VST plugin that hosts VST plugins

Question

Is there any VST plugin out there that is capable of loading other VST plugins (effects) ?

A free one, if possible :P

You mean, it should simply load a chain of VSTs and use them as if they'd been loaded directly by the DAW? Why would you want that? If your DAW has something like a maximum number of plugins restriction, it's a broken design, get a better one. For instance, Reaper. — leftaroundabout, Mar 09 '13 at 10:20
it's not really a daw, it's a foobar plugin that is supposed to let foobar load vst plugins, but not all vsts work, so i was thinking to load a working vst effect that can chain other effects... — , Mar 09 '13 at 22:03
If not all VSTs work because they require API calls the primary VST host doesn't support, you'll still encounter incompatibility further down the chain. And, instead of a graceful fail, fb will probably just crash. FWIW, I use George Yohng's VST Wrapper for Foobar player v1.2 with my fb2k installs, and it works great for just about everything. With LOADS of VSTs Foobar can take longer to start as the wrapper parses all of your plugins, but I hardly ever close foobar ;) — Chris Woods, Mar 11 '13 at 05:39

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 30 '13 at 20:26

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Try Plogue Bidule. There is a trial of the standalone version which can really do amazing things, the paid plugin version can host other plugins.

answered Mar 30 '13 at 20:26

Plogue Bidule is overkill for the questioner's intended use, but it's a modular Swiss Army knife for audio production and performance. – Jonathan Van Matre Jan 16 '14 at 05:33

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 13:22

1

Unfortunately not free, but the following two options have worked for me in the past:

Xlutop Chainer

Energy-XT which can be used as a VST plugin, or a DAW in its own right. I use it as both, as there's a Linux version, and I love it.

answered Apr 02 '13 at 13:22

Additional comment, as the automated link police wouldn't let me include this in my reply above:
There are a few more options here, but I haven't tried many of them as the two above have been enough for my needs. KvR Search - Plugin Chainer/Rack effects
– Apr 02 '13 at 13:25

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 08 '15 at 12:21

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These plugins load other plugins:

Blue Cat Audio Patchworks (€59 / $79 excl. VAT)

DDMF Metaplugin ($49)

edited Apr 08 '15 at 12:21

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answered Apr 08 '15 at 03:23

David

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 10 '13 at 06:01

If there is another plug-in format supported, you could try a VST wrapper and see if that helps. I know FXExpansion makes one for VSTs, but again, your host would have to support something other than VSTs.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 08 '15 at 07:57

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You could write your own hosting plug-in. This paper explains the architecture:

http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/18249/1/ICMC2011%2DPaper_Final_Camera_Ready_ver2.pdf

answered Apr 08 '15 at 07:57

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 09 '15 at 08:43

The best plugin host I can think of would be from Steinberg themselves who were the inventors of VST:

https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developers.html

Download this: VST 3.6.0 Audio Plug-Ins SDK

Unzip it and there will be the vst host executable in the bin folder. I test out most of the plugins I write using this. And it is quite amazing.

VST plugin that hosts VST plugins

6 Answers6