How to change default VST search folder?

vivona wrote on 12/23/2006, 7:52 PM
When I installed Vegas Movie Studio 6.0 it picked up my then current VST folder which was in the program folder of an audio application. I have since then created a separate folder for VST effects so they won't be tied to any one application and moved all the VST .dll's there. I have pointed all my audio applications to the new location and they have all worked fine.

In Movie Studio, when I go to Options> Preferences> VST Effects I could see the old path in the Default VST Search Folder box, but it was grayed out and I could not change it. I did a registry search and found an entry for Movie Studio that pointed to the old folder and edited that registry key to list the new VST folder location. Now I see the new folder in the Default VST Search Folder box, but Movie Studio still does not load the VST effects. Only by entering the path in the box for Alternate VST Search Folder 1 can I get my VST effects to appear again in Movie Studio.

How can I get Movie Studio to load the VST effects without having to add the path as Alternate VST Search Folder 1?

Comments

vivona wrote on 1/3/2007, 2:14 PM
Seems nobody knows the answer...

Sony support told me to go to Options> Preferences> VST Effects even though I told them I had tried that and the Default VST Search Folder box was grayed out. (Does Sony support actually read the support questions?)

I was hoping someone else had encountered this problem and had already figured out the answer. My guess is that is is buried in registry.
jtfrazer wrote on 1/3/2007, 5:05 PM
Hi,

I wonder if an uninstall of VMS followed by a reinstall would do the trick? It probably depends on whether the uninstall cleans up the registry and the new install does a new search for the VST folder.

Good luck!

Jim
vivona wrote on 1/7/2007, 5:15 AM
Vegas support also recommended an uninstall and reinstall along with deleteing all references to VMS in the registry. It would seem that just a registry edit to change the VST path would be much quicker, but Sony did not provide that info. I did a search of registry and did find a VST path for VMS and changed it and now the correct VST path shows grayed out as the Default VST Folder in Options, but that still does not make the VST plugins appear when selecting effects.

Since a reinstallation will delete all user settings and preferences, I would rather not do that. By putting the new VST path in as "Alternate VST Search Folder 1" I can then get my VST effects back. That will be my workaround for now.
vivona wrote on 1/8/2007, 7:12 AM
After giving it some thought, I decided to try a registry fix. It didn't make sense to me to do a complete uninstall and reinstall of Vegas Movie Studio just to get a registry entry changed, so I did my own research of registry entries and modified the entry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Media Software\Vegas Movie Studio\6.0\Metrics\VstCache\SearchPaths\Path 1. To get the correct registry entry, I entered the correct path as Alternate VST Search Folder 1 in VMS which showed up as Path 2 in registry, then copied the Path 2 registry information into the registry entry for Path 1. I then deleted the entry for Alternate VST Search Folder 1 in VMS. That worked fine and now VMS loads with the correct VST path as the Default VST Search Folder.