How to begin building a VSTi Plugin?

Question

Im wondering the exact method through which I would go to build a VSTi Plugin is. I don't expect to code the next Massive in a few shorts week, as I have no knowledge of DSP and very basic programming skills. Im sure this is probably above my current level but I figure I'll grow as a programmer if I give myself a high goal that Im deeply interested in.

All that being said, Im at a loss as to where to begin. I know that I would need to download the Steinberg VST SDK, but many of the other resources I've searched have given conflicting info as to what framework I need to download, etc etc.

So what are the basic tools I need to have and what are some good resources.

I currently am using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate as my IDE and I'll be coding in C++,.

Answer 1

Getting the development environment and tools set up to write a VST plugin is very time consuming. I strongly recommend Juce (http://www.juce.com), which will abstract away most of the VST framework weirdness for you, and also provide nice tools for generating the project files for your IDE, etc.

Juce isn't prefect, but it's much better than doing it all by hand.