Hi there,

I'm looking for hiring a reverse engineer who knows about Win dll's, Universal Binary and audio plugins.

I desperately need a 32 bits legacy Windows VST audio plugin to work within Logic Pro X on Mac (AU 64 bits).
This plugin is a 2000 one: Quadrafuzz (v1), a multiband fuzz machine.

It has been made available to the community for free as is, and there is absolutely zero chances to see it updated in the future.
It has been replaced with Quadrafuzz 2, which is a totally different beast, despite the name.
It works ok if you are looking for a fuzz machine with an overall same vibe for your future productions but it is totally unable to replicate a specific QF1 preset and that's what I need.
My goal is to resurrect and use an old drum sound of mine in my future (amateur) productions and I need it to sound exactly the same than it did...in real time (so I need the plugin processing in real time ONE specific preset I used to use back in those days, not just a render of its sound).

I tried to use Wine so that I can run an old Windows DAW in the background and route the audio signal there but I need this plugin to process a rhythmic section, however, with signal routing I get some inevitable latency (delays at worst and dephasing at best).

So, it seems that I must find someone who would be able to reverse engineer this small and simple plugin (not protected in any way), to make it work natively inside a DAW that accepts AU plugins in 64 bits only.

I called a plugin developper and here is his assessment, which confirms my initial hunch:

" The first way (Wine) is probably much easier, but maybe less stable/reliable, or might not work at all.
The second way is to load the DLL into a a disassembler, like IDA Pro, and finding the machine instructions that process the audio. Then translating those instructions into C++ and compiling the C++ code on Mac. The audio processing is probably not very complex (for such an old plugin), so the main challenge would be to find where it is."

So I need someone savvy enough to do exactly that:

1) Convert a win ".dll" to a OSX ".component" one.
2) Make it 64 bits (this part can be done already with some available software but your mileage may vary according to the plugin. It might work...or not).

Of course, I would pay for this its fair price, as long as it is affordable for someone who would pay with his own dime (I'm not working for a company or anything).

PS: I don't care what must be done with the plugin afterward. If the cracker estimates it should be given to the community, so be it. If s/he consider it should remain private, it will be. Just know that this plugin is very very very respected and loads of people are regretting its disappearance. Comments online about it being usable in modern DAW's are all over the place. It might be a cool and rewarding thing to have it released, I don't know and it will not be up to me.
All I need is that plugin to work in my DAW because I really need it.

PPS: I tried to find an alternative plugin for three weeks now, night and day, and I’m pretty sure I tried all the distortion, saturation, overdrive, fuzz plugins available out there (free ones, demos and even commercial ones) and none of them were able to replicate that sound. Reverse engineering seems the only way to go.

If you know how to do this or if you know someone reliable to do this, I'm all ears.
There are plenty of crackers out there but just picking one through Google is the best way to be conned.
This is why I came here specifically and asked openly, so that people can evaluate anyone's credibility/reliability and guide me through this.

Thank you for your help.

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2018

you have no idea...
simply put, you'll only have to look for the VST processing function(s) (see VST SDK for details)

 

You are totally right, I have no idea. And I'm very aware of it.
That is exactly why I want to hire someone who knows his/her stuff
And you seem to do! Interested maybe?

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2018

Why? you telling me that there is no plugin for mac you can use? what alot of effort to write all that message,

 

I put a lot of effort writing it because I wanted it to be comprehensive, because I'm serious about my request and because I made my research prior to posting. And, I have to admit, because I'm not a native English speaker and working around a language you don't master implies that you write way more than needed to compensate the lack of precision
(this last sentence alone is proof of my claim, lol).

And your question has been answered in my original message. This is how comprehensive it is ;-)
Let me elaborate:

No plugin does what QF did and I tried everything I could for weeks. So yes, I'm telling you. I don't need something "similar", I need to reproduce exactly the sound I had before. For a reason:
The plugin was originally set on a drum aux channel which was severely EQ'd in the low end. Unprcessed it's just a low rumble that you get to hear on that channel. Despite that, QF was amazingly able to get some crisp and high pitched harmonics out of it. No other plugin I know of can reproduce that. At least the way QF does it.
Moreover, QF is a multi band crusher. It mixes saturation, fuzz, distortion and overdrive in a unique way. And the way it uses cutoff's between its 4 frequency bands is unique. To make it harder, the process is undocumented so you just don't know how it works in the background and how it mixes all those parameters internally.
That said, the trickier part is coming:
This is only the middle part of the entire audio processing of my drums, which means that the second half is build on top of this QF processing. So, if I don't get this exact preset I used to use, the end result would be totally different.
Otherwise, I wouldn't bother asking and willing to spend money on this.
I would even pay someone who would be able to reproduce that QF preset with any other plugin that would work on Logic Pro X. I don't care as I just need to get there one way or another. But I'm pretty sure it's a dead end because you wouldn't believe how much I tried.

I hope I clarified that point and answered your question in a more comprehensive way.
If I haven't found the right amount of words, I'm sorry.
My priority was to make myself cristal clear in my request.

Thank you for your interest.

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2018

Quadrafuzz is an amazing plugin. It should be resurrected by Steinberg. I don't get it why they had to abandon it?
I was looking for it for a while and I read many suggestion about alternatives but nothing comes close to it.

 

Exactly! Even though I understand how hard it is to believe that nothing else could achieve what it does....until you tried (a gazillion times).

 

get a windows pc with gigabit ethernet connection and install Vienna Ensemble Pro, in it you can run your old plugin.
Get the free Vienna Ensemble Pro plugin for mac. This way you can run your windows vst via VEP in your DAW on mac.

 

Thank you for your advice!

However, I've been there and tried that already.
As described above a problem occurs very quickly: you either get a delay or at least your processing becomes out of phase with the rest of the mix. This is due to the fact that it's a rhythmic section which is very sensitive to low latencies. The smallest phase offset is very perceptible. Which means, it has to be processed internally from within the DAW itself.

Drums are so sensitive to this that even the built-in Logic Pro EQ, which is quite heavy, is enough to create an audible phase offset on drums when inserted in an AUX channel.

Here is a discussion about VEP, as an illustration:

https://www.vsl.co.at/community/posts/t42325-Logic-Pro-X-and-VEP6-Latency-Compensation-Issues#post255280

Basically, using VEP has the same pro's and con's than using a wine bottle within Mac itself and route internally your Mac DAW to a Win DAW. With more latency. It is only valuable if you want to optimize your ressources, not that much if you want to keep your latency contained.

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2018

Quadrafuzz V.2 ins't bad and sounds amazing as well and has lots of features. The only problem is it's exclusive to Cubase and Nuendo.

 

Yes, you mentioned latency issues and clearly using another computer via network could increase latency but I thought (with no further knowledge) that VEP has some kind of latency compensation method. I don't know this plugin you mentioned, so my questions might sound amateur but isn't there a way to freeze a track, either on the mac side or even inside VEP on pc with Reaper? This way you could fix the latency issue later.

 

Of course, it's a possibility, but in my own personal use case, it is not relevant because I need to process the drums in real time.

 

Yes, it's a cool plugin, you are right, and If I had Cubase (which I could), I would probably use it for other stuff. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a 1:1 match with QF1 presets ans sound. It is inspired by QF1 but it is not a new version of QF1.
Otherwise, it's definitely cool.

 

I didn't know that. I thought it was an advanced version of the same plugin. Good to know. I wish I took the chance to trade in my Pro Tools 12 license for Cubase 8.5 in 2016 when some company had that deal. I will still do today if I have the chance.

sorry for the off topic rant

 

No rant whatsoever, just a constructive debate. Thanks!

 

I value all of your answers, thank you guys.
But, obviously, this seems to be more of a "let's find a workaround" than "let's find a skilled guy to hire" kind of development.
According to the nature of the forum, it makes totally sense (so I'm not complaining at all).

Do you have any idea where I can have the most chances of finding a skilled guy for hiring while minimizing my chances of being conned?
There are script kiddies all over the place out there and it's not very engaging to ask for hiring someone in forums where everything else revolves around conning people and getting people FB accesses or email passwords...

Reliability is the key here and genuine white hat crackers who know about Win, OSX and audio plugins at the same time are not easy to spot.

PS: I even posted an ad on the very official guru.com just to see where it would lead me to and all I got is an Indian web designer (not even a web developper) who assured me he could do that with his... web designer's skills for 150$ (paid upfront of course). Right...
I am a professional web developper for 15 years and I still don't have a clue.

Thank you.

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2018