VST Plugins

Many commercial and free plugins are available in the VST format. MultitrackStudio supports both VST3 and VST2 plugins.

VST plugins can be loaded into an effect slot using the slot's down arrow. The VST plugins appear in the list's Plugins section.

Note: A VST plugin that's installed while MultitrackStudio is running may not be recognized automatically (the plugins are collected only once per session). You can press the F5 key (Windows) / Command-R (Mac) while an effect selector is visible to force VST plugins to be rescanned.

If a VST plugin gets into a bad state somehow, you can press the F5 key (Windows) / Command-R (Mac) while the plugin interface is visible. This will save the settings, reload the plugin, and load the settings again.

Tip for Mac users: VST plugins that haven't yet been updated for Apple Silicon can still be used on an Apple Silicon Mac if you open MultitrackStudio using Rosetta: find MultitrackStudio in Finder, Ctrl-click it, choose Get Info, and check the Open in Rosetta option.

VST3 plugins

Windows: VST3 plugins are .vst3 files. 64-bit plugins are located in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ folder.

32-bit plugins are located in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ (if your Windows version is 32-bit), or the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3\ folder (64-bit Windows). 64-bit MultitrackStudio can only use 64-bit plugins, and 32-bit MultitrackStudio can only use 32-bit plugins.

Mac: VST3 plugins are .vst3 files. They're located in the user or system Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3 folder.

You can use MtStudioLinks.txt files to exclude files or folders (see the VST2 description). Including files or folders is not possible.

Presets

Any presets that come with the plugin appear in the Presets menu. The presets can be stored in the plugin itself, or they can be .vstpreset files in one of these folders:

Windows:

• C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\VST3 Presets\COMPANYNAME\PLUGINNAME\
• C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\VST3 Presets\COMPANYNAME\PLUGINNAME\
• C:\ProgramData\VST3 Presets\COMPANYNAME\PLUGINNAME\

Mac:

• User or system Library/Audio/Presets/COMPANYNAME/PLUGINNAME/
• Network/Library/Audio/Presets/COMPANYNAME/PLUGINNAME/

VST2 plugins

See Customizing the VST2 folder for more flexible options.

Plugins that supply a graphical user interface will be shown in a window with Bypass and Presets buttons. Plugins that do not have their own user interface will be made to look like native MultitrackStudio effects.

Any presets that come with the plugin appear in the Presets menu. The presets can be factory presets (stored in the plugin itself), presets stored in .fxb bank files, or presets stored in .fxp files. MultitrackStudio looks for matching .fxb/.fxp files in the folder where the plugin is located, and all of its subfolders.

There are a couple of "powered" plugins on the market that come with their own dedicated hardware. These kinds of plugins are not supported.

Bridging

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of MultitrackStudio support 32-bit and 64-bit VST2 plugins. 64-bit Windows is required to run 64-bit plugins.64-bit MultitrackStudio runs 32-bit plugins "bridged", or "out-of-process" in technical terms. Similarly, 32-bit MultitrackStudio runs 64-bit plugins bridged. This happens automatically.

Bridging plugins has some drawbacks: there's some performance overhead, and you may hear glitches while recording at low latencies. It's best to use mostly 64-bit plugins with the 64-bit version of MultitrackStudio.

Note: Not all VST2 plugins work well when bridged. Some work fine with one instance but exhibit issues with multiple instances. Some copy protection mechanisms may fail. Some won't work if UAC (User Account Control) is enabled.

A bridged plugin that crashes shouldn't crash MultitrackStudio itself. You can choose to run a buggy plugin bridged for this reason. The Plugin Manager can be used to force new instances of a plugin to run bridged. The window title bar of a bridged plugin reads "VST plugin (bridged): name".

Under the hood
Each bridged plugin appears in the Windows Task Manager as "MtStudioVSTServer.exe" (32-bit plugin) / "MtStudioVSTServer64.exe" (64-bit plugin).

Customizing the VST2 folder

This example file demonstrates the options:

Windows:

Mac:

The first line includes the OtherFolder folder. The second line includes the TheReverb plugin. The third line excludes the SamplesDir subfolder, this can be useful if folders with large amounts of samples slow down plugin scanning. The last line excludes the BuggyPlugin plugin.