Whitelisting VST instruments

You must whitelist any VST 2 instruments you want to use in Dorico. Because whitelisting works like a preference, you must only whitelist plug-ins once for them to be available in any project.

Prerequisite

You have quit Dorico and all other programs.

A default vst2whitelist.txt file is included with your Dorico installation, which lists VST 2.x plug-ins that Steinberg has qualified for use with Dorico.

You can create a second vst2whitelist.txt file in a user-specific location that is not overwritten if you subsequently update or reinstall Dorico.

When Dorico starts up, it reads both the default whitelist file and your user-specific whitelist file to build up the list of whitelisted plug-ins.

Procedure

  1. Open a new text document in a plain text editor, such as Notepad.
  2. Enter the file names of the VST plug-ins you want to whitelist without their file extension (.dll on Windows and .vst on macOS).

    Each plug-in must have its own line in the text file.

  3. Save your own vst2whitelist.txt file in one of the following places, depending on your operating system:
    • C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\VSTAudioEngine_64 (Windows)

    • /Users/username/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine (macOS)

  4. Delete the following files from the folder:
    • Vst2xPlugin Blacklist VSTAudioEngine.xml

    • Vst2xPlugin Infos VSTAudioEngine.xml

    • Vst2xPlugin SearchPaths VSTAudioEngine.xml

Result

When you next start Dorico, it considers your whitelisted VST plug-in entries, making them available for use in the program.