# Plugins Song ▸ Plugins… finds effect plugins, adds them to Mediante, and puts them on an effect group's chain. The plugins are Web Audio Modules (WAMs), a plugin format for the web, and they go where Windows MED puts its VST effects: on an effect group whose **Effect type** is **Plugin**. The top of the window lists the plugins you can add, the bottom is one group's chain, and the bar between the two can be dragged; the window remembers where you leave it. Plugin is offered as an Effect type in Song ▸ Buses… on a Windows MED module in SoundStudio mix mode, which is where Windows MED itself offers VST effects. A chain plays on the native engine only: the MPT engine plays the module without it. ADD… on a group's plugin list in Song ▸ Buses… opens this window on that group's chain. ## Finding a plugin The search box matches names, makers, ids and categories as you type. The first two lists under it show one category or one maker only, and the third sorts the list: Featured first (the default), Name A–Z, Category, Vendor or Kind. When a filter hides anything, the count beside the search box reads shown/total, and **✕ Clear** resets the search and both filters. Sorting by Category, Vendor or Kind groups the list under headers. Click a header to fold its group away, and again to open it. ## The list Clicking a plugin adds it to the end of the chain below. While the group shown there is not set to Plugin, the list is dimmed and a click does nothing; the line at the bottom of the window says so. Four kinds of plugin share the list. The dot before each name tells them apart, and sorting by Kind groups them: - **Built-in** plugins come with Mediante. - **Featured** plugins are the effects in the Web Audio Modules community's own index, at webaudiomodules.com, which is where their code is loaded from. Clicking one adds it to Mediante as well as to the chain, and from then on it is listed as a plugin added by URL. - **Installed** plugins were copied in with Install…. - **URL** plugins were added with Add by URL…. The featured list is read from the community's index, so a plugin published there turns up here without an update to Mediante. When the index can't be reached, Mediante uses the copy it fetched in the last twelve hours, or failing that a list of its own. The label on the right of a row is the plugin's category, where it is known. A plugin whose last load failed reads **failed** instead: its tooltip gives the error, and its ✕ removes it. **⚠** after a name marks a plugin that is not for commercial use. Its tooltip says why, and [the credits](../CREDITS.md#shapee-and-ether--ported) have the rest. Right-click an installed plugin to uninstall it, or one added by URL to remove it. Built-in plugins stay. ## Install… Copies a plugin's folder from disk into Mediante, where it stays from one visit to the next (until the browser's data for the site is cleared). The folder has to hold the plugin's descriptor.json, which names it, and its index.js. Picking a folder needs Chrome or Edge; Add by URL… works in every browser. A plugin is code, and it runs inside Mediante: installing one means you trust it. An installed plugin travels with your work. Saving a module whose chain uses one puts the plugin's files in the .medz, and opening that .medz where the plugin is missing offers to install it from there. ## Add by URL… Asks for the address of a plugin's main file (usually index.js), reads the descriptor.json in the same folder for the plugin's id and name, and adds the plugin to the list. It asks you for an id only when the descriptor can't be read, or its id is already taken. The address is remembered from one visit to the next, but nothing is copied: the plugin is not saved into a .medz, so anyone who opens the module without it has to add it too. The same trust applies as to installing one. ## The chain **Chain** chooses the effect group: Global Effects, which is the whole mix, or one of the module's other effect groups. Those are offered only on a module with a bus for each group, which is a Windows MED module in mix mode. Sound goes through the chain from the top row down. Each row carries: - **BYP**, which bypasses the plugin: the sound passes straight through, as if it were not there; - the faders button, which opens the plugin's controls (below); - the plugin's name and maker, and its category, or **bypassed**. Click a row to select it. ▲ and ▼ move it and − removes it, and rows can also be dragged into place. The same chain is in Song ▸ Buses…, as that group's plugin list, with the same rows. A module can name a plugin this browser does not have. When the module records where that plugin came from, its row shows the address, but Mediante never loads a plugin from an address in a module: add it with Add by URL… if you trust that source. An entry marked **VST** is one of Windows MED's own VST effects, from the .vstfx file it keeps beside a module (drop that on Mediante with the module, or after it). Mediante shows it and keeps it, but can't run it. ## The line at the bottom It appears when the group shown is not set to Plugin, which is also why the list above is dimmed: set the group's Effect type to Plugin in Song ▸ Buses… first. ## Plugin controls The faders button on a chain row opens the plugin's own controls, in a window of their own. They need the plugin loaded, which happens on the native engine. Above the plugin's own controls: - **Preset** lists the presets that come with the plugin and any saved with this module; choosing one loads it. **Save** keeps the current settings under the name in the box beside it, and Enter in the box does the same. Choosing a preset puts its name in the box, so Save overwrites it and a changed name renames it; for a preset that came with the plugin, a new name saves a copy instead. **Delete** removes a preset saved with the module. The plugin's own can't be deleted. - **BYP** bypasses the plugin, as on its chain row. - **Dry** and **Wet** set how much of the sound going into the plugin, and of the sound coming out of it, goes on down the chain. They are independent: Dry 0% and Wet 100%, the default, is the plugin alone. Whatever you set in a plugin is written into the chain as you go, so it is saved with the module, presets included. ## Saving a chain A .med file cannot hold a chain; it records only that the group's Effect type is Plugin. A module with a chain is therefore saved as a **.medz**: the .med itself, plus the chain with its settings and presets, and the files of any installed plugins it uses. If a module has a chain and was not opened from a .medz, switching to another module asks first, and offers to save it as a .medz.