Where do I put VSTs and presets on Mac?

[Last Alternative]

Guys I need help. I'm pretty much brand new to the whole VST game - total noob. So I recently bought Serum (on Splice rent-to-own). Here's the deal:

1) aside from the Splice app needing to stay open to use Serum until I pay it off, I have no idea where it is on my actual computer
2) I bought the Wave Alchemy Glow reverb. I see the folder in Finder/Library/Application Support but cannot find Glow anywhere in Reason
3) I bought some Serum presets from Black Octopus but also cannot find where to put it - right now it's in a folder on my desktop

* I've tried putting these things in the Finder/Library/Audio/VST, plugins, and presets folders to no avail. I cannot find Wave Alchemy Glow and my Black Octopus presets don't show up when I open Serum presets browser.
* I've also tried the Manage Plugins in Reason/Windows and it's not showing these items I'm asking about.
* I've also tried quitting/restarting Reason, and rebooting my computer to no avail.
* Oddly, all the Waves plugins I got are showing up in Reason and working...
* side note - I also got a free Europa presets pack which I don't know where to put too.

Thanx for any help you can give. There isn't much help I could find on YouTube.. maybe this picture will help explain a little:

[Last Alternative]

And if anyone has Universal Audio products, I have the Apollo twin MKII. It came with a few plugins but the list is insane of plugins I don't have and I would like to hide all those because it really bugs having to scroll thru all that in Reason. This picture barely scratches the surface. That's just the beginning of the endless scrolling i have to do and it doesn't even signify the UA plugins I have!

[Last Alternative]

Oh and does anyone know if plugins should have their skin instead of the generic grey "VST plugin" on every single one, or is that just how they are for everyone and it can't be changed? Sure would be nice if the icon had the picture of the actual plugin *sigh*

[stillifegaijin]

You shouldn’t need to put them anywhere. They should have an installer that you run that will put them where they need to be. Depending on your OS version, plugins that don’t have an installer, that you do drop into the VST folder (Macintosh HD:/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST - and /VST3) won’t run anyway. Well, unless you get tricky and run some commands in terminal but I don’t recommend that if you are a “noob” as you say.

As far as the generic VST skin - open the plug-in inside Reason, when it’s open click on the “screenshot” button along the top of the VST window. That will generate a new skin. You will need to leave the current browser window/menu and come back for the browser to refresh. You gotta do that for every VST.

To hide plugins you don’t wanna see or use go to windows >plug-in manager and disable them. You’ll need to quit and restart Reason after you disable them all. Alternately, you can simply manually delete the plugins from the VST folder at the location I posted above if you don’t own a license and can never use it anyway.

[huggermugger]

When you install VSTs on Mac, they automatically go into one place, and you shouldn't move them. The resources like presets and samples are usually stored somewhere else. It's different for each VST and it's up to you to find out where they are.

Screen Shot 2023-03-03 at 7.24.18 AM.png

Create the VST thumbnails yourself, one VST at a time.

Screen Shot 2023-03-03 at 7.19.37 AM.png

[Despondo]

And if anyone has Universal Audio products, I have the Apollo twin MKII. It came with a few plugins but the list is insane of plugins I don't have and I would like to hide all those because it really bugs having to scroll thru all that in Reason. This picture barely scratches the surface. That's just the beginning of the endless scrolling i have to do and it doesn't even signify the UA plugins I have!

You need to open the Manage Plugins window and then you can select each one you want to "hide" and click on the "Disable" button. Unfortunately, you have to do this for each plugin one-by-one. Pain in the butt for developers likes Waves and IK Multimedia, etc.

[robussc]

And if anyone has Universal Audio products, I have the Apollo twin MKII. It came with a few plugins but the list is insane of plugins I don't have and I would like to hide all those because it really bugs having to scroll thru all that in Reason. This picture barely scratches the surface. That's just the beginning of the endless scrolling i have to do and it doesn't even signify the UA plugins I have!

You need to open the Manage Plugins window and then you can select each one you want to "hide" and click on the "Disable" button. Unfortunately, you have to do this for each plugin one-by-one. Pain in the butt for developers likes Waves and IK Multimedia, etc.

Not at the computer at the mo, but it’s not possible to multi select and click disable?!

[Despondo]

Not at the computer at the mo, but it’s not possible to multi select and click disable?!

Unfortunately no.

[robussc]

Not at the computer at the mo, but it’s not possible to multi select and click disable?!

Unfortunately no.

Yeah, I just did this yesterday to hide all the VST2 duplicates, very tedious!