VST3 plugin builds, works in Ableton, but disappears from Maschine after scan

mason drielling

Hi everyone. I’m trying to figure out why a plugin I built works fine in Ableton Live, but won’t show up inside Maschine.

I built the Spectral Compressor plugin from the NIH-plug project (a Rust-based plugin framework). The build process finishes successfully and the plugin loads and works normally in Ableton Live.

Here are the exact steps I followed so there is no confusion:

1. I downloaded the NIH-plug source from GitHub.
2. I installed Rust using rustup.
3. I installed the Xcode Command Line Tools on macOS.
4. I built the plugin using the “cargo xtask bundle spectral_compressor –release” command.
5. The build produced a file named “Spectral Compressor.vst3”.
6. I copied that file into the system VST3 folder at: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/
7. I opened Ableton Live, rescanned plugins, and the plugin appeared and works correctly.

So the plugin clearly builds correctly, it is recognized as a real VST3 plugin, and it functions in at least one DAW.

Here is what happens in Maschine:

On first launch, the plugin does not appear, which I expected because Maschine caches plugins. Then I quit and reopen Maschine. During the plugin scan, Maschine briefly shows the Spectral Compressor plugin in the scanning window. But after the scan finishes, the plugin does not appear in the plugin dropdown menu, and it also does not show up in the plugin list inside Preferences.

So right now the behavior is:

Ableton Live: plugin works and loads.

Maschine: plugin is detected during scan, but disappears and cannot be selected.

I already tried doing a full rescan, clearing the plugin database, confirming the correct VST3 install path, and restarting both Maschine and the computer.

My questions are:

Why would Maschine detect a VST3 plugin during the scan but then exclude it afterward?

Does Maschine require specific VST3 metadata or validation rules some plugins may not meet?

Is this a known limitation with certain frameworks like NIH-plug or Rust-based plugins?

I’m not trying to do anything unsupported. I’m just trying to understand what Maschine expects from a valid VST3 plugin so I know whether this is fixable or simply not compatible.

Thanks for any help anyone can share.

Sunborn

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/49383/vst3-plugin-builds-works-in-ableton-but-disappears-from-maschine-after-scan

Hello

Very interesting subject! I would also like to know such things.

However, I think that your best choice is to contact directly to NI Support. I don't believe many people here have such level of knowledge to give you a valuable answer.