User Manual

AUDIO EFFECTS PROCESSING
876
logged in. This allows you to maintain different sets
of Digital Performer plug-ins in multi-user
environments.
■ Never duplicate a plug-in across the system and
user directories (although you could duplicate a
plug-in across multiple user directories, since only
one user directory is active at a time).
■ You can organize plug-ins into folders, as
explained in the next section.
WORKING WITH VST AND AUDIO UNIT
PLUG-INS
Digital Performer can host VST plug-ins (VST2 or
VST3) on both Mac and Windows, and Audio Unit
(AU) plug-ins on MacOS. The VST and AU specifi-
cations are a plug-in standards that are widely
adopted by music and audio software developers.
You can install VSTs and AUs on your computer,
and use them from within Digital Performer or
other host applications that support them.
Installing VSTs and AUs
Digital Performer looks for VST and AU plug-ins in
these locations on your computer’s hard drive:
*If you are running the 32-bit version of DP on a
64-bit Windows system, the root of the path is:
C:\Program Files (x86).
For MacOS, the user library directory refers to the
user who is currently logged in to Mac OS X. If AU
plug-ins are installed into the user library
directory, they are installed for the user who is
currently logged in to Mac OS X at the time of
installation.
Third-party plug-in compatibility
Audio plug-in specifications continue to evolve,
and developers are modifying and improving their
plug-ins on an on-going basis to conform to each
specification as it develops. MOTU has worked
closely with many developers to ensure
compatibility and smooth performance. Always
try to stay current with the latest versions of the
plug-ins you use.
Plug-in examination
When you run Digital Performer for the first time,
or after installing one or more new plug-ins, DP
examines them during the loading process,
checking them for problems. On MacOS, DP will
first ask you to choose a primary external plug-in
format (VST2, VST3 or AU) to examine and use as
your preferred format (see “Primary external plug-
in format (Mac only)” on page 879). This process
may take a few minutes, depending on the nature
and quantity of the plug-ins installed in your
system. Each plug-in is examined only once, the
first time it is loaded by Digital Performer. On
subsequent launches, plug-ins that have already
been examined will not be examined again. If a
problem is detected with a particular plug-in, it
will not be loaded for use in DP to prevent crashing
and other serious problems.
You can choose to skip the examination of a
particular plug-in, in which case it is not loaded
and will not be available for use in that particular
Platform Format Path
MacOS AU Startup disk/Users/Current user/
Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components
and
Startup disk/Library/Audio/
Plug-ins/Components
MacOS VST2
VST3
Startup disk/Users/Current user/
Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST
and
Startup disk/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST
Win-
dows*
VST2
VST3
C:\Program files\Vstplug-ins\
and
C:\Program files\Steinberg\VstPlugins\
and
C:\Program files\Common Files\VST2
or
C:\Program files\Common Files\VST3