I'm happy to announce the release of vstplugin~ v0.3.0.

[vstplugin~] allows to load VST2 and VST3 plugins on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Binaries are available on Deken or here: https://git.iem.at/pd/vstplugin/releases

Please report any issues at https://git.iem.at/pd/vstplugin/issues or https://github.com/Spacechild1/vstplugin/issues

BTW, I've made a small tutorial video :

Change Log

New features:

• better error messages when plugins fail to load (e.g. wrong CPU architecture)
• automatically scan VST3 presets
• new simplified preset management system, using named presets which are saved to standard locations (the old methods remain for power users).
• new vstpresetbrowser.pd abstraction
• improved vstpluginbrowser.pd: better GUI + plugins can be filtered by keyword, type, category and vendor
• [open( can be called asynchronously and responds with [open <success>(
• preset methods can be called asynchronously and respond with messages, e.g. [preset_load <success>(
• [reset( can be executed asynchronously and responds with [reset(.
• [search_stop( method to cancel an asynchronous plugin search.
• [param_list(, [program_list( and [preset_list( accept an optional plugin key argument
• [info( also outputs the VST SDK version.
• experimental support for PDINSTANCE (untested)

Bug fixes:

• fixed serveral bugs in the VST3 implementation
• fix crash when calling [midi_*( methods without plugin
• don't lock Pd when receiving events from the GUI thread if DSP is running, instead set an atomic flag and set a clock in the perform routine. This avoids dead-locks in certain plugins and also improves realtime-safety.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Christof

The improved plugin browser:

The new preset browser:

sweet thanks! new browsers look like a work of art

has there been any further development on the macOS gui thread work? I frequently use plugins that have their own preset system (like Diva for example) and that means using the gui to find the presets and on plugins like that tweaking them is a lot easier. I do save out the state into a vst preset file or message box afterwards for easier recall...it's just a bit more long-winded

cheers

new browsers look like a work of art

thanks has been a huge headache till I got it working the way I wanted it (more or less).

has there been any further development on the macOS gui thread work?

Not yet. The thing is that it involves changes in the Pd core. I definitely want to do this but I have to coordinate this with GEM and ofelia which expect the Cocoa message loop to run on the audio thread. Once the audio thread is not the "main thread" anymore, those two externals will stop to work. Maybe a startup flag (e.g. -eventloop / -noeventloop) can do the trick.

FWIW, on Supercollider the situation was even worse, because I couldn't show the plugin GUI at all, but I made the necessary changes to the Server code which will be available in the upcoming SC 3.11. I'm positive I can achieve the same for Pd vanilla. It will just take a while. In the meantime, thank Apple for their stupid arbitrary design decisions

@Spacechild1 said:

thank Apple for their stupid arbitrary design decisions

Seriously, it's not the first time I've heard that!