Want to use VSTGUI, do i need VST3 SDK?

[matt42]

As far as I know Ableton now supports VST3. I don't use ableton, so am no expert on that.

As for VST2, Steinberg have discontinued it and the SDK is no longer available. If you have an older version of the VST3 SDK then VST 2 was distributed with it. The more recent versions of VST3 don't include the VST2 SDK. Also AFAIK Steinberg no longer registers developers for VST2 licences

[BertKoor]

but I use Ableton Live 9 and it seems to not support vst3

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... in-formats

Supported Plug-in formats
VST3 - 64-bit (Live 10.1 and later only)

So you'd need to upgrade: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... ve-license

or use another host for testing. You probably will need several different testing hosts to get it right anyway

[ronenp88]

Your host needs to be able to see the .vst3. So, the simplest thing is to add the debug build of your plugin to the your VST3 directory, I don't recall the default location, sorry.

Use debug>attach to process to attach to the host application and the VS debugger will be able to debug your plugin, as long as the host has loaded it - the dll is loaded in to the application memory, which is where you told the debugger to look for it

@matt42 thank you very much for your help, really appreciated! , I did what you just told me, I put the entire build in the VST's plugin folder, and I attached to Cubse, and it seems that visual studio is running good, but I don't see the plugin in the plugin list of Cubase, so I can't load it, what you think I should do, how to solve this?

[ronenp88]

but I use Ableton Live 9 and it seems to not support vst3

or use another host for testing. You probably will need several different testing hosts to get it right anyway

you are definitely right, I have so far 3, Renoise, Cubase, and Live, ...

[ronenp88]

Someone suggested me that maybe my Cubase is too old, and that's the cause for not seeing the plugin in the plugin list...
So I think i'll update Live to 10.1 as suggested above …

Hope this will solve the problem, anyway I'm on delay now.. till i'll buy the upgrade..
thank you for now ...

[ronenp88]

Hello everyone! specially you @matt42, ok now I have Live 10.19, and the software reads the build, I placed the build inside the VST3 folder special one (in Common Files), and I can open Live and see the plugin...
now about the attaching I have some questions, I open Live, attach from VS to Live, and then open the plugin in Live, is that the process? now how do I know that I'm currently debugging the plugin of-course the plugin is the startup project in VS,
but how do I know? also if I change the code now I be able to see it? I need to close the plugin and reopen it and reattach to it to see the changes, or do the entire, like closing Live and reopen, then reattach and then open the plugin and see the changes?
I'm almost there, almost got it. a little more help and I be grateful! thanks in advance...

[ronenp88]

never mind, problem solved, I set the again->Properties->Debugging->Command->Live.exe on debug mode, and it solves the problem, hopefully now I can debug and work on ...

[spoonman2]

As I understood from reading this forum for, ehrmm, 15 years (I'm a professional programmer, just never made a VST) the process has always been frustrating and a struggle with incomplete and outright confusing documentation from the guys that made the standard.

It's a little miracle that some of the guys here are able to produce a VST plugin, even a bigger miracle when it works without quirks in all popular hosts.

I've been writing one myself, a VST3 plugin and it amazes me how patchy the documentation of this standard is and what a struggle it is to figure out how to do basic things. An API with poor documentation is the most frustrating of things. You'd think they'd have a priority on properly documenting a standard.