You can download and install plug-ins or libraries to add extra functionality to Audacity. Plug-ins can give you extra effects, or more audio generation and analysis capability. Adding libraries can allow you to import or export additional audio formats.

• Vst Plugin Audacity Steps Tutorial
• Vst Plug In Audacity

Steps is a VST port of the classic 'Hammerhead' drum loop software. Steps features a 6 part, 4 measure sequencer, and adds an ADSR, looping, humanization and bit reduction to Hammerhead's feature set, thanks to synthedit modules by David Haupt, Chris Kerry, Etric Van Meyer and Lance Putnam. Place the unzipped VST Enabler, along with your VST plug-ins, into the “Plug-ins” folder in the Audacity installation folder. (On Mac OS X, this is usually in the Applications folder. On Windows, it is usually under Program, Files.) The next time you start Audacity, your VST effects will appear at the bottom of the “Effect” menu.

Plug-in Installation

Installation instructions for plug-ins are provided in the Audacity manual. Note that the instructions vary according to platform (Windows / Mac / Linux) and the type of plug-in.

Nyquist Plug-ins

Audacity has built-in support for Nyquist effects on all operating systems. You can download additional Nyquist plug-ins, or create your own using the Nyquist programming language. Nyquist code can be conveniently tested using “Nyquist Prompt” under the Effect menu.

LV2 Plug-ins

Audacity has built-in support for LV2 plug-ins, which are an extensible successor of LADSPA effects. LV2 plug-ins are mostly built for Linux, but Audacity supports LV2 on all operating systems. To install LV2 plug-ins, place them in the system LV2 location then use the Plug-ins Manager to enable the new plug-ins as in the plug-in installation instructions.

VST Plug-ins

Audacity can load VST effects (but not VST instruments) on all operating systems. The VST Enabler is no longer required. Install the VST effects to the Audacity Plug-Ins folder on Windows, to ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins on OS X/macOS or to system locations. Then use the Plug-ins Manager to enable the new plug-ins as in the plug-in installation instructions above.

VST effects can be found on many plug-in sites such as:

• Hitsquad: Windows, Mac
• KVR Audio: Windows, Mac
• Open Directory (Windows, Mac).

The VST Plug-ins page on the Audacity Wiki contains further help for VST plug-ins, and lists a large number of VST plug-ins that have been reported to work well in Audacity.

Audio Unit Plug-ins

On Mac OS X only, you can add Audio Unit plug-ins to the system plug-in directories (Audacity will not recognize any Audio Units in its own “plug-ins” folder). Then use the Plug-ins Manager to enable the new plug-ins and any required Apple Audio Units as in the plug-in installation instructions above.

Module Plug-ins

Experimental modules offer a further way to extend Audacity with new features.

LADSPA Plug-ins

LADSPA is superseded by LV2. These plug-ins are mostly built for Linux, but some old LADSPA plug-ins are available via the Legacy Windows and Legacy Mac sections.

Libraries

The LAME MP3 encoding library allows Audacity to export audio in the popular MP3 format. To install the LAME library, please read our LAME FAQ.

The FFmpeg import/export library allows Audacity to import and export many additional audio formats such as AC3, AMR(NB), M4A and WMA, and to import audio from video files. Audacity 2.0.6 and later requires FFmpeg 1.2 to 2.3.x (or libav 0.8 to 0.10.x). To install FFmpeg, please read our FFmpeg FAQ.

It is strongly recommended, when installing third-party plug-ins, that you thoroughly test the plug-in on non-critical project data before using it in production use on a live project. Many such plug-ins 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

Installing Audio Unit plug-ins

Audio Unit (AU) is a system-level plug-in architecture provided on Mac OS X and macOS computers.

• Audio Unit effects support real-time preview.

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

• ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (user plug-ins)
• /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (system-wide plug-ins)

Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins../free-noise-reduction-plugin-vst.html. to enable the Audio Unit effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Manage Effects.

Please note that not all of the Audio Unit effects that Apple supplies can be enabled in Audacity. They will show listed as available in the New section of the Plug-in Manager but if you try to enable them you will get an error message telling you that they failed to register. This is an Apple issue and not an Audacity bug. This only affects a few of the Audio Unit plug-ins: AUScheduledSoundPlayer, AUMultiSplitter, AUMultiChannelMixer, AUMixer3D, AUMIxer, AUMatrixMixer, AUAudioFilePlayer and AUSpeechSynthesis.

Installing Nyquist plug-ins

Nyquist plug-ins 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 plug-ins can be obtained from Download Nyquist Plug-ins on our Wiki.

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

All Nyquist plug-ins are plain text files that have the filename extension '.NY'. This plug-in installer provides a file browser for selecting the plug-in '.NY' file, and then copies the file to the correct location. Once the plug-in has been installed, it may be enabled in the Plug-in Manager.

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

Installing a Nyquist plug-in manually

It is also possible to add a new Nyquist plug-in 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 load the new effects into Audacity so they are available in the menu, use the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.

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

Vst Plugin Audacity Steps Tutorial

Installing VST plug-ins

Audacity supports almost all VST effect plug-ins on Mac including 'shell' VST's that host multiple VST effects.

To install new VST plug-ins, 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 plug-ins are searched recursively, which means that plug-ins that are inside their own folder in that directory should still be found by Audacity.

You can install new VST effects into Audacity by using the Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. menu item. This opens the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog where you can select and enable the new effects then click to load them. Next time you launch Audacity the enabled effect(s) will be cached and you will not need to re-enable them.

The list of effects in the dialog will include any detected VST instrument (VSTi) plug-ins (such as synths) and any real-time VST effects that are capable of changing audio data while it's 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 plug-ins not work or display incorrectly?

Audacity will by default display VST effect plug-ins with a full graphical interface where the plug-in supplies this.

VST instruments (VSTi) (such as synths) and real-time VST effects (that change the audio data while it's being written) are not yet supported. These will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog. VST 3 plug-ins are not supported.

If any plug-in 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 and click . 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 plug-ins.

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

Vst Plug In Audacity

Installing LADSPA plug-ins

The LADSPA plug-in architecture was originally developed on Linux. Audacity supports LADSPA effects on Mac as well as GNU/Linux. You can download and install a set of over 90 LADSPA plug-ins. You can then choose which LADSPA plug-ins to enable in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.

To install new LADSPA plug-ins, place them in Audacity's 'Plug-Ins' folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.

Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. to enable the LADSPA effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers.

Audacity will also load LADSPA plug-ins from the following system locations:

• The path specified by the LADSPA_PATH environment variable
• ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA
• /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA

Installing LV2 plug-ins

LV2 is a more advanced evolution of the LADSPA plug-in 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 plug-ins for Mac, though it may be possible to compile some Linux LV2 plug-ins 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 plug-ins 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

Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. to enable the LV2 effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers.

Installing Vamp plug-ins

Vamp plug-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. Free vst plugins for cakewalk by bandlab. Any Vamp plug-ins whose output is suitable for a label track should work in Audacity on Mac. To add a new Vamp analysis tool, add the plug-in's DLL, DYLIB or SO file and any supplied category or RDF files to any of the Vamp search locations then enable the tool in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.

Uninstalling plug-ins

Plug-ins can be removed using Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. and then removing the file from the relevant file location, so that they do not appear again in Plug-in Manager.

Plug-ins shipped with Audacity can be found inside Audacity.app (in the Applications folder, or wherever you have installed Audacity). The path to the plug-ins 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 plug-in?

Please see this FAQ

Please see this Wiki page for Plug-ins that crash Audacity or fail to work properly in Audacity

Links

> Installing and updating Audacity on Mac