Introduction

This guide is intended for use by Windows users for the express purpose of building a binary that allows you to use CLAP format plugins in DAWs that do not support them. This may not be the most optimal way to go about doing so, but it has worked for me and others. If you are a seasoned developer who is familiar with these tools, then feel free to do things your way.

If you would like to ensure that this all works properly without affecting your system, consider performing the steps in this guide within a virutal machine. I will not cover this process as it is outside of the scope of this guide.

Disclaimer

Please read carefully - I am not responsible for what happens to your system if something goes wrong. This information can become outdated at any time. Please contact me using Discord if any of this information is outdated or incorrect. My tag is located at the footer of this page.

Prerequisites

These files are required to set up a development environment where we can build the plugin wrapper.

Installing Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a development environment made by Microsoft that will build the code that makes up this wrapper into a plugin we can actually use inside our DAW.

  1. Run the Visual Studio Installer and look for Visual Studio Community 2022 in the Available tab.
  2. Click on the Install button located at the right side of this entry.
  3. Under Desktop & Mobile, click on Desktop development with C++.
  4. Click the Install button on the bottom-right corner of the window.

Installing CMake

CMake will set up our development environment, Visual Studio, to point to all the files it needs to build the code.

  1. Run the CMake installer.
  2. Select Add CMake to the system PATH for the current user.
  3. Proceed with the installation.

Preparing Files

Now we will prepare the files for CMake and Visual Studio to use.

  1. Create a new folder somewhere. This will be your workspace folder.
  2. Open the clap-wrapper-main archive and extract the clap-wrapper-main folder into the workspace folder.
  3. Open the clap-wrapper-main folder you’ve just extracted and create a new folder called build.
  4. Extract the clap-main folder from the clap-main archive to the workspace folder.
  5. Extract the VST_SDK folder from the vst-sdk archive to the workspace folder.

Running CMake

CMake will prepare our files for Visual Studio in this step.

  1. Open CMake-gui.
  2. For the box labeled Where is the source code, select the clap-wrapper-main folder in the workspace folder.
  3. For the box labeled Where to build the binaries, select the build folder inside clap-wrapper-main.
  4. In the field named CLAP_SDK_ROOT, input the path to the clap-main folder.
  5. In the field named VST3_SDK_ROOT, input the path to the vst3sdk folder located inside the VST_SDK folder found within the workspace.
  6. Click Configure and select Visual Studio 17 2022 as the generator of choice.
  7. Click Generate then Open Project. Visual Studio 2022 should launch and you may now close CMake.

Building in Visual Studio

This process will create the VST3 plugin file that we want to generate.

  1. At the top of the screen, ensure Release and x64 are selected in the two dropdown boxes located next to the green play button titled Local Windows Debugger.
  2. On the menu top of the screen, click on Build.
  3. Click on Build Solution and wait for the process to finish. Once completed, you can then close Visual Studio.

Using the Wrapper

Now that you’ve built the wrapper, you’re ready to install it to your plugins folder!

  1. Navigate back to the clap-wrapper folder and enter the build folder.
  2. Open the VST3 folder, then the Release folder. Here you will find the plugin!
  3. Make a copy of the clapasvst3_as_vst3.vst3 file and rename it to the EXACT filename as the CLAP plugin you want to load as a VST3. If your CLAP plugin is named Plugin.clap, name this wrapper Plugin.vst3.
  4. Place your newly renamed wrapper into your VST3 folder typically located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3.
  5. Rescan plugins in your DAW and enjoy!

If you do not know the filename of the CLAP plugin you are trying to load, you may check in the CLAP plugins folder typically found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\CLAP.