Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plugins on Mac - Audacity Manual

# Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plugins on Mac

From Audacity Development Manual

You can download and install plugins to add extra functionality to Audacity. Plugins can give you extra effects, or more audio generation and analysis capabilities.

| Any new plugins that you add to the various plugins folders will be automatically enabled, ready for use, the next time you launch Audacity.

| It is strongly recommended, when installing third-party plugins, that you thoroughly test the plugin on non-critical project data before using it in production use on a live project. Many such plugins are known to fail or crash Audacity, see this Wiki page.

| The folders that you need may be "hidden". To access them in Finder use Go > Go To Folder > ~/Library ... or Go > Go To Folder > /Library ... The Go is in the menu bar at the top of the desktop when Finder is active.

## Contents

1. Installing Audio Unit plugins
2. Installing Nyquist plugins
3. Installing VST plugins
4. Installing LV2 plugins
5. Installing Vamp plugins
6. Uninstalling plugins
7. How can I solve Audacity crashing after I add a plugin?

## Installing Audio Unit plugins

Audio Unit (AU) is a system-level plugin architecture provided on macOS computers.

- Audio Unit instruments are not currently supported.

To add a new Audio Unit effect, place it in either of the following system plugin directories:

- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (user plugins)
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (system-wide plugins)
- Close and relaunch Audacity to automatically enable the new effects so they are available in the Audacity menu.

| Please note that not all of the Audio Unit effects that Apple supplies can be enabled in Audacity. This is an Apple issue and not an Audacity bug. This only affects a few of the Audio Unit plugins: AUScheduledSoundPlayer, AUMultiSplitter, AUMultiChannelMixer, AUMixer3D, AUMIxer, AUMatrixMixer, AUAudioFilePlayer and AUSpeechSynthesis.

## Installing Nyquist plugins

Nyquist plugins provide most of the optional effects underneath the divider in the Effect menu. They are also used to provide some of Audacity's built-in audio generators and analysis tools. A wide range of additional Nyquist effect, generation and analysis plugins can be obtained from Download Nyquist Plugins on our Wiki.

The easiest way to install a new Nyquist plugin is to use the Tool Nyquist Plug-in Installer which is itself a Nyquist plugin that simplifies the installation of other Nyquist plugins.

All Nyquist plugins are plain text files that have the filename extension '.NY'. This plugin installer provides a file browser for selecting the plugin '.NY' file, and then copies the file to the correct location.

Any new Nyquist plugins that you add will be automatically enabled, ready for use, the next time you launch Audacity.

  Accessed by: Tools > Nyquist Plug-in Installer...

### Installing a Nyquist plugin manually

It is also possible to add a new Nyquist plugin manually by adding it to the correct location that Audacity expects.

Place them in Audacity's "Plug-Ins" folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.

To enable the new Nyquist effects in Audacity so they are available in the menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

| Some Nyquist plugins could crash while processing very long audio selections (typically an hour or more). This is due to the plugin using a large amount of memory and is a known issue in Audacity's current Nyquist implementation. Try using the plugin on shorter selections instead.

## Installing VST plugins

Audacity supports almost all VST effect plugins on Mac including "shell" VST's that host multiple VST effects.

To install new VST plugins, place them in Audacity's "Plug-Ins" folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.

Other possible locations on Mac are:

- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
- All paths specified by the "VST_PATH" environment variable.

All the directories where you can place VST plugins are searched recursively, which means that plugins that are inside their own folder in that directory should still be found by Audacity.

To automatically enable the new VST effects, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

| The list of effects in the dialog will include any detected VST instrument (VSTi) plugins (such as synths) and any real-time VST effects that are capable of changing audio data while it is being written to disk. Neither of these are yet supported and they will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the dialog.

### Why do some VST plugins not work or display incorrectly?

Audacity will by default display VST effect plugins with a full graphical interface where the plugin supplies this.

VST instruments (VSTi) (such as synths) and real-time VST effects (that change the audio data while it is being written) are not yet supported. These will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the Plugin Manager dialog.

If any plugin displays incorrectly, you can use the Manage button in the effect's dialog then choose Options... to open the VST Effect Options for that effect. Then remove the checkmark from the "Enable graphical interface" checkbox Enable graphical interface and click OK. When you reopen the effect it will display a simpler tabular interface.

| On Mac, Audacity is a 64-bit application so will not see 32-bit versions of VST plugins.

If you experience a problem with a specific VST effect plugin in Audacity, please contact us.

## Installing LV2 plugins

LV2 is a more advanced evolution of the LADSPA plugin architecture which was originally developed on Linux. Audacity supports both LV2 effects on Mac as well as GNU/Linux. There are not yet many pre-compiled LV2 plugins for Mac, though it may be possible to compile some Linux LV2 plugins for other operating systems.

To add a new LV2 effect, place its complete ".lv2" folder (not the files alone) at the top level of any of the following searched for locations:

- ~/.lv2
- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2
- /usr/local/lib/lv2
- /usr/lib/lv2

Search paths where Audacity looks for LV2 plugins may also be specified by setting the LV2_PATH environment variable. The path listed below is legitimate.

- $HOME/.lv2:$HOME/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2:/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2:/usr/local/lib/lv2:/usr/lib/lv2

To automatically enable the new LV2 effects, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

## Installing Vamp plugins

Vamp plu-ins are usually for analyzing audio so will appear under Audacity's Analyze Menu. You can do interesting things like attempt to track beats, note pitches, chords or frequencies. Any Vamp plugin whose output is suitable for a label track should work in Audacity on Mac. To add a new Vamp analysis tool, add the plugin's DLL, DYLIB or SO file and any supplied category or RDF files to any of the Vamp search locations. To automatically enable the new Vamp plugins, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

## Uninstalling plugins

Plugins can be removed using Effect > Plugin Manager and then removing the file from the relevant file location, so that they do not appear again in Plugin Manager.

Plugins shipped with Audacity can be found inside Audacity.app (in the Applications folder, or wherever you have installed Audacity). The path to the plugins is for example /Applications/Audacity.app/Contents/plug-ins. You can reach the Contents directory by right-clicking or Ctrl-clicking over Audacity.app and selecting Show Package Contents.

## How can I solve Audacity crashing after I add a plugin?

Please see this FAQ

If you discover a specific plugin that misbehaves in Audacity, please email our feedback address. Please include any available Debug report that Audacity generates.

Please see this Wiki page for Plugins that crash Audacity or fail to work properly in Audacity

## Links

> Installing and updating Audacity on Mac