Hey folks,
this is a crucial info to be aware of once you get into freshly released Melda Plugins version 16:

V16 plugins keep backwards compatibility is intact, however note that there is a new optimized storage system using a new format.

• If you save projects with the new version, old versions won't be able to read the settings.
• If you'd need to downgrade for any reason, first go to "Settings / Compatibility settings" and enable "Storage compatibility mode for V15", then save the settings.

source: https://www.meldaproduction.com/release-notes/16

and full v16.00 changelog: https://www.meldaproduction.com/changes/#changes-16.00
notably:

Also note that V16 no longer provides 32-bit plugins on Windows. You should be able to run V15 32-bit along with V16 though. Simply do not uninstall V15 and do not perform plugin cleanup.

 

This kind of thing is likely to cause a real (for once justified) repulsion to its plugins. Too bad... I hope he has thought long and hard about such a decision. I've used for years many of his plugins (some even expensive) and I'm not really happy about shuddering at the thought of possibly losing my old project history.

 

It's clicking one box in the settings of any Melda plugin and you have backwards compatibility in all of them (I'm pretty sure it'll be at the global settings, like the theme and FPS)
Really that big of a deal?

 

I was afraid to update. But if it's that easy, of course there's no problem. I love his plugins and it saddened me to think of doing without them.

 

I thought the reason was in the OP post but it isn't, which perhaps makes it look worse than it is. It is though in the release notes of Melda's site.

The change is because there's an improved new system to save data. Who knows, smaller size, whatever...
They keep the legacy option to avoid crashing old projects.

BTW, excited to test the new guitar plugins, MTurboAmp and MGuitarArchitect

 

This seems pretty similar to other major version updates. I installed on my laptop (secondary machine), and even with uninstalling the previous version all my presets (in the plugins, and Reaper menu) were intact. Still holding off on my main machine but don't think it's a huge deal.