yeh, seems like you do now. (then europol/facebook/etc.
watch your every move)eh, whatever, it's free plugins.

boo.

Do you guys need someone to host these VSTs? I have tons of bandwidth if we want to setup an archive.

I'm also assuming everything is freeware and the former developers have abandoned the projects

Hi Oktipus,

Welcome to the thread.
Interesting proposal but I don't know where to start. So I'll start with how I look at things here.

Whilst the vast majority of gear on this thread is or was free, rights of distribution remain with the dev in most cases, which is why mostly the links are to active sites or the web.archive.org.
Some devs gave permission to redistribute their plugins when they published them and a lot of devs have been contacted (not just through this thread) and kindly given permission to share. Some drop in from time to time and actually offer them freely.

I would imagine a very large proportion of the links still work, so if anyone is starting from the beginning of the thread and downloading it all, they will end up with a substantial amount of acquisitions. Some of the links may need a bit of digging around due to slight changes in address but mostly they work fine.

With all that in mind, I have no idea how much stuff is out there that might find a home with some dedicated hosting. But where necessary, seeking permissions is fairly straightforward, you either receive it or you don't. I certainly think it can be built up over time into a useful archive.

At this point as I'm a new kid on the block, I'll let others step in and explore your proposal.

And before I go, I'd like to thank all the devs and contributors who have turned this thread into the colossus that it is.

Ain't that the truth...

(and talking of starting insane time-consuming projects...)

Hi Oktipus,
it could be an idea to have a 'private' archive - for the purposes of
This Thread - somewhere. eg: not for free public access, if that makes
any sense: solely for purpose of catalogue, and providing stuff subject
to author agreement when necessary. (er, who manages that, and sifts all
incoming contributions is another matter, lol...not me!)

and then there was the idea of 'monthly' download folders, say from (now)
onwards, where all finds and releases for that month could be dropped
and retrieved by those freaking out because they might have missed a
plugin.(...) completist collectors can then just grab full digest of a
month they miss (and can have a computer holiday )
of course, the eula issue remains, for that.
(and when the archive is complete, you can put it in a pod and fire it off
into outer space for other civilisations to appreciate)

edit: don't miss this:

http://www.meesha.nl/vst/damatriks/index.html
(seen in Modular forum)

Ah, I saw it on rekkerd and posted it on Music-Society. It's quite tasty an' all.

Fsynthz site was down for a few days, so I got in touch with him and he's got it back up again and the good news is that McAfee security will let me download from his site again. Expect new stuff soon.

I was more or less thinking of providing the space to allow a community build for VST history, exploration and research. I guess something like a wikipedia or online museum for VSTs.

I like mztk's idea of monthly archives but also think everything should be database driven with adequate cross referencing.

Also, although I may be rather new here, I'm no stranger to VSTs and programming. I've worked as a programmer (C++/Java/Perl/Php) and database administrator for nearly 25 years and have been using DAW and VSTs since they first came into being so I also understand you can't just throw up some site on Blogspot with downloads of software you downloaded from some other site. Many developers want downloads to be directed to their site but even in that case, a well maintained archive could be beneficial to current developers as well as abandoned projects.

I agree with mztk that such a project may be "insane time-consuming" but on the other hand, I see it as a user generated content site, much like Discogs.com is for music and it would be a labor of love.

Beyond that, I have the bandwidth to spare for projects such as this and I guess my ulterior motive might be that I'd have a readily available place to easily find new toys to play with.

Good man Oktipus, I've sent you a pm.

I was just browsing the Behringer webpage for an inexpensive portal card, when I realized that the music software that is bundled with the card, actually is free for everybody to download from their webpage.

Some 150 plugs, both instruments and effects plus audio editing software like Audacity can be downloaded without login in, at the Behringer page here

Could be of interest to check out for you guys in this thread.

+1, Oktipus.
bob's done a very extensive listing in xlr format.
i think i sent him a copy of a magazine cd browser that
relies on an excel document, as an example of how an excel
doc is addressed like this.(it's pretty cool, graphics etc.
you click the link/button, it opens the zip or runs the exe)

using the excel doc would allow you to do any listing you
wanted, eg: synths, FM synths, drum machines, drum modules,
as long as these are defined in the spreadsheet info. and,
of course, such a thing would be best if the webpage was
stored/backed up as well...

Hi Numanoid, thanks for the post, it's a useful resource if you don't know it -although I think it's been featured here on more than one occasion. I believe there was an original site that hosted these and gave(?) the links to Berhinger and others (I forget who). Of course, I might have it all arse-backwards. Corrections welcome.

ah yes mztk, indeed you did, though too much for my little brain to take in, lol.

Did a search of "Behringer", that didn't really turn up any obvious clues to if a link had been posted before.

Looks like a good resource, so I trust a post that reminds that it's still around isn't a big problem

No, there aren't many rules here really apart from legit links. In fact now that beringher (deliberately miss-spelt) is in the text rather than a just link, people might find it. Behringer gems. Beringer gems. Beringher gems. I've certainly posted things that someone else has posted but I couldn't track down in this thread. It's all useful....hopefully.

This thread gets a lot of views and there must be a couple of dozen who drop in on a regular basis, have a look through the latest posts and occasionally find something new or that they have may have missed in the past.

Personally, I also find it easier to search this thread outside of kvr.