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Plug-ins

  • Loading: click an empty Audio FX slot, or the arrow on a filled one, for a menu of plug-ins by category and vendor; or click a plug-in in the Library. The instrument slot works the same way.
  • Editing: click the plug-in’s name in its slot to open its editor window.
  • Bypass: the power button on the slot.
  • Reordering: drag a plug-in’s name onto another Audio FX slot. On the same strip it moves there and the plug-ins in between shift over; it keeps running, so nothing reloads and a reverb tail carries on. Dropped on another strip’s slot, it moves to that strip (whatever is in that slot shifts down) as a new instance with the same settings, and its automation lanes go with it (see Automation). Hold Alt as you let go to copy it instead. Esc cancels the drag; each move is one undo step, plug-in and lanes together.
  • Removing: “No Plug-in” in the slot’s menu.
  • Copy and paste: right-click a slot for Copy Plug-in, and any slot (empty ones too) for Paste Plug-in, which loads a new instance with exactly the copied settings: a VST3’s whole state, a built-in effect’s values and side-chain (when its source exists here). With several tracks selected, Paste to Selected Tracks does them all. Each paste is one undo step, and the copy survives opening another project. Instruments paste only into instrument slots, effects only into Audio FX slots.
  • Side chain: a VST3 with a side-chain input (LSP’s Sidechain Compressor and Gate, say) has a Side Chain item at the top of its slot’s menus, the arrow and the right-click, since its editor is a window of its own. Pick a track and it keys the plug-in, as with a built-in effect: the same list, Pre Fader / Post Fader, refused loops, bounces and freezes that play the source along. The slot shows SC, and its tooltip the source. None turns the input off again. Choosing a source or None makes the plug-in stop for a moment: it fades to its dry signal and back, and its tail is lost. Changing from one source to another doesn’t. Many such plug-ins have their own setting for where the key comes from (LSP’s is “Sidechain type”: External); it has to be set to external to hear this input, and what it does with no source is up to the plug-in. Instruments can’t be keyed.
  • Plug-in settings are saved in the project and restored on undo, including what you change in a VST3’s own window (see Undo).
  • Settings › Plug-ins (the Plug-in Manager) lists every scanned plug-in and lets you switch some off, so they don’t appear in the Library and slot menus (projects that use them still load them). It also takes extra VST3 folders and shows the last scan’s report, including each bundle that failed and why.

Marbble hosts VST3 plug-ins only. Plug-in editor windows are available on Linux (X11; see Troubleshooting) and macOS, where they float above Marbble’s windows like Logic’s and hide while another app is in front.