Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] LADSPA with dynamic datatype and multichannelsupport released !!
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Tue Mar 28 2000 - 06:20:17 EEST
At the risk of repeating myself (and as if I care ;) -
Much as I admire Benno's work on behalf of audio-in-linux, I think
that this multichannel, multidatatype stuff is going way too far.
People have written some truly incredible software for VST without any
of these complications in the API. The complexity that it being
discussed brings gains that are ill-defined and costs that are
obvious. Yes, doubles keep more precision, yes, sometimes int32 is
better than float32, and yes, sometimes we really do have an
interleaved multichannel data stream. But the same objections can be
raised about any API, including the much vaunted (and rightly so,
IMHO) Unix IPC API, which comes with problems of data flow rates,
latency issues and other "limits".
An initial plugin API needs to be able to meet the demands
demonstrated by the hundreds (?) of VST plugins, existing Linux
"modular" software, and other relevant applications. It should not,
IMHO, be trying to answer questions that we (1) don't even know if we
need to ask and (2) have empirical evidence that lots of other people
have avoided asking.
So, as much as I respect his work, I have to say that I don't think
that any of Benno's efforts from the past weekend should be part of
LADSPA v1.0.
--p
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