VST essentials

[sadko4u]

Just began to look at VST SDK.
Have some questions about it to experienced developers:
1. In VST 2.4, actively used by linux hosts, there is a function VSTPluginMain. Do I right understand that ONE binary *.so can return ONLY ONE type of plugin instance?
2. I've met in VST 3.65 SDK something called factories. Probably in VST 3 the question #1 is fixed?
3. Does official release of Ardour support VSTs? What's the target path to place binaries?

Currently it's all. Thanks for help.

[sadko4u]

No, you can have more than one.
Such plugins are rare, usually called 'shell' plugins.
The only ones I know that do this are u-he and waves.

So, the best solution is to separate plugins into individual *.so?
I've looked at DISTRHO tree:
https://github.com/DISTRHO/DPF/blob/mas ... ginVST.cpp
There's still VSTPluginMain and the only one effect at export.
Do you mention any frameworks that allow to implement that 'shell' plugins?

No idea about 3.x sdk.
But vstsdk3 doesn't support linux anyway.

Okay, I see there is a lot of C++ classes that may have many problems with ABI and f*cking CString from Visual C++. Don't know why Steinberg does so. Using classes as interfaces between Host and plugin, is a really bad idea.

So just like lv2 but with 'vst' instead of 'lv2' name.

Thanks, will try.

If you're considering porting to VST, and possibly cross-platform later, gtk2 is a no-go.

I've developed my framework with possibility to change UI, so GTK2 is currently the only one implementation that can be replaced.

Considering using an audio plugin framework to make your own life easier.

Thank you for links, the live examples make easier to study the VST format.

amsynth devs were able to build a vst and use gtk2 uis, BUT that will only work on linux.

And what's the main problem? I can't launch my UI as GTK2 application?

[sadko4u]

Now I have new questions about VSTs. Is there any way to store user-selected file names in VST 2.4 and have interface like LV2 Worker?