# According to Cantible I have 3,600+ VST



## Erick - BVA (Jul 15, 2018)

Is that overkill?
Yes, most of them are freeware, and I'm sure there are duplicates. But still...it gets a bit difficult to manage. Like what do you use? Should I simplify and delete bunch or just create smart folders with my favorites (which I have failed to do thus far). I just click in the search window of reaper and call it good. But then...I may forget I even had something.
Do I need to join a VSTs Anonymous group?

How many do you have?


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## puremusic (Jul 15, 2018)

I feel like you should open a museum. . .


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## R. Soul (Jul 15, 2018)

I'm pretty sure you have at least 3,500 more than me.

I pretty much just use 1 compressor, 1 limiter and 1 reverb. I have a few more of other things though, but not much.
Nothing wrong with having more, but if it hinders your workflow, what's the point?


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## dzilizzi (Jul 15, 2018)

I have way too many. And when it is taking Cubase 30 minutes to load because it has to go through all the plug-ins first, I am really thinking of deleting all those I don't regularly use. Or at least moving them to a backup folder until I figure out if I will ever use them. This is where I miss Sonar and the way it continued to scan the vst folder while still allowing me to work. 

I have less problems with ProTools. For some reason, there are very few free AAX plug-ins


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## Michel Simons (Jul 15, 2018)

When I installed everything on my new machine earlier this year I got rid off some that I never used. You can put them aside on a separate hard drive I guess, but chances are that you will never use them anyway. Out of sight, out of mind. I still have way too many, although (hopefully) not as many as yours.


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## kgdrum (Jul 15, 2018)

Wow!!!
That’s a boatload of vst’s.I haven’t counted but I also have too many.
At the moment I can’t get DP up and running because of 1 VST
I need to find it and purge,this is so damn annoying! lol
I guess too much of a good thing has the potential to screw rigs up.


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## Paul Grymaud (Jul 16, 2018)

It is hoped that your vst's are not mutants!


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## Alex Niedt (Jul 17, 2018)

Delete anything you don't use, and your workflow will improve drastically. Also, great creativity often springs from restriction, but I've never heard of great ideas popping up as a result of having folders massively bloated with superfluous junk. Get rid of it, and don't fall victim to, "But I _might_ use this one!" If you haven't used it over the last year, you're not realistically going to start now.


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## Erick - BVA (Jul 18, 2018)

Good advice guys. Thanks! I purged my folders once before, but then I was looking for something and couldn't find it and I was like "oh, that's right, I deleted it." 
So I have to make sure that it's something I really don't want. But I really should clean house. I think I'll make some favorites folders of stuff I use, and then delete everything else.


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## puremusic (Jul 18, 2018)

Alex Niedt said:


> Delete anything you don't use, and your workflow will improve drastically. Also, great creativity often springs from restriction, but I've never heard of great ideas popping up as a result of having folders massively bloated with superfluous junk. Get rid of it, and don't fall victim to, "But I _might_ use this one!" If you haven't used it over the last year, you're not realistically going to start now.



Useful rule for cleaning up a computer -- and much the same rule I try to use for cleaning out my house! Less is more. Open space is refreshing.


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## dzilizzi (Jul 18, 2018)

Sibelius19 said:


> Good advice guys. Thanks! I purged my folders once before, but then I was looking for something and couldn't find it and I was like "oh, that's right, I deleted it."
> So I have to make sure that it's something I really don't want. But I really should clean house. I think I'll make some favorites folders of stuff I use, and then delete everything else.


You can always keep an external hard drive of stuff you don't use, but that are different from things you have. Then you won't have to worry about deleting things. Though I am a bit of a pack rat, so you probably don't want to take my advice if you are wanting to clean stuff out. 

I think the questions to ask are: "Do I use it?"; "Is it different enough from what I regularly use that it makes sense to keep it?"; and "Can download it again from where I bought it?" If I don't use it and I have something that does the same thing that I do use? I see no reason to keep it. Especially, if I can download it again.


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## JohnG (Jul 18, 2018)

You guys are more fastidious than I am. I keep it all, though admittedly I don't have nearly so many plugins as that.

When I get an engineer over here to do some mixing or recording I want him to have what he likes, so I don't dump what I've paid for. The analogy for me is strings; when I want short strings I want EXACTLY the shorts I'm aiming for, so I have "too many" string libraries. But when writing I'm always glad I can try just one more.... in case it threads the needle.


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## greggybud (Jul 21, 2018)

Sibelius19 said:


> Is that overkill?
> Do I need to join a VSTs Anonymous group?



Don't use Cubase.

When you shift from Standard time to Daylight time...or the other way around...either way Cubase needs to re-scan all plug-ins. In your 3,600 case, that make take a while.

If every plug-in was actual hardware, and considering you can't even weed out the duplicates, how big of room would you need?

And finally, I the Ultimate Plug-In tool might be your friend, unless you already use it.
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/


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## Living Fossil (Jul 29, 2018)

It's about keeping a relation between the amount of plug ins and your specific know how concerning them....
For me, it's a big time saver to have lots of plug ins, since over the years i developed an instinct in choosing the adequate tool that suits my workflow in a specific situation.
But this also means that i consciously pass on many interesting plug ins if i have the feeling that they would cause distraction.
And it's also a good thing to have some favourites that you know really well.

However, with 3600 plug ins you're most likely over the top...


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## Erick - BVA (Jul 29, 2018)

greggybud said:


> Don't use Cubase.
> 
> When you shift from Standard time to Daylight time...or the other way around...either way Cubase needs to re-scan all plug-ins. In your 3,600 case, that make take a while.
> 
> ...


Thanks to this I have trimmed my 32-bit count to 3,200 and my 64-bit count to 1,200 (not sure where that one was at before I cleaned house).


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## Erick - BVA (Jul 29, 2018)

Living Fossil said:


> It's about keeping a relation between the amount of plug ins and your specific know how concerning them....
> For me, it's a big time saver to have lots of plug ins, since over the years i developed an instinct in choosing the adequate tool that suits my workflow in a specific situation.
> But this also means that i consciously pass on many interesting plug ins if i have the feeling that they would cause distraction.
> And it's also a good thing to have some favourites that you know really well.
> ...


Very true. There are plugins that I turn to more than others. I think I've used at least every paid plugin once, but most of them far more than that


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## puremusic (Jul 29, 2018)

Sibelius19 said:


> Thanks to this I have trimmed my 32-bit count to 3,200 and my 64-bit count to 1,200 (not sure where that one was at before I cleaned house).



See there now you've made progress. Don't you feel better now? :D


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## leon chevalier (Jul 29, 2018)

Too many choices kill creativity (at least for me) so I do not own two vst with exactly the same fonctinality. It's a time saver. That also allows me to know well my tools and to take the most out of them.

And a few years ago I went full 64bit, it did the cleaning for me. I never missed the old one !


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## Erick - BVA (Jul 30, 2018)

leon chevalier said:


> Too many choices kill creativity (at least for me) so I do not own two vst with exactly the same fonctinality. It's a time saver. That also allows me to know well my tools and to take the most out of them.
> 
> And a few years ago I went full 64bit, it did the cleaning for me. I never missed the old one !


I actually think that a lot of VST FX don't really have an impact on creativity, and may actually help with it. But I think the limitations need to be self-imposed with regards to composing, not necessarily the VST you use. For sure if it's not well organized (like mine) then it can be a barrier. The focus should always be the music, the creative process, and outcome. If the VST are hindering that then something needs to change.
I wish I could go full 64bit, but there are just too many awesome 32bit VST I still use. And the unrestricted Cantible (version 1) only loads 32-bit :(


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## Erick - BVA (Jul 30, 2018)

puremusic said:


> See there now you've made progress. Don't you feel better now? :D


Now I need to go through the painful process of letting go of what I don't need.


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