Beginner Questions - Downloading and Building

Developer VST 3 SDK
1

Hi,

I’m new to the VST 3 SDK. I have two questions:

  1. I’m unclear how the download works - there’s a download at 3rd-Party Developers Support & SDKs | Steinberg but there’s also the sdk at GitHub - steinbergmedia/vst3sdk: VST 3 Plug-In SDK.

What’s the difference? If I’m interested in developing plug-ins for OSX, which is the best option?

  1. I downloaded the sdk from 3rd-Party Developers Support & SDKs | Steinberg but I couldn’t see any info about how to build it. If I want to build one of the basic plug-ins (say, AGain) how do I do it (on OSX 10.12.3)?

Cheers,

Chris

2

Hi

  1. download from :
  1. how to build ?
    after downloading the sdk, you have to unzip it, and then open the documentation : index.html on a browser, then
    check in the doc the page “How to use cmake for Building VST 3 Plug-in”, you can use the search field (top-right)
    This will explain you how to create the project files needed for your IDE

Cheers

3

Thanks!

Another quick question - there’s a shell script (copy_vst2_to_vst3_sdk.sh) at the top level of the SDK - what’s that for?

Cheers!

4

Hi,

I’ve run into a build problem using the following instructions:

Command line for macOS to build Xcode project:
// go in to the folder where you extracted the VST3 SDK

mkdir build
cd build
/Applications/CMake.app/Content/bin/cmake -G"Xcode" “…/VST3_SDK”


Here’s what I’m doing and the error I’m getting:

New-MacBook:Audio Plugin Development chris$ cd VST_SDK/
New-MacBook:VST_SDK chris$ ls
VST2_SDK VST3_SDK copy_vst2_to_vst3_sdk.bat copy_vst2_to_vst3_sdk.sh
New-MacBook:VST_SDK chris$ cd VST3_SDK/
New-MacBook:VST3_SDK chris$ ls
CMakeLists.txt README.md bin doc pluginterfaces vstgui4
LICENSE.txt base cmake index.html public.sdk
New-MacBook:VST3_SDK chris$ mkdir build
New-MacBook:VST3_SDK chris$ cd build/
New-MacBook:build chris$ /Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake -G"Xcode" “…/VST3_SDK”
CMake Error: The source directory “/Users/chris/Desktop/Audio Programming/Audio Plugin Development/VST_SDK/VST3_SDK/VST3_SDK” does not exist.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.

Am I building from the wrong directory?

Also, in the build instructions “Content” should be “Contents” I think.

Cheers,

Chris

5

Hi Chris,

You are trying to run cmake in the VST3_SDK folder, which corresponds to : “…”
This should work:

cmake .. -G "Xcode"

Baptiste

6

If you want to use/develop VST2 plug-ins you have to copy the VST2 interfaces and helpers into the VST3 one…
for this use the delivered scripts:
copy_vst2_to_vst3_sdk.sh or copy_vst2_to_vst3_sdk.bat

Cheers

7

I’m still having problems with this.

Here’s what I’m doing:

Unzip the SDK
cd into VST_SDK
cd into VST3_SDK
mkdir build
cd into build
/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake -G"Xcode" “…/VST3_SDK”

This doesn’t seem to create anything?

Not sure if I’m creating the “build” directory in the right place or whether I’m running cmake from the right place.

Cheers!

8

Unzip the SDK
cd into VST_SDK
cd into VST3_SDK <----- Leave this out :exclamation: Create the [build] folder on the same level like [VST3_SDK]
mkdir build
cd into build
/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake -G"Xcode" “…/VST3_SDK”

René

9

You are doing the same mistake as before.
The last command you need to run is:

/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake -G "Xcode" ".."

Which will run CMake in “VST_SDK/VST3_SDK”, where the CMakeLists.txt file is located.
What you attempted to do is to run CMake in the folder “VST_SDK/VST3_SDK/VST3_SDK”, which doesn’t exist.
Your build directory is in the right place.

Baptiste

10

Thanks - it’s working now. Part of the problem was that my Cmake installation wasn’t working properly.