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Old 01-24-2020, 11:19 AM   #1
Nonlinear
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Default VST3 plugins on Windows should be "folders"?

Someone on another forum brought this to my attention RE vst3 plugins: https://steinbergmedia.github.io/vst...s/vst3loc.html

This is complete news to me. I have always built VST/VST3 plugins as a single consolidated FILE - not a folder. The only time I have seen plugins as folders is on Mac where they are built as "components".

IPlug does not generate plugins as "folders" for Windows, AFAIK, so what is this about? All of my plugins for PC are one consolidated .vst/.vst3 file. Nothing else required. But according to this Steinberg link that is OLD SCHOOL/deprecated.

I have hundreds of VST and VST3 plugins on my system. All of them are "files". I don't see any "folders.vst3". Their installers may have set up a folder containing presets, manuals, etc., but the plugin itself is a "file".

So now I'm confused. Can someone enlighten me?
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Old 01-24-2020, 01:54 PM   #2
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Distributing the VST3 plugins as folders is Steinberg's new "recommended" way to do things now. But as usual, I don't think it has been that widely adopted by developers. At least Steinberg's own VST3 "MDA plugins" plugin example builds into a folder, though. (All other, over 50, VST3 plugins I have on my Windows system are just the .vst3 file, which is just a .dll file in disguise.)
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Old 01-24-2020, 02:54 PM   #3
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Distributing the VST3 plugins as folders is Steinberg's new "recommended" way to do things now. But as usual, I don't think it has been that widely adopted by developers.
Yes, I have hundreds of plugins on my machine and NONE of them are "folders".

This doesn't even make sense to me. How do you put a .vst3 "file extension" on a folder? Folders in Windows don't have extensions - at least I've never seen it!
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Old 01-24-2020, 03:16 PM   #4
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This doesn't even make sense to me. How do you put a .vst3 "file extension" on a folder? Folders in Windows don't have extensions - at least I've never seen it!
The folder is just named like "MyPlugin.vst3". (Windows has no problems with that.) The actual .vst3 binary file and some other files will be inside that.
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Old 01-24-2020, 05:57 PM   #5
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The folder is just named like "MyPlugin.vst3". (Windows has no problems with that.) The actual .vst3 binary file and some other files will be inside that.
Wow, OK. I didn’t know that. I don’t think I have any folders on my PC with dot anything suffixes.

Now, if you distribute a VST3 plugin like this will all DAWs read it - or just Steinberg DAWs?
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Old 01-24-2020, 06:16 PM   #6
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W
Now, if you distribute a VST3 plugin like this will all DAWs read it - or just Steinberg DAWs?
Reaper and Ableton Live 10.1 scan and load the Steinberg MDA-plugins example plugin just fine. (Note that there probably isn't any point to do the folder thing unless you have some really good reason to do it.)
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Old 01-25-2020, 04:52 AM   #7
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iPlug2 is doing these folders. Haven't found any host yet that wont read it, but annoyingly I noticed BitWig displays the "bundle" hierarchy in its browser insead of just plugin name
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Old 01-25-2020, 05:01 AM   #8
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I'm grabbing .vst3 file from folder and distributing only this.

All DAWs can read it. (At least, i tried with Cubase, Reaper. But non of users told that there is issue about reading/loading my .vst3 in their DAWs). So, no need whole folder.

But this is about IPlug1. Didn't try with IPlug2.
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Old 01-25-2020, 08:37 AM   #9
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iPlug2 is doing these folders. Haven't found any host yet that wont read it, but annoyingly I noticed BitWig displays the "bundle" hierarchy in its browser insead of just plugin name
That’s the kind of thing I was afraid of with this “folder” approach - not all DAWs likely support it or support it as intended (have enough trouble in that regard with VST3 format itself).

Seems Steinberg’s goal here is to make VST3 plugins on PC look like “components” on Mac. I don’t like the idea as it exposes separate parts of your plugins (graphics files, etc) for easy “borrowing” by others. With all the new security push by Apple in Catalina this seems like a backward step by Steinberg for PC. What’s the advantage?
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Old 01-25-2020, 11:03 AM   #10
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The advantage is that a single vst package can contain binaries for multiple architectures, and the resources can be shared so it doesn't bloat the installer download.
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