Let's Build the JUCE Demo Plug-In

Before we actually make our own plug-in it might be wise to make sure we can build a plug-in successfully. To do this we can build the JUCE demo plug-in.

Take a look in 'JUCE/extras/audio plugin demo'. In there you should find a file called 'JuceDemoPlugin.jucer'. This is an Introjucer project file so open it up in The Introjucer. On the left you should see two tabs; 'Files' and 'Config'. Click on the 'Config' tab and you should see something like this.

This is where we tell The Introjucer what tools we want to use to build our project. If you want to add a new project (say you are using Visual Studio 2012), you can right click on the bit at the top where it says "Juce Demo Plugin". From there you can create projects for any of the IDEs JUCE currently supports.

Once you have a project exporter for the build tool you are using there is one thing you may need to change. Select whatever project you are going to be using on the left (I am going to select Visual Studio 2008). On the right you should now see something like this.

We need to tell our compiler where to look for the VST SDK files. We can do this by editing the VST Folder and VST3 Folder options. For bot put in the location of the 'VST3 SDK' folder you downloaded earlier. For We can then save the Introjucer project and it will update whichever project file we altered.

Now all you need to do is build the plug-in. This is done in the same way we built The Introjucer earlier.

Just a quick word of warning about the "Save Project and Open In ..." button in The Introjucer. If you have several project exports which use the same platform, such as the multiple Visual Studio Exporters shown above. This button will open the one highest up on the list. You may wish to delete the project exporters you don't need, or just drag the one you want to the top of the list.

You should now have a built plug-in hiding away somewhere. They will be in the same directories, relative to the project file, as the Introjucer executables were when we built them.

On Linux you should find a VST plug-in called 'JuceDemoPlugin.so'.

On Windows you should find a VST plug-in called 'JuceDemoPlugin.dll'.

I believe on Mac that the XCode project is set up to take the built plug-in files and install them to the system so they should appear in whatever plugin host you are using. It should have also built VST and AU versions of the plug-in.

Take this plug-in and load it up in whatever host you desire. If it works, Huzzah! You have just built a working audio plug-in from source. This means you are ready to delve into some source code and start making your own.

Have a nice day now!
Sean

P.S. There is actually a JUCE demo plugin host which is fairly nifty. You can find it in the extras folder of the JUCE download. I'm sure you can work out how to build it yourself. Have Fun!