How To Create VST Plugins? Information for those just getting started

[ilyaorlov]

If you're getting started, I suggest you look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKffpOFgWY

[mcbpete]

Is there an idiots guide and/or toolchain to just compiling VSTs ? Like if I have the complete c++ source of a VST from github already and just want to turn it into a .dll or .vst3 ? I have the VST v2 & v3 SDK, Visual Studio 2019, and lots of github sources for plugins but I have no idea how to connect a to b to c, to spit out d[ll].

[BertKoor]

Is there an idiots guide and/or toolchain to just åcompiling VSTs ?

Here's yer idiot's guide: https://medium.com/better-programming/l ... 2c4c690bdc
Question is though who is the idiot: the writer or the reader

Trouble is, this process gets very hairy very quickly, and there are just too many ways to skin this particular cat. First look for instructions in the repo itself. Is there a VisualStudio project file perhaps? Then are there scripts (.cmd / .bat) to do it? Plain text search for "build" or "make" gets some hits maybe?

If the author has nothing documented and you have no compiling skills, it's often a lost case.

[superplek]

I had/have a strong background in real-time programming (AAA-videogames, module players and demoscene demos in the past) and I just started experimenting with FM. Doing everything wrong one can imagine but slowly and surely improving.

What did I have as prerequisites?
- C/CPP/ASM/SIMD
- Linear algebra
- A bit of calculus
- A love of music and synthesizers
- And most importantly: an idea of what I wanted to make

[-Kactice-]

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Ive been looking at iPlug2, seems pretty sick
https://github.com/iplug2 (https://github.com/iplug2)

[hibrasil]

Thanks!

I would like to "plug" a workshop i am doing on iPlug2...

https://musichackspace.org/events/build ... h-iplug-2/

the workshop will focus on making a web assembly synth, but the same code will also produce VST etc, built in the cloud via github actions

[chk071]

If you're getting started, I suggest you look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKffpOFgWY

That's pretty cool. Even I understood that (knowing a bit of Javascript myself).

[MasterTuner]

If you're getting started, I suggest you look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKffpOFgWY

I don't suppose you can integrate Blue Cat script with Juce in any way can you?

[ilyaorlov]

If you're getting started, I suggest you look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKffpOFgWY

I don't suppose you can integrate Blue Cat script with Juce in any way can you?

Well, maybe only for the DSP part, which can be written in C++ for Plug'n Script (you can use some JUCE algorithms there, I guess). Regarding GUI - it's totally written in Blue Cat's KUIML language (+AngelScript).

[D-Fused Sounds]

If you're getting started, I suggest you look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKffpOFgWY

I don't suppose you can integrate Blue Cat script with Juce in any way can you?

Basically the script of the dsp can be copied, paste and modified with no problem but for the gui you should write yourself in Juce

[tony10000]

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[EugeniusMaximus]

Good Morning,

In addition to reading your post, I've done some research that supports pretty much everything that you have covered. The VST software websites that I've briefly checked seem to have strong support groups to help plugin developers.
The topics that I haven't seen discussed much are:

- How to be successful in an already flooded VST plug-ins marketplace. Free/Donations? What to expect.
- Doing all of the work yourself versus having a team; how do properly assign programming duties?
- Which team-oriented software (ex: Pipeline) or cloud service should be used if any?
- Can independent developers sell a proven-tested and ready VST plugin(s) to companies? Pros and Cons.

[Lind0n]

Good Morning,

In addition to reading your post, I've done some research that supports pretty much everything that you have covered. The VST software websites that I've briefly checked seem to have strong support groups to help plugin developers.
The topics that I haven't seen discussed much are:

Well, I'm passing thru so I will give one developers opinion(many other developers may hold other views..)

- How to be successful in an already flooded VST plug-ins marketplace. Free/Donations? What to expect.

Well if I knew that secret I'm not sure I would be giving it away - anywhere, but sure there are many many different models for revenue - all I can say is yes you are right its a flooded market, and it's hard to stand out.

- Doing all of the work yourself versus having a team; how do properly assign programming duties?

There's a massive list of stuff to do, not all of it is coding related, audio design, preset design, web site building, marketing, social marketing etc. etc. So my experience is it really does help if you can find people to work with.

- Which team-oriented software (ex: Pipeline) or cloud service should be used if any?

Well it depends on your development team profile, but to be honest this is so far down the list of problem-decisions, and usually falls out of programmer-to-programmer discussion anyway...

- Can independent developers sell a proven-tested and ready VST plugin(s) to companies? Pros and Cons.

In my experience almost certainly not, if you mean make a VST and get some other company to be your distributor/front-of-house. These companies almost always have some set of ideas about a plugin they are interested in that dont match up with your implementation, so they are very reluctant to take your product on as a whole - they will want (often extensive) modifications.

But there are distributors out there who will on-sell your product for a percentage fee, loot audio, plugin boutique, ADSR, APD, DontCrack etc. they are usually looking in the 30-40% range last time I looked, but be aware they will do exactly zero marketing for you, they are a long-tail based business model, selling hundreds or thousands of different plugins and making money from very low sales(usually) of any specific(your) plugin.

[FigBug]

- Can independent developers sell a proven-tested and ready VST plugin(s) to companies? Pros and Cons.

There is the Tracktion Presents program: https://www.tracktion.com/develop/plugin-developers

You develop the plugin, they handle marketing, tech support, sales, etc. They have a team of beta testers that can help. Experience that can help get the product out the door. It definitely reduces the work load.

[stoopicus]

I've just found Will Pirkle's books and they seem really good. I do already have some signal processing and RT/low latency programming background however.