Can you load a WAVES VST plugin with Audio Toolbox?

I'm trying to load a VST3 plugin from WAVES using loadAudioPlugin() from MATLAB Audio Toolbox but I get the following error (in comments):

loadAudioPlugin('/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/WaveShell1-VST3 14.17.vst3')
% Unexpected unknown exception from MEX file..
% Error in hostmexif.newplugininstance
%
% Error in loadAudioPlugin

This seems to be due to Waves using WaveShell as a software gateway to the actual VST plugin -- see https://www.waves.com/support/how-to-use-waves-plugins-when-using-custom-vst-folder

Anyone had any success loading a Waves VST3 plugin into MATLAB?

[Jimmy Lapierre]

As a potential workaround, does it work if it's copied to "~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3" or "/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3" and loaded from there?

[Jimmy Lapierre]

It also sounds like WaveSheel is some kind of wrapper. Do they also provide individual VST3's that you could load directly?

[Mike]

Thanks Jimmy for your sugggestions.

I've tried to copying the .vst3 file to the directories suggested (note that it was already in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/) but I get the same error. I've also tried to cd() to either directory prior to calling loadAudioPlugin() but I get the same result as well

WaveShell is indeed some kind of wrapper. I've contacted Waves support to see if they provide actual VST3 files.

[Jimmy Lapierre]

I looked into this some more and I suspect either their plugins won't load unless it's by one of their approved DAWs, or we're running into an issue because they're asking for a configuration (empty main bus) that probably should not be requested. I don't have any of their plugins but I'll look into purchasing a set.

[Mike]

Thanks for looking into it in more details. I wouldn't be able to comment on the second issue but I have some more info from Waves tech support about their WaveShell "interface":

===

The WaveShell system is tested to work and gets the VST and VST3 plugins, as well as any other supported plugin format loaded as needed.

It does act as a bridge between the host and the actual plugins, this is also to share resources between our plugins and better utilize background processes.

It is not possible to load plugins without the use of WaveShells as there are no available VST3 files for singular plugins, the plugin files are hosted as .undle files and installed into the Applications folder on Mac computers.

===

Here's what I can see in /Applications on my machine:

/Applications/Waves/Plug-Ins V14/<pluginName>.bundle

Right-click on <pluginName>.bundle / Show Package Contents reveals, among other things:

/Applications/Waves/Plug-Ins V14/<pluginName>.bundle/Contents/MacOS/<pluginName>

a binary file which fails to load with MATLAB's loadAudioPlugin() function as well (Error message below, commented out and edited by replacing actual plugin name by <pluginName>, as above)

% Error using loadAudioPlugin
% No valid audio plugin found at '/Applications/Waves/Plug-Ins
% V14/<pluginName>.bundle/Contents/MacOS/<pluginName>'.
% Specify a valid file path to an audio plugin.
% Error in loadAudioPlugin 

I think Waves offers demo versions of their softwares, but I'm not sure whether this might yet add another layer to interact with their plugins...

[Jimmy Lapierre]

Hi Mike, I can load one of their demo plugins in another program, so it looks like the issue is at our end. I'll investigate further, but I don't know if there's a quick fix in the meantime. Sorry that you ran into this.

[Jimmy Lapierre]

So I was able to load this on Windows:

p = loadAudioPlugin("C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\WaveShell1-VST3 14.12_x64.vst3")

However, I think this only gives us access to one plugin, whichever is "first", with no way to select another. I'll document the issue internally so that hopefully we could add better support for these plugins in the future.

[Mike]

Thanks again for looking into this. Unfortunately I couldn't test it on Windows myself but that looks somewhat encourageing.

I definitely look forward seeing Waves VST plugins being better supported in MATLAB in the future. Would you have a rough estimate of a timeline for this?

Thanks

[Jimmy Lapierre]

I have taken note of this issue. It looks like we need a way of selecting a plugin by name when there are several plugins under a unique binary.