Platform
Jamba is manually built/tested on the following platforms:
- macOS Sonoma 14.7 with XCode 16 installed and Apple Silicon (universal build)
- Windows 10 64 bits and Visual Studio Build tools 2022 (
Visual Studio 17 2022)
Jamba is automatically built (GitHub CI) on the following platforms:
macos-13(XCode 15.2) andmacos-14(XCode 15.4)windows-2022andwindows-2025using the “Visual Studio 17 2022” generator
Other requirements:
- CMake (minimum version 3.19) must be properly installed (
cmakeexecutable must be in yourPATH) - C++ 17 (available with the platforms/toolchains described above)
- python 3.7+ (used by the convenient/wrapper scripts provided by Jamba)
New since 5.1.2, Jamba supports building universal plugins on macOS with XCode and Apple Silicon chipset!
On macOS, it is likely possible to use an earlier version (of the OS and Xcode) but it has not been tested
Linux is currently not supported (could be added if there is demand).
VST3 SDK
Jamba can automatically download the SDK for you. However, it is strongly recommended to install the SDK as the cloned repository is quite large (over 100MB) and would have to be downloaded again if you delete the build folder.
Download or clone the SDK
You can clone the SDK from GitHub
# using the branch name (simpler but use less safe tag)
git clone --branch v3.7.14_build_55 --depth 1 --recursive https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk.git
# using the git hash (more complex but use safer hash)
git clone --recursive https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk.git
cd vst3sdk
git checkout --recurse-submodules 43b4e366ff84afc9b4247776acbf5e234683b77f
Jamba currently uses 3.7.14 which corresponds to the tag v3.7.14_build_55 (43b4e366ff84afc9b4247776acbf5e234683b77f commit hash).
- Since most new VST3 SDK releases introduce non-backward-compatible changes, it is very unlikely that Jamba will just work with a more recent version than the one specified in the table below.
- The Steinberg website only lets you download the “latest” version, so make sure you use the link in the table below.
| Jamba | VST | VST2 | VST SDK Git Hash | VST SDK Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.3.0+ | 3.7.14 | No | 43b4e366ff84afc9b4247776acbf5e234683b77f |
vst-sdk_3.7.14_build-55_2025-06-23.zip |
| 7.2.0 | 3.7.13 | No | 8b59557d881bb0158ba08ff256b26f025f078314 |
vst-sdk_3.7.13_build-43_2025-02-28.zip |
| 7.1.0 | 3.7.12 | No | cc2adc90382dded9e347caf74e4532f1458715db |
vst-sdk_3.7.12_build-20_2024-07-23.zip |
| 7.0.0-7.0.1 | 3.7.8 | No | 0041ef2c879c3c54c03d33cdc11a97eaebfb5752 |
vst-sdk_3.7.8_build-34_2023-05-15.zip |
| 6.0.0-6.3.0 | 3.7.5 | Yes | 56e4b2a644be164c5d324e8bc9de55b964b0f102 |
vst-sdk_3.7.5_build-44_2022-05-19.zip |
| 5.1.0-5.1.5 | 3.7.1 | Yes | 79750cb3e56f3988f33bc178884962cc3f4c3eb9 |
vst-sdk_3.7.1_build-50_2020-11-17.zip |
| 5.0.0 | 3.7.0 | Yes | 3e651943d4747f8af43d10b21227020bc8b7f438 |
vst-sdk_3.7.0_build-116_2020-07-31.zip |
| 1.0.0 - 4.5.0 | 3.6.9 | Yes | 985d945639f5a2f7498d9483e8b5e6d921bcb580 |
vstsdk369_01_03_2018_build_132.zip |
Install the SDK
Jamba lets you configure the location of the SDK via the VST3_SDK_ROOT CMake cache variable which can be set via any means available to CMake or set via the --vst3 option when running the configure.py script. If you do not want to have to worry about it you can also install it (or create a link) to a default location:
/Users/Shared/Steinberg/VST_SDK.3.7.14for macOSC:\Users\Public\Documents\Steinberg\VST_SDK.3.7.14for windows.
- If you are downloading the zip file, please note that
/Users/Shared/Steinberg/VST_SDK.3.7.14(resp.C:\Users\Public\Documents\Steinberg\VST_SDK.3.7.14) or the path provided via--vst3, corresponds to the folder calledvst3sdkin the zip file. - If you are cloning the repository, then it corresponds to the root of the repository.
VST2 SDK
Since Jamba version 7.0.0, Jamba no longer supports VST2. This section is left in this documentation in the event you are using a prior release of Jamba!
If you want to wrap your VST3 plugin into a VST2 plugin you will need the VST2 SDK. Unfortunately Steinberg is no longer distributing it officially and you need to get access to it. Once you get access to it, Jamba lets you configure the location of the SDK via the VST2_SDK_ROOT CMake cache variable which can be set via any means available to CMake or set via the --vst2 option when running the configure.py script.
If you download an old version of the VST3 SDK (like 3.6.9 (shasum 256 => 7c6c2a5f0bcbf8a7a0d6a42b782f0d3c00ec8eafa4226bbf2f5554e8cd764964)) it contains the VST2 SDK at the root and this is what you need to copy or link to.
If you donwload the latest VST3 SDK zip file it does contain a VST2_SDK folder at the root but it is an incomplete VST2 SDK distribution. Only older versions of the VST3 SDK (like 3.6.9) contains a valid VST2 SDK distribution.