Plug-ins Tab (Preferences)

On this tab, you can access a number of options for managing your VST plug-ins.

You can specify where WaveLab Elements should search for your VST plug-ins and which ones it should ignore. It also allows you to choose how your VST plug-in controls respond to mouse actions and how frequently graphics are updated.

If you use your own file structure to organize and save VST plug-ins, this dialog allows you to gain full control over which plug-ins are loaded and which are ignored. This is useful if you want to deactivate a particular plug-in or if you want to ignore plug-ins that you never want to use with WaveLab Elements.

  • To open the Plug-ins Preferences, select File > Preferences > Plug-ins.

General Tab

Search Standard Shared VST Plug-in Folders

Prompts WaveLab Elements to search for VST plug-ins in the default VST plug-in folders.

Note

For information on the folders that WaveLab Elements searches for plug-ins on launching the application, you can click the info icon in the upper right corner of the window.

If you cannot find a plug-in in WaveLab Elements, this helps you to determine whether you have specified the correct folder, for example.

Ignore VST 2 Plug-ins

Prevents WaveLab Elements from searching for and displaying plug-ins using the old VST 2 standard.

Note

We recommend restarting WaveLab Elements for the option to take full effect.

Additional VST Plug-in Folders (WaveLab Elements Specific)

Allows you to specify additional folders where VST plug-ins can be found.

Ignore Plug-ins Located in the following Subfolders (Separate Folder Names with a Semicolon)

Allows you to specify folder names that WaveLab Elements skips when searching for VST plug-ins.

Do Not Load the Following Plug-ins

Allows you to specify plug-ins that you do not want WaveLab Elements to open by indicating the file names, without path and without file extension, with each plug-in entered on a new line.

If you put the character * in front of the name, any plug-in that contains the name is ignored.

Force Plug-in Detection at Next Launch

Analyzes the plug-ins when launching WaveLab Elements the next time. To reduce the start time of WaveLab Elements, the plug-ins are not analyzed every time WaveLab Elements is started. However, WaveLab Elements keeps a list of plug-ins and updates it automatically when a date or size change is detected.

Ignore Updated Plug-ins When Performing Plug-in Detection

PreventsWaveLab Elements from checking if the properties of updated plug-ins have changed. If you have plug-ins that are updated very frequently, this option speeds up the WaveLab Elements startup.

However, some manufacturers combine multiple plug-ins within a single file. If you know that some plug-ins were added by the manufacturer but do not appear in WaveLab Elements, deactivate this option and restart WaveLab Elements. Afterwards, you can activate this option again.

Faster Graphics Refreshing (Consumes More Computer Power)

Refreshes the graphics of VST plug-ins more quickly.

VST Plug-in Knobs

Allows you to set the mode for using knobs in plug-ins. The available options are Circular Mode, Circular Mode (Relative Movement), and Linear Mode.

Plug-in Window Style

  • Use Context-colored Caption Bars helps you to identify and distinguish effect plug-in types by displaying color codes for the captions bars of the plug-in windows.

  • You can activate Show Color Section Color in Caption Bar to display a colored box on the caption bar of effect plug-in windows, whose color depends on the element that the plug-in is applied to.

Organize Tab

Plug-ins list

Displays the hierarchy of the plug-ins in WaveLab Elements. In the Final column, you can specify whether a plug-in is available on the plug-in selection menus and/or the Final Effect/Dithering pane of the Master Section.

You can add plug-ins to the Favorites list, create shortcuts for plug-ins, specify custom categories, and decide whether to use the generic user interface or the plug-in specific user interface.

The Precision column displays the processing precision of each plug-in. 64-bit float plug-ins are capable of double precision processing. In other effects menus, throughout WaveLab Elements, plug-ins that are capable of double precision processing are marked with “64 F” for 64-bit float.

Note

Processing in 64-bit float results in double precision but a slightly longer processing time than in 32-bit float.

Expand/Collapse

Expands/Collapses the folder tree.

Search field

Allows you to filter the plug-ins list for names.

  • Click in the search field, and enter the text that you want to search for.

  • To switch the focus from the search field to the plug-ins list, press Down Arrow.

  • To switch the focus from the plug-ins list to the search field, press Ctrl/Cmd-F.

Filter menu

Allows you to only display plug-ins that have particular properties.

  • Show All Plug-ins displays all plug-ins.

  • Show New Plug-ins only displays recently detected plug-ins.

  • Show 32-bit float Plug-ins only displays plug-ins that are capable of 32-bit float processing.

  • Show 64-bit float Plug-ins only displays plug-ins that are capable of 64-bit float processing.

  • Show Plug-ins with a Custom Category only displays plug-ins that have a custom category.

  • Show Plug-ins without a Custom Category only displays plug-ins that do not have a custom category.

Remove “New” Status

Resets the “new” status of the recently detected plug-ins.

Show Changes

Refreshes the plug-in tree according to the current settings.

Sorting

Determines how the plug-ins are sorted. All other parameters act on that hierarchy.

Compress Hierarchy

Merges all items into a single submenu if a submenu and all its submenus contain less than a specific number of plug-ins (Threshold).

The Threshold value determines the minimum number of items that are needed to compress the hierarchy.

Create Submenus Based on Prefixes

Creates a submenu that is labeled as the prefix if several items in a submenu start with the same prefix.

The Threshold value determines the minimum number of items that must start with the same prefix and that are needed to create submenus that are labeled as the prefix.

Merge Single Submenus

Merges submenus that contain another submenu with only a single item in it.

Category Renaming

The category labels used to create the hierarchy are supplied by the plug-in manufacturers. In this section, you can change the category name. This can also be useful to merge two categories into one, by renaming these two categories with the same name.

Submenu with Recently Used Plug-ins

If this option is activated, the Recently Used submenu is shown.

The Maximum Size value determines the maximum number of plug-ins on the Recently Used submenu.

The Independent Recently Used Plug-ins Menus option determines whether the Recently Used submenu is global to all places where plug-ins can be selected, or if it is local to each context.

Ignored Plug-ins

Opens the Ignored Plug-ins dialog, where you can see plug-ins that were not loaded. This dialog allows you to prompt WaveLab Elements to rescan these plug-ins after restarting the application. This is faster than a full rescan.

Number of Plug-ins

Shows the number of plug-ins that are available in WaveLab Elements.