[Mike Rivers]

I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

[[email protected]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

Mike,

Tracktion is a VST host that is pretty straight forward, works well
and doesn't require any funny business. Another way is to put a directx
wrapper around VST dlls. Not all VST hosts are created equal. Expect
fooling around with some hosts to get VST running and still some
features may remain disabled or crash the system when used.

bobs

Bob Smith
BS Studios
we organize chaos
http://www.bsstudios.com

[James Scott]

Mike, dump Audacity and download Reaper, which is free and offers VST
support without the end user having to jump through hoops. Reaper also has a
more intuitive interface, in my opinion:

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/


"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

[jazznutz]

I agree Reaper is updating on a daily basis and does a large amount for
free.
Arthur
James Scott wrote:
Mike, dump Audacity and download Reaper, which is free and offers VST
support without the end user having to jump through hoops. Reaper also has a
more intuitive interface, in my opinion:

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/


"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

[James Scott]

More importantly, I forgot to add that Inspector runs fine under Reaper.


"James Scott" wrote in message
...
Mike, dump Audacity and download Reaper, which is free and offers VST
support without the end user having to jump through hoops. Reaper also has
a more intuitive interface, in my opinion:

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/


"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

[Nick Brown]

Mike,

I'm not an Audacity user, but my impression is that the wording you've
seen is targeted at software developers rather than users - there's no
reason to download the source for anything unless you're intending to
compile it yourself.

This thread on the audacity users mailing list appears to confirm this:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.a...024/focus=3027

HTH,
Nick


Mike Rivers wrote:
I've never used a VST plug-in before (at least not to my knowledge) but
I thought I'd try playinng around with Roger Nichols' Inspector. I
figured that Audacity was the most simple-minded program I use that I
could try it with.

Audacity has a "VST Enabler" dll which I downloaded and installed per
the instructions. But the fine print from the Audacity web page says:

"Because of licensing issues, VST support must be kept separate from
Audacity. This "VST Enabler" is mostly open-source, but the source code
to Steinberg's VST SDK is required, and this must be downloaded from
Steinberg separately."

Duh??? OK, I understand the words, but I don't understand what to
download from Steinberg and what to do with it when I download it.
There's no evidence that Audacity knows anything about a VST plug-in at
this point, so I guess I really need the Steinberg code.

Can someone tell me what to do next?

[Richard Smol]

James Scott wrote:
Mike, dump Audacity and download Reaper, which is free and offers VST
support without the end user having to jump through hoops. Reaper also has a
more intuitive interface, in my opinion:

Too bad it crashes like a mofo whenever I try something more elaborate,
like, editing MIDI. It also lacks ReWire support.

RS

[James Scott]

"Richard Smol" wrote in message
oups.com...

James Scott wrote:
Mike, dump Audacity and download Reaper, which is free and offers VST
support without the end user having to jump through hoops. Reaper also
has a
more intuitive interface, in my opinion:

Too bad it crashes like a mofo whenever I try something more elaborate,
like, editing MIDI. It also lacks ReWire support.

I haven't used it extensively, but it seems stable enough when using
Inspector, which is what Mike wanted. If this were for serious work, I doubt
he'd use a free DAW.

[Mike Rivers]

Nick Brown wrote:

I'm not an Audacity user, but my impression is that the wording you've
seen is targeted at software developers rather than users - there's no
reason to download the source for anything unless you're intending to
compile it yourself.

This thread on the audacity users mailing list appears to confirm this:

Thanks for the link. That's exactly what I did - put the VST
Enabler.dll in the Audacity\Plugins directory.

So maybe my question is more fundamental - How do I start the plug-in?
I used the installation tool that came with Inspector and it created
its own directory for its files (as expected). So how to I tell
Audacity to go there to look for the plug-in? Or do I need to copy
Inspectors's files into the Audacity folder? I'm a virgin here. I don't
have a clue and there are no instructions that I can find. I've tried
Reaper and didn't care for it, and it, too, crashed.

I just want something simple. I know there are some Audacity users
here. Why does everyone want me to change programs?

Oh, I know - it's Usenet. g

Perhaps I just don't know what to expect. The only thing I could think
of to do was to select the waveform, then look for a clue as to how to
engage a plug-in from the pull-down "Effects" menu.


Bob - I have Tracktion but I don't like it very much, plus it's crashed
on me when I actually tried to use it (never when I was just playing
around). And I tried

[Mike Rivers]

Mike Rivers wrote:

So how to I tell
Audacity to go there to look for the plug-in? Or do I need to copy
Inspectors's files into the Audacity folder? I'm a virgin here.

OK, did that, and now I can find Inspector on the Effects list, but I
don't see anything that looks remotely like what the plug-in's GUI is
supposed to look like. Is this what they mean by the "poor GUI" with
the VST enabler? I had guessed that means that the GUI for launching
the plug-in didn't look good, but that once the plug-in was launched,
it would look like it's supposed to look. Or maybe not??? Like I said,
I don't really know how these things are supposed to work. If it isn't
obvious, I guess I don't need it.

Maybe I'm just chasing something that isn't ready to work here. I'll
try using Inspector with Trackton to see if it looks like I expect it
to look.

[Mike Rivers]

jazznutz wrote:
I agree Reaper is updating on a daily basis

Wake me up when it's finished. g

[Nick Brown]

VST plugin GUIs come in two flavors. Simple plugins just declare a list
of parameters, and it's up to the host how those are presented to the
user - commonly just a row of sliders. There is no provision (that I'm
aware of) for giving visual feedback (like metering) to the user. That
sort are very rare these days; the second flavor of plugin is one which
supplies it's own GUI - the Inspector plugin will certainly be of this
kind.

Usually with a "whatever-to-VST" plugin adapter there's some button to
press which opens the plugin's own GUI in a new window. I wouldn't have
thought that VST Enabler would be very much use without that, but you
could be right - maybe it's not ready yet.

Come to think of it, last time I used such an adapter it was to get VST
plugins within Samplitude (probably about v5.9) - surely Sequoia has
decent VST support these days?

-Nick


Mike Rivers wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:

So how to I tell
Audacity to go there to look for the plug-in? Or do I need to copy
Inspectors's files into the Audacity folder? I'm a virgin here.

OK, did that, and now I can find Inspector on the Effects list, but I
don't see anything that looks remotely like what the plug-in's GUI is
supposed to look like. Is this what they mean by the "poor GUI" with
the VST enabler? I had guessed that means that the GUI for launching
the plug-in didn't look good, but that once the plug-in was launched,
it would look like it's supposed to look. Or maybe not??? Like I said,
I don't really know how these things are supposed to work. If it isn't
obvious, I guess I don't need it.

Maybe I'm just chasing something that isn't ready to work here. I'll
try using Inspector with Trackton to see if it looks like I expect it
to look.

[James Scott]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
oups.com...

jazznutz wrote:
I agree Reaper is updating on a daily basis

Wake me up when it's finished. g

Why? It's more complete than Audacity.

[Mike Rivers]

James Scott wrote:

Why? It's more complete than Audacity.

And this is a criteria? It does things I don't want to do. It doesn't
do things I want to do as easily as other programs. It crashes.

Please, let it go. I tried it, didn't want to use it. Just because it's
good for you doesn't mean it's good for me. Case closed.

[Mike Rivers]

Nick Brown wrote:

Usually with a "whatever-to-VST" plugin adapter there's some button to
press which opens the plugin's own GUI in a new window. I wouldn't have
thought that VST Enabler would be very much use without that, but you
could be right - maybe it's not ready yet.

Come to think of it, last time I used such an adapter it was to get VST
plugins within Samplitude (probably about v5.9) - surely Sequoia has
decent VST support these days?

It does. I was avoiding using Sequoia because that's on another
computer and I didn't want to muck things up over there, but I broke
down and gave it a try. Indeed, the Inspector user interface is there,
looking just like it's supposed to look.

I still feel like I'm in a video game haze with this, though - just had
to keep fooling around until I figured out what they wanted me to do.
As I said, I've never (knowingly) used a VST plug-in, and for sure
never installed one that wasn't part of a program. Much as I looked in
the Sequoia menus, the Sequoia help, and even the manual, I couldn't
find something that lets you tell it "Look for a plug-in here." I
copied the DLL into what seemed like a likely directory under Sequoia
and then was able to start it up with a little fumbling.

As I've said before, I'm not a very visual person (you don't have to be
sightless to be blind) and it might be right in front of me and I just
haven't seen the button. Trouble is that once I find it, I'll probably
forget where it is next time. g

Anyway, unless someone has Inspector running on Audacity and looking
like it's supposed to look, I'll just write this off as a lost cause.
I've had my look, and it's pretty neat. That's about all I wanted for
now.

[James Scott]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
oups.com...

James Scott wrote:

Why? It's more complete than Audacity.

And this is a criteria? It does things I don't want to do. It doesn't
do things I want to do as easily as other programs. It crashes.

Please, let it go. I tried it, didn't want to use it. Just because it's
good for you doesn't mean it's good for me. Case closed.

It's not a problem or anything, just wondering why you blew it off in light
of the bull**** you just went through with Audacity. No biggie though.

[Mike Rivers]

James Scott wrote:

It's not a problem or anything, just wondering why you blew it off in light
of the bull**** you just went through with Audacity. No biggie though.

I've been using Audacity on and off for a couple of years. I tried
Reaper when people first started talking about it (as an alternative to
Tracktion) on the Mackie forum, went through one or two updates, and
still didn't like it. So I blew it off long before now.

Not a problem or anything. I just didn't need Reaper's strong points,
and (other than working with a VST plug-in, which I only tried for the
first time yesterday) Audacity has been satisfactory for my
applications.

What I really need to do is get the update to Fast Edit so I can work
with 24-bit files and I can ditch Audacity.

[[email protected]]

Mike Rivers wrote:

Bob - I have Tracktion but I don't like it very much, plus it's crashed
on me when I actually tried to use it (never when I was just playing
around). And I tried

Mike,

I'm not real fond of the Tracktion user interface either, but that's
probably due to my preference for Cool Edit Pro. Tracktion was the only
program I could get the PowerCore Firewire DSP accelerator & Sony
Oxford VST plugins to run without crashing (BSOD) on my workstation
during serious work, source files hours in length, days of use.
Tracktion had come with an Onyx mixer acquired so it didn't cost me any
extra money. I have four VST hosts and they all behaved differently as
to stability, the way they exposed the plugin control interface, the
number of control interfaces that could be displayed simultaneously and
so on. For my situation I was informed that Nuendo would be the best
choice but I'm not in a hurry to spend another pile of money to move
away from Audition anytime soon. I get the feeling that VST Hosts and
plugins are still somewhat on the bleeding edge.

bobs

Bob Smith
BS Studios
we organize chaos
http://www.bsstudios.com

[Mike Rivers]

wrote:

I'm not real fond of the Tracktion user interface either, but that's
probably due to my preference for Cool Edit Pro. Tracktion was the only
program I could get the PowerCore Firewire DSP accelerator & Sony
Oxford VST plugins to run without crashing (BSOD) on my workstation
during serious work, source files hours in length, days of use.

I have four VST hosts and they all behaved differently as
to stability, the way they exposed the plugin control interface, the
number of control interfaces that could be displayed simultaneously and
so on.

What's wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this industry that
they call something a "standard" (VST) and then nobody standardizes
with it. I guess they have to get us new toys to play with so fast that
they don't take time to figure those things out.

For my situation I was informed that Nuendo would be the best
choice but I'm not in a hurry to spend another pile of money to move
away from Audition anytime soon.

Oh, THAT'S what's wrong with this industry - they need to keep getting
money out of you. g

I get the feeling that VST Hosts and
plugins are still somewhat on the bleeding edge.

Well, let's hope they get things sorted out before there's a new
"standard" and they all abandon VST - to which we'll probalby say
that's a good thing since it never ran the same on any two platforms.
Maybe ProTools has something going for it with RTAS. At least plug-ins
only have to be tested on one platform to be sure they work.

[RD Jones]

Mike Rivers wrote:

Anyway, unless someone has Inspector running on Audacity and looking
like it's supposed to look, I'll just write this off as a lost cause.
I've had my look, and it's pretty neat. That's about all I wanted for
now.

This seems to be a limitation with Steinberg's wanting to
maintain control over the use of VST's source code.
The Audacity site bears this out in stating that the recent
versions are a step backward in VST implementation. The
VSTs get a generic GUI. They should be fully functional,
just look different than expected.
I've noticed this in other programs as well when using
"third party" plugins.

Isn't open source great ? Audacity (etc) must really be
putting a dent in Steinberg's profits. ;-

rd

[[email protected]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
wrote:

I have four VST hosts and they all behaved differently as
to stability, the way they exposed the plugin control interface, the
number of control interfaces that could be displayed simultaneously and
so on.

What's wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this industry that
they call something a "standard" (VST) and then nobody standardizes
with it.

That's the nice thing about standards, so many to choose from and so
many versions and variants at any given hour of any given day.

For my situation I was informed that Nuendo would be the best
choice but I'm not in a hurry to spend another pile of money to move
away from Audition anytime soon.

Oh, THAT'S what's wrong with this industry - they need to keep getting
money out of you. g

Periodically I give Fletcher a pile of money for single instance only
analog plugins. They seem to work fine even without a DAW, do what
their supposed to with a minimum of fuss and the user interface is
usually simple enough, always displayed and stable. Only problem is the
amount of space they take up and electricity used collectively when
many plugins are employed simultaneously. I'm still drooling for a Dan
Kennedy Great River EQ plugin someday.

bobs

Bob Smith
BS Studios
we organize chaos
http://www.bsstudios.com

[Citizen Ted]

On 31 Jul 2006 15:06:19 -0700, "Mike Rivers"
wrote:


Can someone tell me what to do next?

Yeah! Dump Audacity and use Kristal Audio Engine:
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

It's been around for years, has a great feature set, is ultra-easy to
use and supports VST and ASIO very well.

It's not my preferred app, but I recommend it regularly to folks
looking for a simple freeware audio editing app.

Try it!

- TR

[Mike Rivers]

Citizen Ted wrote:

Yeah! Dump Audacity and use Kristal Audio Engine:
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Geez, I don't know why I tolerate this nonsense, but having nothing
better to do for an hour, I downloaded and installed the program.
Fumbling through the minimal documentation, it seemed to work fine
(including displaying Inspector) on my "desktop" computer with some
dumb AC97 sound card. But when I installed it on the "serious audio
computer" (the famous Dell laptop that I still haven't replaced) and
tried to use it with the Digigram VX Pocket card, it wasn't very well
behaved.

It recorded, but the transport time code display didn't run, and it
didn't seem to recognize the Digigram ASIO driver properly. It would
monitor - an ASIO-only feature - but I couldn't turn it off.

Hour up, it's outa here.

Nice try, though. I'll stick with analog for another 20 years, and then
I'll probably be dead or deaf.

[Misifus]

Mike Rivers wrote:


Anyway, unless someone has Inspector running on Audacity and looking
like it's supposed to look, I'll just write this off as a lost cause.
I've had my look, and it's pretty neat. That's about all I wanted for
now.



Mike, this may not help, but I use Audacity and I just downloaded a new
VST plugin and it works fine. I did download and install the VST
enabler. When I downloaded the plugin (Ambiance from Magnus at
smartelectronix) it came with very specific directions as to where to
put the plugin. I did that and it worked fine.

However, that may be of limited help to you because I use Mac. If you
think it would help, I'll post the details.

-Raf

--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert

blog: http://rafsrincon.blogspot.com/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com

[Misifus]

RD Jones wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:

Anyway, unless someone has Inspector running on Audacity and looking
like it's supposed to look, I'll just write this off as a lost cause.
I've had my look, and it's pretty neat. That's about all I wanted for
now.

This seems to be a limitation with Steinberg's wanting to
maintain control over the use of VST's source code.
The Audacity site bears this out in stating that the recent
versions are a step backward in VST implementation. The
VSTs get a generic GUI. They should be fully functional,
just look different than expected.
I've noticed this in other programs as well when using
"third party" plugins.

Isn't open source great ? Audacity (etc) must really be
putting a dent in Steinberg's profits. ;-

rd



Oh, yeah, it's a very plain jane interface - doesn't look anything like
the slick GUI on the website.

-Raf

--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert

blog: http://rafsrincon.blogspot.com/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com

[Romeo Rondeau]

Hour up, it's outa here.

Nice try, though. I'll stick with analog for another 20 years, and then
I'll probably be dead or deaf.

Or you could use a real application instead of the ****ty free stuff... :-)
BTW, would you ever use a 2" 24-track that the company gives out for free?

[Mike Rivers]

Romeo Rondeau wrote:

Or you could use a real application instead of the ****ty free stuff... :-)

No money to be made playing with this plug-in, so no money is budgeted
for a "real" application.

BTW, would you ever use a 2" 24-track that the company gives out for free?

Well, I did use a 2" 16-track that the company (our local public TV
station) gave me for free. Since I didn't have a way to carry it home
whole, I had to disassemble it there and leave the rack chassis behind
(someone from the station took it home to use for his church's sound
system) and I used it as a source of spare parts.

[Scott Dorsey]

Romeo Rondeau wrote:
Hour up, it's outa here.

Nice try, though. I'll stick with analog for another 20 years, and then
I'll probably be dead or deaf.

Or you could use a real application instead of the ****ty free stuff... :-)
BTW, would you ever use a 2" 24-track that the company gives out for free?

I think Quantegy is coming close to that. It's like the razors that are
free... you still have to pay for the blades.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Romeo Rondeau]

BTW, would you ever use a 2" 24-track that the company gives out for
free?

Perhaps. We just got one for free and it'll cost $500 to wire up and
$500 for a short calibration tape. Tape's $200 a reel. Someone could
make money that way.

Kinda like ProTools! :-) Buy the hardware and the software is free...