Sonar Guide - Plug-in Administration

This article explains how to manage and scan your Native Instruments VST plug-ins in Sonar.

Plug-in Directory

On a Windows computer, the VST versions of the software can be installed in any location on your hard drive. Follow these steps to find out in which directory your VST plug-ins are installed.

Note: You can set these installation paths in Native Access' preferences as explained in this article.

1. Start Native Access and click a product's entry in the Installed products tab to open its properties. In our example we are clicking Massive:
2. In the product's properties, click Installation Path. Now you can see the plug-in directories for the 32-bit VST plug-ins and the 64-bit plug-ins:
   
   Depending on whether you are using the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Sonar you have to assign the corresponding path in Sonar's VST Settings.

Setting the Plug-in Folders

Follow these steps to assign the VST plug-in path that you identified above in Sonar's preferences:

1. Open Sonar and choose Edit > Preferences....
2. Open the VST Settings tab from the Preferences.
3. Under VST Scan Folder(s) you can see the directories where Sonar currently loads the VST plug-ins from. In this example, the plug-in path is set to the 64-bit plug-in path because we are using the 64 bit version of Sonar. In case the folder where you installed your VST plug-ins does not appear in the list, click the Add... button and navigate to this directory. Then click OK to confirm.
4. After adding a new VST path, press the button Scan VST Folders in order to make its plug-ins available in Sonar.
5. Make sure the option Scan For VST Plug-ins On Startup is active.