Working with VST and VSTi

Introduction to VST

Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface licensed under Steinberg that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. Most VST plugins are either instruments (VSTi) or effects (VSTfx). VSTi includes software simulation emulations of well-known hardware synthesizers and samplers.

Installing VSTs

In MuseScore Studio 4, any compatible VST plugins installed on a Windows or MacOS computer will automatically be made available in the Mixer, where you can easily configure playback settings for all instruments in a score.

Since version 4.6.0, VST3 support has also been enabled for Linux.

Since VST3 support for Linux is relatively new to MuseScore Studio, not all plugins may work as expected. If a particular instrument or effect doesn't work on your system, it may be due to an issue specific to that plugin. In most cases, it's best to raise an issue in our issue tracker so we can triage it for investigation.

After installing new VSTs on your computer, you may have to restart MuseScore to make them visible in the mixer. If this doesn't work, you can force a re-scan of VSTs by deleting previous cache settings before restarting. On Windows the relevant file can be found at:

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\MuseScore\MuseScore4\known_audio_plugins.json

MuseScore 4 directly supports VST3 plugins only (not VST1 or VST2) because of licensing restrictions. If you are using VST1 or VST2, see How to use older, non-VST3 plugins in MuseScore 4.

Sound settings in the Mixer are saved with the score, but not to the program.

Enabling, disabling, removing and replacing VST plugins

See Mixer: Sounds and Audio FX.

See also

Alternatives to VST instruments:

• MuseSounds

• SoundFonts