Vst Sdk Tutorial Pdf
How to make VST plugins in Visual StudioIntroductionMicrosoft announced that it would offer Visual Studio Express free of charge forever. Though the Express version of Visual C (hereafter referred to as VC) has some limitations, it’s still a great tool and it’s nice to see Microsoft taking some steps to support the developers writing software for their platform. This document will describe how to get VC installed and building VST plugins. It assumes that you have prior experience developing VST plugins, and are familiar with the structure and layout of the VST SDK.If you are trying to write VST’s in a language other than C, than this guide is not for you. There are lots of other frameworks out there for developing VST plugins in other languages (such as, and, just to name a few).This tutorial will walk you through the process of installing and configuring the tools you’ll need to build your own VST plugins with Visual Studio, and creating a simple VST plugin with optional support for a VSTGUI frontend. This guide only covers building VST 2.x plugins, as the VST3 SDK is not very widely supported yet. Note that Steinberg’s website is a bit confusing and it is easy to accidentally download the wrong version of the SDK, so double-check to make sure that you have the 2.4 SDK.
Download required packages., which requires you to make a free. This guide uses the 2010 Express edition, as it was the latest version at time of writing. and (optional)Install Visual CIf you already have a working installation of VC, you can skip this step.
Vst C# Tutorial
Otherwise, download VC and install it. The standard installation should be OK, but you can choose to perform a custom installation if you don’t want documentation or other stuff installed with it. Before installing VC, you must remove any other versions of VC on your computer.Next, download and install the Platform SDK, which will provide you with the standard header files and libraries you’ll need to build software.
You may choose to install VC anywhere on your hard drive, but the default location is C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 10.0. Creating your projectCreate a new project of type “Class Library”, which we’ll call YourProjectName.
Aax Plugin Development
In the rest of this tutorial, whenever you see YourProjectName, replace that text with the actual name of your project.In Visual Studio 9, you’d make a new project with the wizard found at File - New - Project. Select Visual C - Win32 Console Application, and choose a directory for your project. When the wizard opens, press “Next” and select DLL as the Application Type. Also check the “Empty Project” box.If you prefer not to start with an empty project, then you can remove all of the files that VC creates for you, but keep the resource.h and YourProjectName.rc files, and remove any references to these files (such as YourProjectName.ico being listed in the resource file). Add Source Code to the ProjectIf you already have source code for your plugin, simply add it to the project. Otherwise, you need to create the following files:.
YourProjectName.cpp. YourProjectName.h. resource.h (Only needed if building a plugin GUI). YourProjectName.rc (Only needed if building a plugin GUI)You will also need to add the files from the VST SDK, which includes everything under the vstsdk2.4/public.sdk/source/vst2.x and vstsdk2.4/pluginterfaces/vst2.x directories. I usually prefer to manually make groups for these directories and drag the files to the groups from Explorer, as dragging the entire “vstsdk2.4” directory to VS can cause it to choke when it tries to add a bunch of unused files to the project.To start out with, the plugin’s entry point header file (YourProjectName.h) should look something like this. LIBRARY YOURPROJECTNAMEEXPORTSVSTPluginMainmain=VSTPluginMainConfigure build settingsGo to the project settings either by right clicking on the project in the solution explorer and then selecting “Properties”.
#define IDBBITMAP1 1 #define IDBBITMAP2 2Now you can use IDBBITMAP1 (or any other name of your choosing) in your code when creating new CBitmap objects.I have heard some reports of vstgui.cpp not compiling properly due to the missing symbol pngsetexpandgray124to8. Changing pngsetgray124to8 to pngsetexpandgray124to8 in vstgui.cpp seems to fix this issue. Final considerationsVC ships with an optimizing compiler, but sometimes the compiler will choke on certain files and optimization must be disabled.
In particular, I have experienced this with Laurent de Soras’ FFTReal libraries, since they are written as template classes. In general, however, optimization is a good idea, as is “Eliminating Unreferenced Data” (in the linker settings). The “Whole Program Optimization” setting appears tempting, but usually results in dozens of build errors and problems, so it’s best to avoid this. Also, be sure to use the optimization features of this compiler and linker, as they can greatly boost runtime performance.If you are developing on a multi-core machine, then you might need to disable parallel builds by setting the number of parallel builds to 1 under Tools - Options - Projects and Solutions - Build and Run. In past verisons of VS, I noticed that the compiler does not always link projects in the order one would expect, which caused odd errors during linking about missing symbols. However, VS2010 users probably shouldn’t need worry about this setting. Troubleshooting Common Problems Unresolved symbols when linkingSometimes you may see errors like the following.
Audioeffect.obj: error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol impstrncataudioeffect.obj: error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol impstrncpyIf you are getting errors in your build about missing symbols, make sure that you double- and triple-check the debug and release configurations for the library configuration above, since some of the libraries which are used in one build style are specifically excluded from the other. Also, when you close and re-open the project’s build properties, VS always “forgets” the last selected build style, so remember to check and set this appropriately.Also, you should check to make sure that the Platform SDK was correctly installed on your system and that your project’s include and library paths are pointing to these directories. Unresolved external symbolsIf you are seeing errors like this.