in use, it will need to scan the VST Plugins (x86) and VST Plugins (bridged) folders.
In Cubase, you can specify the scanned locations under "Devices" > "Plug-ins manager"("former plug-ins informations" > "VST 2.x paths".
In this way, each version of Cubase installed on the system will only access the needed plug-ins, avoiding compatibility problems when carefully set up.
If you also use an older version of Cubase, it might have problems with newer builds of the plug-ins. In this case, it might be a good idea to transfer the older plug-in versions to a "VST Plug-ins (Legacy)" folder, which is only scanned by the older Cubase version.
Specific settings for jBridge
If using jBridge, it is wise to use an additional folder.
"VST Plugins (bridge)" will only contain the original 32-bit version which jBridge will use to create the .64 files in "VST Plugins (jBridge)".
IMPORTANT: In this case, the "VST Plugins (bridged)", folder must be hidden to Cubase 64-bit, which will scan "VST Plugins (jBridge)".