VST created by HISE is folder with no contents. What am I missing?

[Frankbeat]

So I managed to build my first sample-based instrument with a nice GUI in HISE. I did this following the musicbox tutorial and it was pretty easy. I' working on a Mac with Mojave and have all the components installed that are listed as required in the Docs section.

I guess I have not yet understood what the process of finally making a working VST from my HISE project is really about. When I click 'compile as VSTi' in the HISE menu, the terminal runs its task and after a few seconds finishes stating it has 'completed'. That reads fine.

Now a file (or should i say folder?) called 'Plugin-Name debug.vst3' is stored in my systems library directory. However, showing its contents in Finder reveals that it is just a blank container – no content other than the opbligatory 'Resources' folder found in it. And it doesn't even get listed as instrument in Cubase.

So what am I missing? Did I only do one tiny step of the process with this? I recognized the HISE folder includes another App called 'Projucer'. Do I have to use this in some way as part of the process?

Sorry, if all this sounds very dumb. I'm a guy that is familiar with building sample based patches, creating GUIs and already have built some instruments for Kontakt. But maybe I'm not in the league to programm a standing alone VST?

[d.healey]

Are there any errors in the terminal?

[Lindon]

@Frankbeat did you build the debug version of HISE?

[d.healey]

@Lindon said in VST created by HISE is folder with no contents. What am I missing?:

@Frankbeat did you build the debug version of HISE?

That shouldn't make a difference (except when compiling script node patches)

[Frankbeat]

Sorry for the delay and thanks for all your soon replies! Now I'm back from work and gonna report in detail while I rerun the whole process…

I opened my last .hip-file which contains a sampler with some knobs. I go Export -> Export as Instrument (VSTi/AUi) Plugin. I'm then asked whether I want to validate all samples. My answer is yes. I choose Exportformat VSTi only, hit OK. Now I'm asked for whether I want to rewrite the batch file for the compile process. Though I don't know what it means, I think it sounds good, so OK. Now Terminal is opening up and does its duty. Process runs a few seconds and finishes saying …completed, but reporting one error:

xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance
logout
Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.
Deleting expired sessions...none found.

Now I have this empty .vst-thingie you can see in the screenshot:

I'm working on the HISE version i got from Download Latest Version on the HISE site. Later on, I also downloaded the .zip-file from github. IIRC, the path to this had to be set in the HISE apps preferences to even make the compile process be able to run.

That's all I can tell o far.

On a side note: Within HISE my Instrument runs pretty well – can't wait to use it in my DAW

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat Firstly, build HISE from source, use the develop branch. Once you can build HISE you can "export" from HISE.

When you "export" from HISE what really happens is HISE creates a JUCE project to build your VSTI/Au/Standalone, etc.

It also creates a batch script (that's the one it asked you if you wanted to rewrite). All this batch script does is resave the jucer project with Projucer and compile the project in Xcode. These are the same steps you must do manually to compile HISE.

The xcode select error has come up a few times before on the forum. A quick search returns this: https://forum.hise.audio/topic/3163/having-trouble-export-an-aui/8?_=1676919784285

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey ```
Firstly, build HISE from source, use the develop branch…What does that mean? Can you explain this for a newbie?

I got rid of that xcode-error now by reading that thread you linked. And now I have the Projucer running that autogenerated file and disabled ipp. I ran Save and Open in IDE so it opened up Xcode. It presents a window listing some errors, as seen in the screenshot

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat Not at my computer right now but if you go to my YouTube channel I have a video showing how to build HISE on MacOS

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey Thanks! I just watched Building HISE on MacOS Mojave 2019 and think I'm now starting to grasp what compiling is. Good you mentioned the IPP. This evening I will delete my prepackaged HISE and build new from source.

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat I can't remember what I said about IPP in that video. But don't use it, it isn't needed on Mac.

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey You said something like you wouldn't know why to not include it (but probably in the context of building on Windows, I guess). So I'd just have to disable the option within the Projucer, right?

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat I think in the develop branch it is disabled by default on MacOS, but if it isn't you should do that.

I think back when I made that video the advice was to use IPP on Windows and MacOS, but since then the advice is only use it on Windows (and Linux if you want).

[Frankbeat]

This post is deleted!

[Frankbeat]

Tried to build HISE from source but it just fails with 6 errors reported. I have no clue what to do. Googeling for these offers results of StackExchange. To be honest, I don't understand what these guys there are talking about.

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat How many copies of the HISE source code do you have on your system?

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey I (still) have the precompiled App in my Aplications Folder which says Version 3.0.0. And then I have this mentioned source folder HISE-3.0.1 in my Downloads folder.

What I already did on advice from Projucer: I Updated the JUCE-version which put the current one into a folder old_JUCE

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat

I Updated the JUCE-version which put the current one into a folder old_JUCE

This might have caused a problem. Everything you need is in the HISE source folder. If Projucer gives you any popups click the button to tell it not to bother you again.

Start over. Delete everything. Download the develop branch (use git if you know how, if not download the zip).

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey Okay, I deleted it and unpacked the fresh HISE-3.0.1.zip again. But still all the mentioned Errors are being reported. Is it even right for me to use this latest version, as long as I'm still on Mojave (10.14.6)?

[d.healey]

@Frankbeat Yes you can use the latest version on Mojave. Can you provide a step by step list of what you're doing?

BTW you're not using the right source code, it should be the develop branch not 3.0.1.zip

[Frankbeat]

@d-healey Wow… now I've got it built without any errors (just 4 warnings).

Today I'm sitting on a fresh Mac with Mojave 10.14.6 with XCode 10.3. This time, my HISE folder is called hise-master. I guess that's the one you meant by develop branch…
I installed the ASIO and VST SDKs and CPretty.

Unfortunately, my VST build failed again, but only reporting 1 error this time:

/Users/frankbeat/Downloads/HISE-master/JUCE/modules/juce_audio_plugin_client/VST/juce_VST_Wrapper.cpp:87:10: 'pluginterfaces/vst2.x/aeffect.h' file not found

#include "pluginterfaces/vst2.x/aeffect.h"

** BUILD FAILED **


The following build commands failed:
CompileC /Users/frankbeat/Desktop/Frankbeat\ SBD-9/Binaries/Builds/MacOSX/build/Frankbeat-SBD-9.build/Release/Frankbeat-SBD-9\ -\ VST.build/Objects-normal/x86_64/include_juce_audio_plugin_client_VST2.o /Users/frankbeat/Desktop/Frankbeat\ SBD-9/Binaries/JuceLibraryCode/include_juce_audio_plugin_client_VST2.cpp normal x86_64 c++ com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0.compiler
(1 failure)
logout
Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.

Fortunately, I found a forum thread concerning this.