Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] ardour, LADSPA, a marriage
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Thu Nov 09 2000 - 16:27:11 EET
>I spent some time the other day browsing around looking for free VST
>plugins.
>
>There are quite a lot of them, I'd recon somewhere around 50, maybe 100
>if we dig.
>
>I thought it would be a good idea to confront the developers in all
>friendliness and ask them about the possibility to port their
>algorithms to LADSPA.
I make a point of asking *every* developer who announces a free plugin
on the vst-plugins list if they will consider porting it to Linux.
Its an open question whether its reasonable to ask them to port to
LADSPA itself, or just let us have the code so that we can run it as a
VST plugin and/or port it ourselves. I normally just ask if we can
have the source code. I often try to explain that although nobody is
absolutely opposed to binary software under Linux, there is a vast
preference for open source, and that in particular, in programs that
need root priviledge in order to wire down memory, loading binary
plugins should/will scare the bejeezus out of most users.
>I can't find any reason why they wouldn't agree, their plugs are already
>free.... especially if we offer to do the actual porting work... (Okay,
>the plug might be written in poorly documented visual basic.... but then
>we don't want it ;-)
they are all written in C++, its part of the standard API for VST. the
general response i have received has been "oh, i didn't know VST for
Linux existed". I explain to them that ecasound can support it, that
Ardour will do soon, etc., and that we'd like to see something like
this:
http://members.tripod.de/cell/vst_addon
(not the main page, follow the links to the "available plugins" page)
for Linux. Nobody has really bitten the bullet and said yes, but most
people seem open to the idea.
It would be good to pursue this, however. I'm not sure of the best approach.
I'm still musing on the best design strategy for ardour's potential
handling of VST myself. Kai chose to wrap LADSPA and VST in a
super-class, which is one way to go. The other is to wrap VST to make
it look like LADSPA, and finally, there is wrapping LADSPA so that it
looks like VST. Plusses and minuses for each one.
--p
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Nov 09 2000 - 17:15:09 EET