User's Manual

Table Of Contents
276 Working with Instruments and Effects
17.3 VST Plug-Ins
17.3.1 The VST Plug-In Folder
When you start Live for the first time, you will need to activate your VST plug-in sources before
working with VST plug-ins. Depending on your computer platform, you may also have to tell Live
about the location of the VST plug-in folder containing the devices you want to use. In order to
set up your VST sources, press the Activate button in the browser’s Plug-Ins panel, or open the
Plug-Ins Preferences by pressing [CTRL][,](PC) / [CMD][,](Mac). There you will find the Plug-In
Sources section.
Setting up VST Plug-In Sources for Windows.
For Windows, proceed as follows:
1. Use the VST Plug-In Custom Folder entry to tell Live about the location of your VST plug-ins:
Click the Browse button to open a folder-search dialog for locating and selecting the ap-
propriate folder.
2. Once you have selected a VST Custom Folder and Live has scanned it, the path will be
displayed. Note that, on Windows, Live may have found a path in the registry without the
need for browsing.
3. Make sure that the Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder option is set to “On,“ so that your se-
lected folder is an active source for VST plug-ins in Live. Note that you can choose not to
use your VST plug-ins in Live by turning off the Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder option.