Managing VST Plugins in Cubase

today we talk about

Managing VST Plugins in Cubase

hello everybody Andrew Blake from thedigitalaudiomanual.com today let's talkabout installing and managing VSTplugins in Cubase but before we start Iwant to remind you that there's a linkbelow to the free content navigationguide which is an easy to navigatewebpage with links to all the content onthis channel and besides that in thenear future I'm going to begin addingtips and other bits of information thatwill only be available there you knowthings like simple steps that will getyou started and up and running quickthings that are in the videos but arewritten down in simple steps that serveas quick reminders when you needinformation down the road if you'reworking with programs like wavelab orCubase plugins or the cable guys shaperbox and many many other projects thatare in the works then I know you'regoing to find just like I have that thisis an invaluable study Aid and the otherthing I want to make sure you understandis that this is not a simple PDF this isa constantly updated page that has anyinformation that is new or anytimevideos or 10 change really anythingupdated and once you have it you willalways have the latest informationconstantly updated so if you haven'tgotten it already go to the link belowclick on it and save it to yourfavorites it's my gift to you and it'sabsolutely free Okay so let's getstarted so recently I was having anissue with one of my plugins and I knewit was probably an older version so Ibegan investigating into cubase's way oflooking at VST plugins in general andwith Cubase 12 what we're at is only64-bit plugins are being used and itdoes use vst3 and vst2 but my experienceis even the vst2s are starting to fadeout and it's good for you to be able tosee what kind of plugins you have andwhat's happening so in case you do havesome kind of issue with your plugins youknow how to either disable them orupdate them or know where they'relocated any number of these kind ofthings and one of the first thingsyou're going to want to do when you getinto this topic if you go up to thestudio menu and you click on that andyou come down to the option that saysVST plugin manager you get this windowand you have various tabs for theeffects the instruments and even a blocklist but if you look at your VSTInstruments one of the first things youcan observe is over here on the right itsays the version and as I look down mylist I can see which ones are vst2 andwhich ones are vst3 and of course andthen it shows the other numbers for youknow how far along the version may bebut if you have the option to haveeither a vst2 or vst3 of the sameinstrument you may want to make surethat you have that vst3 and that you getthat vst2 out of there or decide if youwant to continue using it another thingthat happens when you click on any oneof these vsts you get information in thebottom area down here and one of thosethings is the actual path where it is onyour computer I always advise you totake a little time to learn where thatpath is so when you're installing yourplugins you know that they're in theright place make sure all your pluginsare installed in the right place so takea minute and go through some of yourplugins and see where they're at lookfor the common areas where the differentplug-in paths are and check yourversions in general and it'll help yoursystem run correctly possibly get youryou do some issues you may be havingwhen you open up this VST window you'reshowing what's called The Collectionthis is what Cubase uses every time itscans through new projects and has allyour plugins together we're going totalk about different kinds ofcollections as we go forward but as youlook over right now on the right minesays default unless I change this tosomething specific this is thecollection that's available for all ofmy projects so let's go back to theplugin manager window for a minute takea quick tour of what we have first up wehave the VST effects anytime you want toResort the list you can hit any of thesecolumns to Resort it that shows you allthe effects you have that Cubase isusing same with your VST Instruments andyou can Resort those as well you haveyour block list which shows everythingthat's inactive in Cubase you have atoolbar we're going to talk about thatyou can see the active collection downthe very bottom you have various buttonsand the first one allows you to see theVST information if you have vst2 pluginsyou can see all the paths from thislittle second gear here and then a greatoption you have a plug-in report you canclick on this it'll prompt you to openup an area where you can save thisreport once it's saved you can open itup and you get a text file that givesyou all kinds of information for me themost important thing is it shows you allthe paths for your old vst2 plugins andall your vst3 plugins so in case youneed something printed out at any timeyou have that all right so looking atthe toolbar our first option here is asearch and depends on what tab we'relooking at or let's take effects and youcan only search by name on this soexample if I put in rev like Reverbanything that has that in the name willshow up if you think for some reasonyour list is outdated you can rescan beaware that may take a minute you have acouple of view options in this drop downthe first one says show all the pluginsthe next one is hide plugins that are inthe active collection and then one thatsays show the plugins that support64-bit float if you do this again it'sgoing to scan may take a minute to showyou the results then you have an optionfor a new folder and a remove option butin order to use these you have to startmaking your own collection the list doan example I'm going to go over to thisplus button and hit that and I can makean empty or I can add all the plugins orI can copy the current collection I'mgoing to do that it's called default I'mjust going to go ahead and say defaultcopy hit ok now at this point I can hitthis new folder if I want to create anew folder which I'll just give itanother name I could then add things tothis folder if I want but I can also nowhit this trash to delete that folder andthen if I want to remove this collectionthat I created if I hit this down arrowover here I have the option to make anew collection delete the collectionrename the collection I'm going to goahead and say delete the collection areyou sure yes I'm sure now I'm back tojust having my default another niceoption you have in this drop down minesays right now I'll sort by category butI can change that to sort by vendor andsometimes that makes it easy to findsomething specific that you're lookingfor so as we said down here on the lowerleft this first button basically showsyou your VST information but next tothat this gear also shows you your vst2information and the file pass you mayhave had in place you can explore any ofthose so you know where they are at iffor some reason you want to add a newpath you can hit a plus button and add anew path you can hit the little trashcan to delete some of these and then youhave a reset button and all this doesbasically it shows you where the defaultpath is if you find yourself with toomany plugins or instruments and you wantto get some of these off of your listanytime you click on an instrument or aneffect at the bottom here in the infoscreen there's actually a little checkbox says hide if you click on that thenthat Plug-In or effect will no longer bein view and then finally today anytimeyou want to reactivate something that'sin this block list if you go down thelist you find something that wasmistakenly moved here once you click onit you'll have an option at the bottomto reactivate it if something can't bereactivated it'll tell you that it's nolonger supported and that's going towrap it up for today as always if youhaven't grabbed your navigation guide besure to grab that from the link belowthis video it gives you quick easyaccess to all the content on the channelin order and categorized and slowly butsurely the guide is being changed into aplaylist view which allows you tobasically binge watch subjects to yourheart's content when you find a subjectand you click on it you'll see the sevenvideos associated with that topic allowsyou to get all this information quickerand review it better if you haven'tlooked at in a while check it out that'sa new addition to the guide and that'sall the information on installingmanaging VST plugins we looked at whatthe plugins and the collections are wetook a look at the manager window andthe toolbar we saw where our older VSTpads still are and we learned how tohide our plugins if we want to get someof them off the list as we continuethrough all our subjects in Cubase andwe will pick this up next time as alwaysit's great to have you guys here I'llsee you on the next video