In addition to MIDI, SoundFont and VST2, capella can now also use VST3 for sound generation. This version of the VST software interface is the most widely used interface for virtual synthesizers and sound libraries.
The special feature: VST3 instruments come as plugins. These are separate computer programs with their own user interface. They are called by a host - i.e. capella or the capella-tune module it contains. They receive control commands from the host and return high-quality audio sounds. capella can then play back them or save them as MP3 files. The strength of VST3 lies in the many ways in which the sound can be influenced and the many ways in which the software can react dynamically to control commands.
If your focus is purely on music notation, we still recommend Soundfonts. Here, capella has full control over the sound generation, and a score sounds identical on all platforms. With many free sound fonts, this variant is also free of charge.
If you want to tease out the maximum sound quality, VST3 is the ideal solution. VST3 plugins are software packages that you purchase and install separately. The VST3 software interface between capella and the VST3 plugins offers an enormous number of options for influencing the sound, but sometimes requires manual work and patience when configuring.
For some plugins available on the market, capella supports automatic configuration using a wizard. This allows you to test whether you want to use this technology for your work with capella using a free VST3 plugin, for example.
Please understand that we cannot provide support for external VST3 plugins. We cannot guarantee that the interaction with every VST3 plugin available on the market will work smoothly.
Here is a small sound impression generated from capella with the plugins of the Vienna Symphonic Library:
Here are some plugins that we have tested in combination with capella and that we can recommend using. We will gradually expand and update the list of plugins in the future.
| Plugin name | Windows support | Mac support |
|---|---|---|
| Vienna Symphony Library | ||
| Kontakt Player | experimental |
If you want to try out the VST3 interface for the first time, we recommend the (free) VST3 plug-in of the Soft Imperial from the Vienna Symphonic Library, which you can easily expand with (paid) additional instruments if successful.