Where are the vst/vst3 and lv2 locations for audio plugins?

I looked in just about every /usr/lib, /usr/lib64 folder and many others and can’t, for the life of me, find where they are. More specifically I installed the SurgeXT with the add-ons from flathub and Ardour can’t find it. I don’t think any of the default vst locations it has are correct. I have Fedora Workstation 37. I know I could probably use Jam or Ubuntu studio, but I just love the vanilla gnome desktop.

I’m not sure how to utilize the VST_PATH or whatever. Where do I put that? Is it a command? Is it used to search for the location? I’m a Fedora noob so excuse my ignorance if these are obvious questions.

I installed AMsynth and Ardour found that just fine. I believe thats in /usr/bin or something but thats just about all i could get working.

I would also like to know how to install in general like the x42, airwindows, and Gvst plugins. I know where to download but what would be the best way to install?

Is Ardour installed as a flatpak, or rpm?

In Ardour you can edit the paths to search in Edit > Preferences > Plugins > VST, or also from the Plugin Manager.

If SurgeXT is installed as a flatpak, its files would be somewhere in /var/lib/flatpak, and not following the standard /usr/lib64/lv2, /usr/lib64/vst, or /usr/lib64/vst3. You could try finding files with “lv2” or “vst” in the name:

$ find /var/lib/flatpak -iname '*lv2*'
$ find /var/lib/flatpak -iname '*vst*'

x42 lv2 plugins are available in Fedora repos. You can search for packages using dnf:

$ dnf search x42

Get more details about a package:

$ dnf info lv2-x42-plugins

And then install it:

# dnf install lv2-x42-plugins

airwindows is not in Fedora repos, but the Audinux Copr has them in both lv2 and vst2 (along with 100s of other music-related packages for Fedora, including SurgeXT).

Gvst appears to be non-free and wouldn’t be in Fedora or any Copr.

Ardour is installed via rpm.That explains why Ardour is not finding SurgeXT.
I didn’t know about Audinux Copr. Will definitely be using that!
should’ve searched dnf for x42…Good to know they are available!

That was really helpful thanks a ton!