Hi,
I have installed the vst~ external and the object is opening as it should do in PD but now I can't seem to find any documentation anywhere on how to use it. I can't seem to make any sense of the object's helpfile either. I have placed the plugin's .dll file inside the same folder as the vst~ external file as someone told me that was the first step but now I don't know how to open it in PD. Any help on where to go from here would be massively appreciated. Thanks

Yeah, I tried messing with [vst~] once but gave up for the same reasons. Nowadays I simply use JACK to connect Pd to my DAW and never really tried using [vst~] again.

It's annoying because I've seen posts where people have it running perfectly so it must work. I emailed the guy that apparently wrote the external (Thomas Grill) but he messaged back saying he did not have time to help me as he was on vacation. Ahh well... If I get it working i'll post the instructions here for you anyway mate.

@liamorourke I am posting with no absolute knowledge. Usually you would keep your plug-ins (vst-plug-ins) in a folder where all of your audio applications can find them. I assume that the [vst~] object has audio inlets and outlets. Does it also have a data inlet? Because I imagine you would have to tell it which plug-in to open. Maybe you can pass it an [open foo/bar/plug-in( message?
[vst~] probably has arguments as well, to determine the numbers of inlets and outlets. You could try [vst~ 4 6] for example... and see if you get audio inlets and outlets or data inlets for midi.... etc. Maybe one of the arguments is the plug-in address?... so [vst~ foo/bar/plug-in 4 6] ??
Good luck,

Ok... forget all that...
Here: http://puredata.info/Members/thomas/vst/?searchterm=vst~
I found this: vst~_help.pd
which is what you need.....
David.