I’m an experienced Mac user for decades but my understanding of the most basic programming is in the negatives. Your dog has a better chance of making something that works than I do : ( I don’t want to create my own VST3s (for now) but I’d like to compile what is offered on GitHub into Mac plugins I can utilize. The documentation is geared towards using JUCE to create something, and I figured there would be some chapter that would guide through the process of taking the GitHub download that require compiling and guiding one through that, but I can’t find it.
Can I use JUCE to do what I want to do? If someone could point me to a tutorial that explains how to do this (am I correct saying I want to compile but not program?) I would appreciate it greatly! : )
In general there are Projucer-configuration and CMake-configuration projects.
CMake projects might have a building instruction in the README. Some of them might need extra arguments, but the process should be similar. For example:
I cannot comment on Projucer as I haven’t used it for quite a while.
You have a better chance than your dog of getting it to work if you use an LLM to guide you. In my experience, Copilot and Google Gemini are really good at working out build processes. You can just tell it what you’re trying to do (and that you’re a beginner), do what it says, tell it what the results were, and repeat until it works. Of course you’re welcome to ask questions here, but if you use an LLM you can get instant feedback. As someone who’s not good at build processes, this is how I do it these days.
Although in the end there are a few common tools and approaches for builds in general, every developer has their own personal preference on how to approach some things.
Therefore answering the question in general is a bit difficult. If you share the specific project(s) you are interested in you might for sure get some help here and maybe also a few explanations about what you are actually doing there. Just running commands someone or some llm gives you without understanding the actual commands is something I‘d avoid in general
Much thanks all for the generous advice. One thing that was a stumbling block in a big way was that I didn’t have Xcode installed on this MacBook Pro (!) as its internal is pretty free of large files that at one time I decided I’d never need. Well, need it now so now it’s installed and I’ve gotten a bit further for sure. I will check out the new JUCE tutorial. That seems more my speed.
This is an example of a synth on GitHub that was actually built in JUCE, because some of you wanted to see an example of what I was trying to compile.
I still can’t successfully export a VST3 plugin, but I’m confident I’ll get it working after the Intro tutorial and/or looking into some of the things mentioned here. I have at some point read the CMake building instructions of other projects, but my eyes and brain glazed over before it made sense what to do. I will try harder! Thanks again!
so now it’s installed and I’ve gotten a bit further for sure. I will check out the new JUCE tutorial. That seems more my speed.