Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

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William
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Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by William » Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:22 am

Can I move my plugin .dll files into category folders without screwing everything up? For instance I want to put all of my compressor vst's into a "Compressor" folder. I know this would be fine to do during an initial installation but I'm wondering if doing this will cause problems with plugins that have already been (legally) installed?

Thanks
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dokx
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by dokx » Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:57 am

Windows?

Some things will get screwed, I remember some plugs which cannot be removed without being reinstalled (e.g. Reverberate asks for the IR's if the folder is moved etc.)

I guess one way would be creating soft links to the plugs and then moving those links.

nuxnamon
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by nuxnamon » Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:58 am

i did the exact same thing.. i made folders like compressors, eq, filters, distortions, etc.. this is after installation.. ableton scans the vsts everytime i open it.. but this is on MAC OSX..

Bagatell
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by Bagatell » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:39 am

I seem to remember doing it with shortcuts.

William
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by William » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:15 pm

Ok I'll give it a shot. Yea I'm on a custom i7 Windows machine.

Thanks for the replies

Presonus Studio One has an awesome tagging system to deal with this. I hope that gets implemented in Live
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Vios
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by Vios » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:35 pm

It shouldn't be a problem as long as you refresh the folder when you're done. Some VSTs are finicky though so I'd save a backup of your entire VST folder just in case.

It might affect your saved tracks though. I think Live will still try and look for VSTs in saved tracks in the location they were at, at the time the track was saved.

dokx
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by dokx » Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:22 am

Vios wrote:
It might affect your saved tracks though. I think Live will still try and look for VSTs in saved tracks in the location they were at, at the time the track was saved.
Fortunately that's not a problem, Live seems intelligent enough to reassign the VSTs.

But I had to re-install some copy protected VSTs as I remember.

TabSel
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Re: Can I make VST folders without screwing everything up?

Post by TabSel » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:40 am

shortcuts and symlinks won't work with some/most plugins, as some/most hosts don't follow .lnk shortcuts but search for .dll files only, and some/most plugins don't like it when they are renamed, or rely on ressources, which it cannot found when loaded via symlink etc...

I once wrote a small "Plugin Manager" in html/vbscript, which let me scan through all my plugins, sort them by x64/x32, automap enabled or not etc., and which builds folders/subfolders containing proxy dlls I wrote, which simply load the "real" plugin dll. Thus, I don't have to move around dll files but install them once, only, and I am able to categorize my plugs as I like into folders/subfolders and let my utility build the folders and proxys named as needed, one folder for each host, each plugin "switchable" to be loaded automap enabled by the host, or not, and/or loaded jBridged to x32/x64, or not, via a .ini file...

This way I was able to have "plugin (Automap).dll"s available in hosts again as "plugin", instead of "plugin (Automap)", for example, with some hosts relying on a plugin dlls name to find presets, for example...

I anything changes plugin wise in my system, I simply run my plugin manager (sort new plugins (ini-file) into its appropriate category folder) and I'm done...

The tool doesn't have a UI, and it isn't documented, and I developed it for my own needs, but if anyone was interested, I'd consider sending the files, or, at least the proxy dlls for you to write your own plugin manager?

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