Can I make any of these plugins work with Adobe Audition?

August 20, 2012 10:14 AM

Can I make any of these plugins work with Adobe Audition? I've tried to install them, but they won't appear in the menus.

I've downloaded some .dlls that looked promising, put them in a folder, added that folder to the Audio Plug-In Manager, clicked Scan for Plug-Ins, and they show up ad Working, type VST, and they're checked Enabled. But I can't find any of them to use them, in the sense that they don't seem to show up in the menu anywhere. There's nothing under Effects > VST or Effects > VST3

Is there something else that I'm missing? Is there a way to access plugins that are allegedly "working?" Is there a reason these won't work with Audition? Should I try again with a different program?

posted by RobotHero to computers & internet (8 answers total)

Audition is mostly an audio editor and I don't think it supports VST instruments, just VST effects. You'd need to look into another host which can pass MIDI to VST instruments. Have a look here for some ideas (click on hosts).
posted by subtle-t at 11:50 AM on August 20, 2012

Audition has traditionally been quite bad with MIDI, and I think it only started to support VST instruments in later versions.

I recently moved to Presonus's Studio One from Audition, partly because of the trickiness of working with MIDI stuff.

However, I still have Audition 3, which definitely does support VST instruments. Here's how to get to them:

1. Insert a new MIDI track (or hit Alt + M)

2. Hit the button that says "Sequencer..." in the left hand side of the new track.

3. In the panel that opens up, choose your instrument next to where it says "VSTi"

4. That should be it!
posted by cincinnatus c at 11:58 AM on August 20, 2012

I have CS6 and I don't think it says anything about creating a MIDI track. This thread says support was dropped.

So I guess my question is now, what's involved in getting, "another host which can pass MIDI to VST instruments?"

What's a "host?" One of the top listed hosts on what subtle-t linked is Synth1. Is that good?

Is there a host that plays nicely with Audition, since I'm used to using that for audio editing?

I used to use Audacity, I think the open source attitude would never drop support for anything. Would that be able to use instrument plugins?
posted by RobotHero at 12:46 PM on August 20, 2012

Okay, I found the answer about Audacity here where it says "Audacity can load VST effects (but not VST instruments)"
posted by RobotHero at 1:02 PM on August 20, 2012

Weird that they dropped MIDI support. That being the case, there's just no way you'll be able to use those instruments in Audition (a ridiculous workaround would be to create the MIDI tracks in another program, export as an audio file, and import that to an Audition project, but it's hard to live like that).

What subtle-t is suggesting, I think, is that you'll need to start using a new DAW (host), instead of Audition, if you want to use MIDI. This is a big hassle, I know, but I agree that that's your best bet. Audition is not really geared towards making music as much as it is towards preparing radio broadcasts etc. That's why, I suppose, they have taken the bizarre decision to drop MIDI.

As I said, I recently moved to Studio One, which I can't recommend highly enough - just pure pleasure. It's relatively new and has received pretty much unanimous praise (search for reviews). But there are loads of DAWs, each with their own good and bad points, so it is probably best if you try a few demos and make up your own mind.

Before you do this though (and potentially decide to spend a lot of money on a new program), I would recommend you download Reaper, which comes as fully featured shareware (which never expires, though you should pay the modest purchase price if you're still using it after 30 days). It's a very nice program, regularly updated, that will have you playing around with your VST instruments in about 15 minutes from now.
posted by cincinnatus c at 1:09 PM on August 20, 2012

Not much to add. You'll probably have to play around with a number of new DAWs before settling on the one you're comfortable with. I've been using FL Studio for over 12 years (since the fruity loops days) and am really happy with it. It will work with the VST instruments you linked to. If you do decide to buy it, it comes with free updates for life.
posted by subtle-t at 1:38 PM on August 20, 2012

I had been using the Generate Tones plugin in Audition, copying-and-pasting from a list of the frequencies of notes. So it won't take much to be an improvement.

I'm playing with Reaper and a plugin called Icecream already. I'll play around with this and see if it'll work for what I hope for.
posted by RobotHero at 1:55 PM on August 20, 2012

Two words: Ableton Live.
posted by tunewell at 4:12 AM on August 21, 2012