Plugins

Stab plays effect plugins beside its own devices: VST3 on the Mac and Windows, and Audio Units on the Mac. A plugin is a device like the others: it goes on a track, a bus or the master, in a rack or a patch.

Plugins play on the Mac and Windows. Here a song that uses one opens and plays without it, and keeps its settings.

A + in the rack, or Add Device in the Sound pane’s bar, opens the device browser: Stab’s own devices and your plugins in one list, searched together. Type to search by name, maker or kind; All, Built-in and Plugins narrow it, and the side lists each kind (Amps and Cabinets, Drive, Dynamics, EQ and Filter, Reverb, Delay, Modulation, Other) and the makers. ↑ and ↓ move, Return adds. A right-click on the rack keeps the short menu.

Favourites and Recent, at the top of the side, list the devices you starred and the ones you added lately. Click the star at the end of a row to make it a favourite; Stab remembers both on this computer.

A right-click on a row opens its menu: Add, Add to Favourites (or Remove from Favourites), Show in Finder (Show in Explorer on Windows) for a plugin’s file, Use the Audio Unit Instead for a plugin installed in both formats, and Don’t Load This Plugin, which stops Stab loading it anywhere (songs keep its devices and settings, and the sound plays through). A plugin held back that way stays listed, dimmed, with “Turned off by you” (“Turned off after it made Stab quit” after three crashes) in place of its maker, and offers Load This Plugin Again in the same menu.

A plugin installed as both VST3 and Audio Unit is listed once, as VST3, so a song made on the Mac reads the same on Windows. Apple’s own effects are under Built into macOS. Plugin Settings… in the browser’s foot opens Settings › Plugins & Files.

The first time the list opens, Stab looks for plugins: each one is opened alone, in a separate helper, so one that crashes can’t take Stab with it. The browser’s foot shows how far it got; Stab’s own devices work meanwhile. Later, only new or changed plugins are checked; Rescan checks them all again, those that couldn’t load too.

A plugin that couldn’t load is counted in the foot (3 couldn’t load ›), with why: it crashed or took too long while being checked, it’s for Intel Macs only, macOS blocked it, it’s a VST 2, or on Windows it’s a 32-bit plugin. Try Again checks it once more where that can help, and Rescan checks them all; Stab never retries one by itself.

A plugin device’s head shows the plugin’s name, its maker and its format (VST3 or AU), then Editor, its presets and ⋯ (the device’s menu) beside the power button. The device is as wide as its name, maker and knobs need; where Editor or the presets don’t fit beside them, ⋯ has them (Show Plugin Editor, Presets). A plugin that delays the sound by a millisecond or more shows how much in a small pill (12 ms), with a warning dot from 10 ms. Stab delays every other track to match, so nothing is out of time; only what you play and hear live through that plugin comes late.

When you monitor an audio track’s input through plugins that delay the sound, the Audio tab of the Audio & MIDI pane says by how much and which plugins add it, under the input. The Resources gauge lists the plugins playing under Plugins, heaviest first, each with its track and its share of the audio’s time, then Everything else; Latency, compensated is how late the whole song plays so every track stays lined up.

Replace… in the device’s menu opens the browser on its plugins: the one you pick takes the device’s place, with its wires, Mix and Trim, in one undo step. The settings come along when it’s the same plugin in another format; another plugin starts from its defaults.

Editor (or a double-click on the head, or Show Plugin Editor in the device’s menu) opens the plugin’s own editor in a window above its song, one per device, where you left it last. The button is lit while the window is open. The plugin draws it; Stab doesn’t change it. A plugin without an editor of its own has no Editor button: its parameters are in the Inspector pane.

The device’s face has eight knobs: the plugin’s first eight parameters, until you choose others. Drag a knob up or down to turn it (hold ⌥ on the Mac or Alt on Windows for finer steps); a double-click puts it back to the plugin’s default. Stab’s Mix and Trim are in the device’s full face (⌄) and in the Inspector pane.

The Inspector pane shows the device picked in a Sound pane: under Stab’s Mix and Trim, every parameter the plugin shows, as a row with its value in the plugin’s own words. Drag a row to change it, or click a stepped one to step it; a knob turned in the editor moves its row too. The pin at the end of a row puts that parameter on the device’s face, or takes it off. The face holds eight: pinning a ninth asks which one gives its place. The song keeps the face you chose.

The window has Stab’s strip along its top: the device’s power, its presets, Parameters and the latency pill. Parameters opens the same list of every parameter as the Inspector’s, in a panel beside the plugin’s editor; a plugin with no editor of its own has the list alone. The panel stays open or shut as you left it, for each device.

A plugin’s own knobs aren’t undo steps (most hosts work the same way); adding, moving, bypassing and removing the device are. The song keeps what you set and saves itself as usual.

The pop-up on a plugin device’s head, Presets in its menu and the Inspector pane’s Preset pop-up all offer the same:

• Save Preset… keeps the plugin as it is now, under a name, on this computer, for that plugin in every song.
• Yours: the presets you saved for this plugin. Delete a Preset removes one.
• The plugin’s own presets, in its groups, where the plugin gives them.

The device names the preset picked; once a knob moves, it says edited, and Revert picks it again. The song always keeps the plugin’s settings itself, so changing or deleting a preset later changes nothing in your songs.

Hear It Without Them, in What’s Different, plays the song here with every plugin passed through, as the iPad, the web or a guest without them hear it; Hear It as Made puts them back. It isn’t saved and isn’t an edit, and an export still renders through the plugins.

Plugins run inside Stab, so a plugin that crashes takes Stab with it. Your song is saved within two seconds of your last change. At the next launch, Stab names the plugin it happened in and asks once: Open with It Off opens the song with that plugin turned off (its settings stay; Turn On Again on the device brings it back), Open as It Was opens it unchanged, Not Now opens nothing. If you send crash reports, the same question has the checkbox; the report names the plugin, never your song.

Stab also names the plugin from where the crash happened in memory, not only from what it was doing, so a plugin that crashes on a thread of its own is named too.

If a plugin stops answering while you play, Stab bypasses it after a quarter of a second, or when it keeps missing its buffer: the sound goes through, a note tells you which plugin it was, and its device says it stopped (Try Again on the device loads it again). Stab can’t stop a plugin that never returns. If you quit it with Force Quit, the next launch asks the same question, with the plugin named: Open with It Off, Open as It Was or Not Now. Exports are not watched: a slow plugin there only takes longer.

A plugin that makes Stab quit three times isn’t loaded anywhere until you choose Turn On Again on one of its devices, or in Settings › Plugins & Files, where Turned Off lists every plugin held back, whether by crashes or by Don’t Load This Plugin, and the plugins turned off in some songs, each with why and Turn On Again.

Settings › Plugins & Files also has Had Trouble, the plugins that crashed, stopped responding or were stopped for holding up the sound. Each entry names the plugin with its maker and version, what happened (Crashed, Stopped responding or Too slow), how many times, the last day and the song. Allow Again forgets the entry and lets the plugin load again, Turn Off Everywhere stops Stab loading it (songs show it as turned off and keep its settings) and Show Report shows the lines Stab kept. The list is kept on this computer, and holds the latest 32.

Stab hosts effects in VST3 (Mac and Windows) and Audio Units (Mac). It doesn’t load plugin instruments or CLAP plugins, and a plugin’s parameters aren’t automated. VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.