loading vst instruments

Having watched various videos etc. on how to load VST instruments into Reaper I find myself at an almost total loss. When I look through preferences and VST instruments I come to a field for entering the path to the directory holding vst-plug ins , when I first looked here the field was empty. There seems to be some sort of facility for finding the (presumably default) path and when I tried this it came up with a non existent path. ('c\:Program Files\VST Plugins\'. There is no such sub-directory) I do not seem to be able to find the existing instruments (just the ones supplied when I downloaded the original software) anywhere. I am beginning to get rather pissed-off frankly and wonder if anyone would like to try to tell me the difinative method for loading a VST instrument bearing in mind that whilst I hardly have any experience of Reaper I have perfectly functioning brain and about 30 years of computer experience going right back to the MS Dos days. Tom Hedger

Assuming you know how to find the path(s) that you installed the instruments on your machine, you just type (or copy paste) the path(s) into that field.(separated by semi-colon) Since you can't seem to find the paths, are you absolutely certain that you actually installed the VST instruments? Refer to the documentation of your plugins

Can only speak from my system for certain. My options as shown in Options,Preferences,VST are: C:/Program Files/vstplugins/;C:/Program Files (x86)/vstplugins but you can choose what you like. Some VST force Steinberg in the install. I prefer to not use it and point to one of the above, then deleting Steinberg. Some do not want their VST in Program Files at all and use their choice on drive of their choice.( e.g. @ VST 64 ) Entry in Preferences, VST might then be: C:/@ VST 64 I come from a MS DOS time as well, and still make errors with \ vs / ...... Thom B

let's back up: 1- have you installed any vsti instruments? If yes, where did you install them... to what locations? [paths] 2- in the pref's for vst folders, you can enter [add] as many folders as you wish for reaper to look into... have you looked at the pdf user guide on this subject.... 3-things have changed a lot since the MS-DOS days, ... just because you may know whatever you know does not at all mean you know about digital audio workstations and in particular about reaper... I know a lot about woodworking and the related tools and machines for that... but it don't mean much when I have to do electrical wiring... ya know? 4- OK, let's assume you do have some vsti's installed... then you need a track and have it armed for record, and to clk the FX button and that is where you load the instrument. now let's see where that takes you and carry on later...