New to VST plugins

bStro wrote on 8/22/2006, 12:03 PM
Up until recently, I've completely avoided even touching any kind of audio tools in Vegas (ironic, given its history). Not because I didn't think audio is important, but just because a) I'm rather audio-stupid and b) most of my projects have only involved one audio track made up of audio that was already "as needed."

At any rate, I figured I should get to know these tools, and one thing I wanted to start playing around with was the use of VST plugins. (Remember, I'm audio-stupid, so I've only dabbled with VST, and not yet in Vegas.) So I downloaded a bunch of them the other day, dropped them into the VSTplugins folder, and....only two of them will even show up in Vegas. Does Vegas have specific requirements for what it will recognize, or is it common to have to do anything special to make it do so? Refreshing the list didn't help, nor did exiting and re-opening Vegas.

Among other places, I downloaded some from this site. In particular, some of the ones I tried that won't work are Karnage and AnalogX. Granted, I'm sure folks here can recommend similar plugins they prefer, but I'm just trying to figure out if the ones I got should work, and if not why not.

Thanks,
Rob

Comments

MarkWWWW wrote on 8/23/2006, 5:53 AM
The reason that neither of the plugins you mentioned (Karnage and AnalogX) will work for you in Vegas is that aren't actually VST plugins. Karnage is actually a VSTi plugin, a related but distinct kind of plugin used to implement virtual instruments rather than virtual FX. And the AnalogX Arpeggiator isn't a VST plugin at all, it is actually a DirectX plugin.

VST plugins process pure audio data and can be used with Vegas just fine. VSTi plugins use MIDI data (possibly as well as audio data) to produce audio (or sometimes just to modify the MIDI data) and because Vegas doesn't deal with MIDI at all VSTi plugins cannot be used with Vegas. There is a similar distinction between DirectX plugins and DXi plugins - Vegas will support DirectX plugins but not DXi plugins.

As you've discovered, the descriptions of some plugins do not make clear whether the item in question is a VST or a VSTi plugin (or even a DirextX plugin), so if you are new to this kind of thing it can be easy to get misled. As a general rule of thumb, if the item in question is a pure audio plugin (typically an FX processor) the it will probably be implemented as a VST (or DirectX) plugin and it should be usable with Vegas, but if it has anything to do with MIDI data then it will be implemented as a VSTi (or DXi) plugin (typically a virtual instrument) and it will definitely not be usable with Vegas.

You should be able to use the AnalogX Arpegiator with Vegas, but you will need to install it as a DirectX effect, not a VST effect. Remove the executable file from the VST plugins folder and put it somewhere safe temporarily. Then double click on it to start the DirectX installation process. Once it is installed it should appear on the effects list in Vegas.

If you have Acid Music Studio 6 or better still Acid Pro 6 then you may be able to use the Karnage VSTi plugin in Acid which, because it deals with MIDI data, can also use plugins implemented as VSTi (though it can't use DXi instruments for some reason, perhaps because they are less common and almost everything available as a DXi is also available in VSTi form anyway).

Mark

bStro wrote on 8/23/2006, 6:51 AM
Understood now. Thanks for clearing that up, Mark. I'll install the DirectX plugins the proper way and nose around for something else to access the VSTi ones (I've used Acid Express as well as a couple other programs like it in the past). And, of course, I'll look around for some pure VST plugins.

Thanks again!

Rob