Very beginner question: I can just dump all my vsts in the same folder right?

[Rahodees]

I've ended up in this situation where I have multiple unneeded versions of a ton of VSTs hiding in folders all over my hard drive due to their default install paths. I can just copy all of those folders into some single easy to find VST folder, and have my DAW (reaper) rescan (and in that process scan only that one folder), and everything will still be there available for me that was before, right?

Then will come the long process of figuring out just which vsts I've installed unneeded multiple copies of (like if there's both a vst3 and vst2 version installed, and an au because I didn''t know what that meant until recently) and cull the unneeded version.

[RunBeerRun]

No, because the developer probably put inside the installer

the correct path for it to be located at

[Rahodees]

No, because the developer probably put inside the installer

the correct path for it to be located at

Hm, but the DAW just looks for vst files in whatever folder you tell it to, doesn't it? Why would the vst itself care where it is? Actually asking, as I do not know.

[Living Room Rocker]

It's my understanding that VST2s and VST3 cannot live in the same folder. I don't know the technical reasons, but that's my understanding.

Kind regards,

Living Room Rocker

[xbow]

On Windows, there is a default path for VST3 files. I haven't seen installers put them elsewhere and it is probably best to keep them there. (Technically, I would expect that they will work in any folder as long as your DAW is configured to scan it. But why make it more confusing?)

Regarding VST2s, Devs are not so consistent. I have moved them around manually without encountering any problems in the DAW. But Plugin Managers like Native Access, Arturia Software Center or just the plugin's uninstaller will no longer find them and you won't be able to update and uninstall them properly.

Obviously the best way is to have your own standard folder structure and make sure to install VST2s to the correct paths in the first place.

[ReleaseCandidate]

It's my understanding that VST2s and VST3 cannot live in the same folder.

No, that doesn't matter at all. That's just for practical reasons, to better organize the plugins.

[chk071]

No, because the developer probably put inside the installer

the correct path for it to be located at

Hm, but the DAW just looks for vst files in whatever folder you tell it to, doesn't it? Why would the vst itself care where it is? Actually asking, as I do not know.

It does matter, if the location is written in configuration folders, or linked elsewhere. Or, if the path is written in the registry.

Different developers do it in different ways.

You're safest to re-install your plugins, and make sure that they all reside in one VST folder.

I arrange it in this folder structure: VST -> Company name -> .DLL file(s)

[lmv]

Some plugins can be placed wherever you want, but most of them have subfolders with content such as presets, samples, graphic componentes and other things. You don't want to remove them from their original installation folder. Many are going to break.

[whyterabbyt]

Some plugins can be placed wherever you want, but most of them have subfolders with content such as presets, samples, graphic componentes and other things.

No, most of them dont. Maybe 1 in 50 plugin developers writes their stuff such that it needs the resources to be inside the plugin folder alongside the plugin.

[lmv]

All my plugins are free and don't even have an installer, just the DLL and additional content, many will generate that content upon the first run. In my experience, yes, they do.

[ReleaseCandidate]

All my plugins are free and don't even have an installer, just the DLL and additional content, many will generate that content upon the first run. In my experience, yes, they do.

They can't do that, because nobody guarantees that the plugins reside in a directory where the user has write access to (on MacOS the user certainly does not have write access in the default VST(3) directory). Either they have an installer, the user has to manually copy the whole directory or the data is written (and read) to (from) a fixed (configurable) directory.

[lmv]

OK, I must have dreamed it ever happened. About 50 times. Whatever.

[ReleaseCandidate]

OK, I must have dreamed it ever happened. About 50 times. Whatever.

I'm not saying that it didn't happen, I'm saying that has been a fixed or configurable path and not the same directory the plugin happens to be copied to.

[lmv]

You're saying it, I'm saying otherwise. Additional files created in the same directory as the plugin upon first run. I've seen it happen a large number of times.

[NAD]

In my personal experience, on a Windows computer using Reaper, I can and do have all my VSTs in a single folder, "C:\VST Plugins". And that includes .dll and .vst3 files. Few plugins require additional files to be in the same directory but most don't. As an example, U-He plugins have a "plugin_name.data" folder that has to be next to the dll but you can have a shortcut instead with the same name. Izotope Trash has a weird dll file that you can't rename and has to be next to the plugin file for it to work. Other than that, most plugins (commercial or free) only require a single file and Reaper has no problem running them. Also Waves has some weird thing going on but I don't mess with that. I will mention that I always let the installer put the file wherever it wants (usually C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 or C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins) and I just copy it over without moving the original one created by the installer. But I have set Reaper to NOT scan those folders so I could probably delete them, though I like having them there as a backup of sorts.
Also some synthedit plugins will create files that even if you delete them will reappear whenever you run the plugin.