vst parameter hacking

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Is there some sort of vst loader that can let you go to values past the pre-defined limits? Not really that important to me, just wondering. I mean, is it even possible to create something like that for vst plugs? I just got to thinking about that when I was using the polac vsti wrapper for Buzz and saw that there were some parameters not on the gui you could change in the parameters menu (was a synthedit vsti though so there could have been controls beyond view). Got me thinking about what sort of limits a vst really puts on the inputs it recieves.
Do not lick the fablanky

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anybody have insight?
Do not lick the fablanky

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energyXT, Chainer and TobyBear's midiHost all let you access the VST parameters a plugin broadcasts to the host...

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Okay, but do they let you manipulate them past the normal limits? Thats my main question.
Do not lick the fablanky

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No - I don't believe it would work. VST code is like other program code - it's not possible to change the parameters (variables) because they aren't made accessible to outside code. Unless the developer wants to give you access. All hell would break lose if that was possible! Take something like a simple delay. The programer would have designed a buffer large enough to hold the audio stream for as long as the largest possible delay he designed it for. Lets say that was 2 seconds. Even if you could access the variable for delay time and make it 10 instead of 2, the buffer would overrun anyway.

But - you can get creative and mix and match different plugins to do what you want. Only got a 2 second delay but want 10 seconds? Insert 5 instances into your host, all set to 2 seconds and 100% wet - that would give you 10 seconds delay. The possibilites are huge if you start thinking about plugins that way ...

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Each VST parameter accepts a floating point value between 0 and 1, this is fixed in the VST plugin specification.

This value (per VST parameter) is translated by the plugin code to the real usable values used internally by the plugin.

The parameter-translation is fixed inside the plugin-code by the plugin developer...

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Well, theoretically there's nothing to stop a host letting the user alter parameters outside the 0->1 limit. Some plugins might clip values to within that limit, but I'd imagine most don't bother, since there isn't (to the best of my knowledge) a host which lets you operate outside the limit anyway.

Of course, there's a good chance you'll get all sorts of weird things happening (crashes etc.) if you did this to plugins which don't handle the possibility of parameters set to values outside their limits.

- Niall.

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cool, thanks. that was interesting
Do not lick the fablanky

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asseca wrote:energyXT, Chainer and TobyBear's midiHost all let you access the VST parameters a plugin broadcasts to the host...
As does FL Studio I might add...

And now it's done :)

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NiallM wrote:Well, theoretically there's nothing to stop a host letting the user alter parameters outside the 0->1 limit. Some plugins might clip values to within that limit, but I'd imagine most don't bother, since there isn't (to the best of my knowledge) a host which lets you operate outside the limit anyway.
:dog: I just realised my own host lets you do just that. You'll need a joystick for it to work though.

- Niall.

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