Steinberg updates the VST Audio Plug-Ins SDK to v3.1

Steinberg has released a new version of its VST3 plug-in development kit.

"This new VST3.1 update extensively enhances the technical capabilities of VST3 by offering important functionalities that dramatically reduce the development efforts," comments Timo Wildenhain, product marketing manager at Steinberg.

VST3.1 comes with two convenient "wrapping" tools, enabling VST3.1 plug-ins to be transformed into the Audio Unit format as well as – for older DAWs – into the VST2.4 standard. This allows a maximum flexibility and reduces the porting time. Further features are the support of MIDI poly pressure, a future proof Mac 64-bit test host as well as four new interfaces, including time accurate parameter group editing, delayed opening of the plug-in editor while loading a project/preset, "dirty status" allowing the plug-in to communicate generic changes to the host and several editor features like the set knob mode to open the about or help window. More sample code and an extended documentation rounds out the VST3.1 package.

Changes in version 3.1.0:

• Restructuring of the SDK:
  • New Base Module (many useful classes, such as templates and containers).
  • Renamed the file public.sdk/source/main/pluginfactory.cpp to public.sdk/source/main/pluginfactoryvst3.cpp.
  • Renamed the file public.sdk/source/main/pluginfactory.h to public.sdk/source/main/pluginfactoryvst3.h.
  • Renaming Microsoft Visual Projects.
• New interfaces:
  • Steinberg::Vst::IEditController2: support for setKnobMode/openHelp/openAboutBox.
  • Steinberg::Vst::IComponentHandler2: support for parameter group editing from plug-in UI, dirty state and request host to open the plug-in editor.
  • Steinberg::Vst::IAudioPresentationLatency: informs the plug-in about the Audio Presentation Latencies (in/out).
• New event structure:
  • Steinberg::Vst::PolyPressureEvent: Polypressure event support.
• New Flags/Enums:
  • New Plug-in Types used for subCategories: PlugType::kMono, PlugType::kStereo, PlugType::kSurround.
  • New parameter flag ParameterInfo::kIsList: flags the parameter as a list of discrete string values.
  • New IoModes enum: Steinberg::Vst::IoModes::kOfflineProcessing used with setIoMode when the plug-in is used in an offline processing context.
• Plug-ins Wrappers:
  • New VST 2.x Wrapper: by just adding small initializing code, you can provide a VST 2.x version of your VST3 plug-in.
  • New AudioUnit Wrapper with just a few build settings, you can provide AU support with your VST3 plug-in.
• Samples:
  • New VST3 plug-in examples: ADelay plug-in, mda VST3 plug-ins (thanks Paul Kellet and Arne Scheffler).
  • Remove Visual Studio 2003 projects.
  • Clean up AGain and add separate version supporting side-chain.
• New features of the Plug-in Test Host:
  • MIDI Input support.
  • Better ASIO support.
  • Mac 64 bit support (Cocoa view support also in 32 bit).
• Fixes in Validator.
• Some documentation changes.