This walkthrough is intended to talk about the various parts of the Steinberg AGain VST plugin example and help you start building your own plugins. Creating a plugin is as simple as modifying the example provided in the Steinberg Software Developers Kit (SDK) that you can download from Steinberg at: http://www.steinberg.net (visit support and then "3rd Party Developers). The SDK is freely licensed and all you need is a C++ compiler and a text editor to start creating.

With the software developers kit, Steinberg includes the source code for a fully functional gain changing plugin called AGain. This simple plugin reads a sample of audio and adjusts the volume from unity (no adjustments are made) to infinity (no output) depending on the value of the single user adjustable parameter called “Gain”. AGain is the basis for the tremolo plugin, however where tremolo adjusts the volume periodically with time, AGain does not change the volume over time unless the user manually adjusts the settings during playback. We will walk through the AGain C++ code example to become familiar with the way the plugin works and then we will modify the program to create the tremolo plugin.

AGain consists of three source files that contain the C++ code that allows the compiling software to create a binary executable. The files also include references to each other, standard C++ libraries, and Steinberg's VST libraries. The three files are named AGainMain.cpp, AGain.hpp, and AGain.cpp. AGainMain.cpp is responsible for executing the correct code when the plugin is loaded into the host. Most plugins will not need to have any changes made to this file so we will not be viewing it in depth. Just remember that this file is necessary to run a plugin.

Next Page >>