Metaplugin For Mac

Metaplugin comes with a main plug-in and, in addition, it provides you two helper plugins (MidSidePlugin and Crossover). The following steps have to be performed for all three of them.

You need an Audio Unit (AU) or a VST host to load Metaplugin. Copy the .component files to your standard Audio Unit folder (e.g. Library/Audio/Plugins/Components) and the .vst files to the respective VST folder (usually Library/Audio/Plugins/VSTs).

Metaplugin produces no sound of its own, but can load other VST plugins and chain/connect the in- and outputs of these effects.

This way complex effect arrangements can be created which are not available as a single effect plugin. All created configurations can be saved for repeated usage.

Metaplugin supports up to six parallel channels. The number of actually available channels is a bit different for the VST version compared to the Audio Unit version.

The VST version will always show all six channels at input and output, even when Metaplugin is loaded into an ordinary stereo channel (the first two pins then contain the stereo signal, the remaining four are empty).

When using the Audio Unit version, Metaplugin will only show two pins at input and output when loaded into a stereo channel, but six when, e.g., loaded into a 5.1 channel.

PDC (Plugin Delay Compensation): Some VST plugins, due to the internal structure of their audio algorithm, cause a delay of a certain number of samples (latency). Most hosts compensate for this delay so that tracks with different latency are played back in sync. Metaplugin takes care of Plugin Delay Compensation as well.

This means that you can build a graph of plugins with different latencies without having to worry about timing issues. The total latency is reported to the host dynamically.

There’s one caveat, however: when using more than one “Audio Output” unit and creating graphs with different latencies for each of these output units, the PDC algorithm will not work. In other words, proper delay compensation is only guaranteed when using a single output unit.

The overall PDC is reported in the upper right corner (in samples). Here, you can also set the overall PDC that Metaplugin reports back to the host by entering an arbitrary number and pressing “Set PDC”.