VST management?

[Metrophage]

Any of you have any techniques or tricks you use to manage how and where you install plugins?

When I have had plugins which worked with everything, I have tried making aliases of these for other programs, but IIRC didn't get it to work. Which usually caused me to expedite things by installing lots of duplicate stuff all over my drive. Also, the usual "install for each host" method is lame when one choose to install more/other hosts later. Obviously, non DRM plugs can be easily copies and pasted, but with authorized ones it would be preferable to link to the one that's already working.

Any ideas?

[IIO]

i have a "full install" where literally all plug-ins are present, and when i feel i need a clean DAW for a new project, i just make a copy of cubase or nuendo and a small assortment of plugs.

of course this would be a no go with DP and protools.

in my custom max/msp apps i sometimes use auto loading, and mostly use drag and drop. for that purpose my "full install" VST folder is always present as springloaded folder on the OS9 desktop.

also, cubase and nuendo allow to make subfolders, this makes it easy to control a set of 1000 plug-ins if required. but for many years i have not been using subfolders - but renamed all products alphabetically after vendor. it was not slower to find stuff this way, it was often even faster than using subfolders.

about copying, i know no product and no copy protection scheme which wouldnt allow to just make as much copies as you wish?

[DieHard]

The best approach IMO is to first standardize on a DAW host (or maybe top 2), then learn the quirks of the the way the host interacts with the Plugins, you can download the DAW image I created for Cubase VST 32 and take a look at the Plugin folder... I organized them into sub-folders by function/type; for example... Delays, Reverbs, Drum Machines, etc. and all the plugins will function and be 100% authorized (thanks to our advances in the Apple Software Restore); Try it out

This is probably my biggest beef with ProTools, it lacks the plugin organization that I need

[Protools5LEGuy]

Any of you have any techniques or tricks you use to manage how and where you install plugins?

...
 Also, the usual "install for each host" method is lame when one choose to install more/other hosts later.

Any ideas?

I have tested DieHard Cubase Install and I am a Logic user.  The easiest way for me is to copy the vst folder to other drive and later, drop them to the Logic folder. Later, there is a cleanout of non-working plugs. It is redundance files, lots of duplicates, but to me the hard drive space loosed do not worth spend time in converting them on alias instead of duplicates.

Maybe there is a oldskool method to make aliases of every item on a given folder, but I dont know.

[IIO]

 
it is one of the things which sucks a lot in OSX ... you only have one plug-in folder there, and this means that you can not install a plug-in for use with app A when it does not work and chrash app B.

except when you run validation and shit ... which also does not work 100% with some products.

(and dont get me started about the fact that you can not choose the folder and everything has to sit in the system volume.)