These are probably fairly easy for somebody in the know.
For Windows and Mac, if anybody knows how it works on either platform...
- Is there a registry key that shows which folder is my "official" VST3 folder? If so, what would it be on Windows? What would be the mechanism on Mac?
- Is there only one true VST3 folder on any given system for all time, or can some hosts or instruments override the "system folder" for VST3 VSTs? If they can override it, do they do it on a system basis, or can they do it just for their own purposes as a one-off change?
- On Windows, the file names in my "system" VST3 folder include both .DLLs as well as .VST3s. In general, I know what DLLs are, but I lack understanding of what makes a DLL work as a VST...and more specifically, as a version 3 VST. Can somebody give me a quick primer on how this works?
Background:
These questions arose while I was recently updating some VST Instruments. I've already removed "most" Version 2 VST folder concatenations from my hosts, but still have more work to do. Anyway, these updates are supposedly VST3, because they ended up with updates to
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
But there seems to be some unexpected behavior. One of the updates was the Musiclab RealGuitar and its sister guitar instruments. These required me to manually update the above folder with the new DLL and VST3 files as mentioned in each instrument's installation instructions. For Musiclab, I guess it doesn't copy the files into the aforementioned VST3 folder; not automatically, anyway.
So I copied the modules as instructed, but my hosts aren't picking up the new versions, which makes me want to confirm via the Registry if that folder really IS my VST3 folder, or if something else got bonked, borked, or overridden somewhere along the way. This issue is on Windows, and I'd like to see if I can chase it down and learn something in the process.
At the same time, I'd also like to learn how it all works on Mac.
Thanks in advance for any knowledge anybody can share or direct me to!