Audio plugin notes

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Audio effects are usually fairly CPU hungry, so there is a limit to how many you can run concurrently in a particular project, before you run out of CPU power and the sound goes terribly crunchy due to never being on time anymore.

If you are using it for just a drumkit and piano and one or two effects, most anything will do.

But if you're recreating a complex modular synth with dozens of instruments and even more effects, you can bring any computer to its knees.

Types

• VST

started as being specific to Cubase, but but is now the main type on PC, and supported to a degree under OSX and linux as well.

• Audio Units (which fits their Core Audio)

similar enough to VST that you can get wrappers

• LADSPA [1]

linux

• LV2 (LDASPA version 2) [2]

linux

• DSSI [3]

linux

basically the instrument part to the audio-geared LADSPA/LV2

• CLAP [4] [5]

Some are DAW-specific, like

RTAS (Real-Time Audio Suite)

specific to Pro Tools (no longer suppoted since 11)

AAX (Avid Audio eXtension)

specific to Pro Tools (since 10, replacement for RTAS)

Also relevant:

• Nyquist [6]

lisp-ish audio programming language

• VAMP [7]

• DISTRHO[8] is an open-source project that builds VST and LV2, and sometimes also LADSPA and DSSI

VST notes

VST (Virtual Studio Technology) is intended as a pluggable system of audio effects transforms/filters (audio input, audio output), and also instruments (audio output only) (sometimes indicated as VSTi).

Software that can use them is known as a VST host. Many VST hosts are (simpler or fancier) DAWs, though note that if you need little more than taping some effects together and playing MIDI, there are cheap and free options.

VST2 versus VST3

VST3 adds

• sleeping when there is no input signal

...on the host side, so that this is no longer each plugin's reponsibility (verify)

• runtime change of channels

making it easier to do side-chains, surround, and sometimes configuration of such.

• audio to VST instruments

(why? So that it can be both effect and instrument at the same time?)

• more interaction than MIDI

also allowing for more precise expression than MIDI, and more precise automation

• multiple MIDI inputs

Plus a lot of myths. For example, actively working plugins will not be more efficient now. That's almost fully on plugin implementation.

The differences are mostly functional, in ways you might care about in specific soft-synth applications, but not in a lot of others.

Some DAWs may be aimed at one or the other.

Plugin developers may choose to give you both VST2 and VST3 versions for a bit more flexibility around these edge cases, though generally there will be little difference between those,

And most DAWs will support both fine. In theory an all-VST3 setup may be a little easier to deal with, but in practice, most will support both fine, and there is very little end difference.

So VST2 is typically perfectly fine - and is probably a little easier to implement.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/VST-vs-VST3-Plugins-m3363634.aspx

Development

Steinberg has SDKs for VST and VST3:

• https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developers.html

VST and licensing

Dual licensing.

https://developer.steinberg.help/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=9797946