The 10th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) The 10 th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) VIRTUAL STUDIO T C(NOLOGY AND ITS A,,LICATION IN DIGITAL -USIC ,RODUCTION George Tane. Adri/an 0o1ino.s2i Uni.ersity American College S2op/e Uni.ersity American College S2op/e S2op/e, -acedonia S2op/e, -acedonia A0STRACT With VST3, Steinberg released the neAt ma/or re.ision of SteinbergCs Virtual Studio Technology to the audio industry. -usic production in the 21 st century is hea.ily based on the VST3 mar2s an important milestone in audio technology with use of high5performance computer5based systems and the a completely rewritten code base, pro.iding not only many increasing production of software applications that not only new features but also the most stable and reliable VST pro.ide high 7uality digital sound processing, but are also platform to date. Now VST plugins are able to process audio capable of pristinely emulating tons of simple and high5end in 645bit, allow audio inputs, multiple -IDI inputs & outputs, hardware de.ices used in the music industry throughout impro.e performance by applying processing to plugins only history. One of the goals of this de.elopment process is to when audio signals are present on their respecti.e inputs, etc enable the integration of as much musical e7uipment as ;5]. possible into one single de.ice, i.e. to allow a massi.e The latest upgrade to the VST interface specification E number of tools and functionalities to be implemented into a .ersion 3.5 E was made in February, 2011. This update, simple interface designed for the popular computer platforms among other things, included Note Apression where each and operating systems. A ma/or highlight, as well as one of indi.idual note (e.ent) in a polyphonic arrangement can the leading achie.ements in this domain, is presented by the contain eAtensi.e articulation information, which creates Virtual Studio Technology de.eloped by Steinberg, a unparalleled fleAibility and a much more natural feel of software production company based in Germany. This paper playing, say the people at Steinberg ;6]. ta2es into account the popular VST plugins by re.iewing their de.elopment, widespread application, and future potential in the music production industry as an integral part of the global music industry. Keywords 9 music production, music software, digital signal processing, VST plugins I. INTRODUCTION About two decades ago, musicians would ha.e laughed if Figure 19 Neon E The first a.ailable VST Instrument, they were told that classic synthesi:ers would be successfully included with Cubase VST 3.7 ;7] re5created in software form and sold at a fraction of their original price. They would ha.e been e.en less li2ely to II. VST ,LUGINS belie.e that they might ha.e half a do:en, or more of them, neatly integrated into their fa.orite -IDI (short for Musical The VST system was de.eloped by Steinberg to enable a Instrument Digital Interface ;1]) & audio se7uencer to be complete studio to be created in software. .en in its earliest summoned at will. Yet VST instruments, a product of the incarnation, it allowed third5party de.elopers to produce real5 renowned Virtual Studio Technology, do precisely this ;2]. time effect modules that could Gplug inH to the host application. (owe.er, when Steinberg introduced the second A. Brief History .ersion of the VST plugin standard, it also became possible to Anyone ma2ing digital music prior to 1996 had been using send -IDI data to and from such effects. This enabled their DAW (short for Digital Audio Workstation ;3]) to de.elopers to add more features, such as -IDI control of control 2eyboards and samplers .ia -IDI and then routing all effect parameters and loc2ing of effect settings to tempo. The their eAternal hardware through a traditional miAing des2. ine.itable result of this ad.ance in the protocol was that this With the release of Cubase 3.02 in 1996 Steinberg announced -IDI information was also used to run synth engines, rather the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) interface specification than /ust effects processors. It is these synths, mas7uerading which allowed a new breed of software de.elopers to recreate as effects plugins in order to fit directly into the se7uencing all those bul2y effects units as VST plugins ;4]. en.ironment, that are called VST instruments, or VSTiCs. A few years later in 1999 Steinberg updated their VST Fig. 2 shows the user interface of SynthogyCs I.ory II specification allowing VST plugins to recei.e -IDI data. Grand ,ianos, one of the most popular .irtual grand piano This changed the game e.en further, as it was now possible to collections. This VSTi relies on high le.els of sampling and recreate 2eyboards, synths, and drum machines, too. This synthesis technology, incorporating SynthogyCs eAclusi.e, upgrade saw the birth of the Virtual Studio Technology powerful 325bit Sample ,laybac2 and DS, (short for digital Instrument, or VSTi for short. signal processing ;I]) engine, engineered specifically for recreating the acoustic piano sound. It includes a library of ©2013 Faculty of Computer Science and ngineering 182 The 10th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) The 10 th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) o.er 77 gigabytes of sampled world class grand piano host application, or in the pre5assigned VST folder where all instruments, with up to 1I discrete .elocity layers with the other plugins are installed and summoned from by Sample Interpolation Technology for ultra5smooth .elocity different host applications. Once this is done, the only and note transitions. I.ory II employs compleA modeling remaining step is to restart the DAW and the new plugin algorithms for half5pedaling, harmonic and sustain resonance, becomes a.ailable for use. and comes with many customi:able user controls and do:ens Larger, more complicated, and often more eApensi.e VST of user5ad/ustable presets ;9]. plugins and instruments, are often sold as .eAe files that re7uire manual installation that is .ery similar to the installation of any other software pac2age. This is more often than not a point5and5clic2 /ob, though. The installation process can be more compleA and time5 consuming with massi.e VST plugins that ta2e up hundreds of gigabytes of space, where the installation in.ol.es switching between multiple installation dis2s, separate modules, protection dongles, etc. Figure 29 Synthogy I.ory II VSTi E Sampled Grand ,iano instrument collection ;10] A screenshot of Nati.e InstrumentCs (NI) Guitar Rig 5 VST is shown in Fig. 3. The Guitar Rig series of plugins are NICs attempt at recreating high5end guitar amplifiers, cabinets, microphones, and effect5units, pre.iously a.ailable in hardware form only. The software, tailored for guitar and, somewhat less so, bass players, uses amplifier modeling to allow real5time digital signal processing in both standalone and .irtual studio en.ironments. Figure 49 Spectrasonics Stylus R-J E Installation process ;12] B. Requirements In order to ma2e use of VST plugins it is essential to ha.e a suitable VST5compatible host application. Just about e.ery music production pac2age a.ailable these days supports VST technology, and many come with their own built5in plugins and .irtual instruments. In order to control things more easily, a good 2eyboard or controller is a must. A 2eyboard with weighted 2eys would gi.e more control o.er eApression when playing the .irtual instruments, and ha.ing a controller with plenty of 2nobs and faders will allow more control o.er all plugin settings. There are plenty of eAcellent 2eyboards and controllers around these days to suit e.ery budget and need. Figure 39 NI Guitar Rig 5 VST E Guitar multi5effects Rele.ant to mention here is that some VST plugins come processor ;11] with a standalone .ersion and can be used independently from any host application. 0ut this limits their capabilities. An important thing to ta2e into consideration is that VST A. Installation plugins and .irtual instruments are software, whereas their -ost VST plugins or instruments are pac2aged in one of ancestors were all hardware. The computer and, more two ways. Smaller plugins come as a single .dll file and are importantly, the sound card are now playing the ma/or part of the simplest to install. -ost DAWs such as Cubase, Sonar, the hardware. And it basically boils down to common sense to and FL Studio, re7uire the user to simply copy and paste the ma2e sure the user ma2es the most of their current setup. If a .dll file into a plugins directory within the main folder of the cheap computer with a built5in sound card is set to run too G. Tane., A. 0o1ino.s2i 183 The 10th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) The 10 th Conference for Informatics and Information Technology (CIIT 2013) many VSTs, it will drag to a halt. A cheap sound card will are created in real time using some of the processing power of result in a noticeable delay (latency) between playing a note the computer, each eAtra note or -IDI signal needs more on the 2eyboard and hearing the sound come out of the VSTi. calculations, and thus consumes additional C,U cycles. In For this reason it is ad.isable to use a sound card with .ery order to be able to ha.e more than /ust a few VST plugins low or ero latency, and ad/ust the settings of the card and the running at once, it is also important to ha.e sufficient RA- host application for best performance.