Installing and enabling VST plugins VST plugins are downloaded and installed individually for each VST, as designed by the plugin manufacturer. No special Reason Studios app or functions are required for installing VSTs. About VST licenses VST licenses and authorizations are handled by the individual VST manufacturers. VSTs cannot be authorized using the Reason Studios authorization system used for Reason and Rack Extensions. Installing VST plugins under Windows At each launch, Reason automatically scans for installed VST plugins in the following folders: C:\Program Files\VSTplugins\ (VST2 plugins) C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTplugins\ (VST2 plugins) C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2\ (VST2 plugins) C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ (VST3 plugins) If you don’t have any VST plugins installed on your Windows computer you might have to manually create a folder according to one of the paths listed above. When you then install VST plugins later on, instruct the VST Installation program to install the dll files in the appropriate folder. If there is no installation program for the VST, manually place the VST dll files in this folder. • It’s also possible to define your own custom VST folders on the Folders tab in Preferences, see “Defining custom VST folders”. Installing VST plugins under Mac On a Mac OS computer Reason automatically scans for installed VST plugins in the following folders at each launch: Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST (VST2 plugins) ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST (VST2 plugins) Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 (VST3 plugins) If you don’t have any VST plugins installed on your Mac you might have to manually create a folder according to one of the paths listed above. When you then install VST plugins later on, instruct the VST Installation program to install the files in the appropriate folder. If there is no installation program for the VST, manually place the VST files in this folder. • It’s also possible to define your own custom VST folders on the Folders tab in Preferences, see “Defining custom VST folders”. Enabling VST plugins in Reason To make newly installed VST plugins s available in Reason, simply (re)launch Reason. The available VST plugins are displayed on the corresponding palettes in the Reason Browser; VST instruments on the “Instruments” palette and VST effects on the “Effects” palette. VSTs that are internally tagged with “Analysis” are placed on the “Utilities” palette. • The VST plugins appear in the corresponding manufacturer sections, the same way as Rack Extensions are presented: VST instruments on the Instruments palette in the Browser. • VST3 plugins have a small golden VST3 label at the top left of the device thumbnail - and VST2 plugins have a small blue VST2 label. This is to distinguish them from Rack Extension devices, which don’t have any label. Click the Show/hide button(s) to choose what devices should be shown in the browser. If both the VST2 and VST3 buttons are on, you can choose to hide any VST2 “duplicates” of the same device by deactivating the Duplicates button: • Some VST plugins might be represented by a generic device “panel” in the Browser. If this is the case, you can have Reason take a screenshot of the VST plugin panel and automatically replace the generic panel, see “Screenshot”.
