VST And DX Plugins In PARIS

With version 3.0 software, PARIS introduced support for "native" (ie VST and DX) plugins to supplement the onboard EDS plugins. While PARIS was discontinued before the implementation could be refined, many users use one or both of these plugin types.

Limitations

The limitations of PARIS' VST/DX implementation include the following (although workarounds do exist for some of these limitations):

1) VST implementation appears to be the more robust of the two, and many users choose to disable DX altogether. However, others report good luck with DX plugins, particularly using a wrapper or chainer (see below).
2) 64 plugin slots total are available per submix (four on each of the sixteen channels)
3) Plugins may only be used on channel strips; they may not be used on an aux.
4) PARIS' channel strips are mono; stereo plugins can be used but must be handled with care. They must be inserted across a pair of adjacent tracks, and users must be careful to edit the corresponding audio in exact pairs since a "left" and "right" channel that contain audio of different lengths can cause havoc such as "ErrorUnequalStereo error in playback 1879048195/70000003".
5) There is no plugin latency compensation in PARIS so users must either a) NativeLatencyDatabase select plugins that don't introduce latency, b) NativeLatencyDatabase nudge audio on the playing field earlier to compensate for the delaying effect of latency or c) use a self-contained framework for latency compensation such as Vertex DSP's FaderWorks.
6) Some plugins present particular problems for PARIS and should be avoided.

Chainers and Wrappers

Classes of plugins called "chainers" and "wrappers" began appearing around the time of PARIS' discontinuation. They offered increased flexibility by serving as a "go-between" between PARIS' fixed native FX architecture and the evolving world of VST and DX plugins.

Chainers

Chainers have been useful in breaking some of PARIS' original VST/DX limitations. They all work the same way: chainers are installed into folder separate from your normal VST or DX plugins folders and PARIS is pointed towards that folder as its plugins directory. At this point you will no longer see any other plugins show up in your plugins directory. The chainer is then pointed at your normal VST plugins folder. To use a particular plugin you first call up an instance of the chainer first and then access the plugin through the chainer's interface. Like this, PARIS never sees a particular plugin directly, but only through the intermediary layer of the chainer which serves as a sort of "buffer" or "interpreter" for difficult or problematic plugins. Multiple VST or DX plugins can also be run within the same instance of a chainer,, incidentally bypassing the "4-native-plugins-per-channel/64-per-submix" limit. Since several include the word "Chainer" in their title, it can be confusing to find, install and configure them, so here's a graph and links (coming soon).

Acon Digital Media Chainer
Xlutop Chainer
FFX-4 Rack

Wrappers

Wrappers also provide a "buffer" between PARIS' VST/DX framework and the "native" world of VST and DX plugins, but (as their name implies) "wrappers" provide that buffer by "wrapping" particular plugins.

FXpansion

Specialized Native Plugins of particular use in PARIS

Senderella
Vertex DSP's FaderWorks

more coming...

The PARIS Wiki : VstDxParis

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