Subject: Re: my take on the "virtual studio" (monolith vs plugins) ... was Re: [linux-audio-dev] ardour, LADSPA, a marriage
From: Stefan Westerfeld (stefan_AT_space.twc.de)
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 22:55:42 EET
Hi!
On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 05:26:59PM -0500, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:
> ignoring libsigc++ for the time being (because its not part of LADSPA
> at all): the scheduling in my proposed system is actually extremely
> simple:
>
> ALSA poll(2) support:
> * wakes up a thread very fragment
> * this thread handles the low-level interaction with the audio h/w
> and calls the "run" method for the patchbay/router/host.
>
> The patchbay/router/router simply executes the "run" method
> for every plugin connected to every input port, then
> executes the "run" method for every plugin connected to
> every output port.
Well, this sounds simple enough, and seems to operate on unmanipulated
data. On a very low level, too. It would even be possible, if you put
that thing in a library to connect aRts to it as client. Or to make
aRts the server provide the patchbay.
It's not my view of a virtual studio, though, where you would allow
having a mixer as plugin, which would mean that apps should connect
to the mixer, and the mixer mixes and connects its output to an effect,
and the effect,... and so on.
Of course, you *can* do all this by going repeatedly through the patchbay,
but unless your patchbay then supports float i/o, and not operates on raw
data, it will be very inefficient.
My feeling is also, that it standarizes too little to make the audio apps
really interoperate in a user-friendly way. They don't really talk to each
other the way you describe it. They don't offer services to each other, like
a harddisc-recording-services. It's not an API for component oriented
programming, but one for using huge monolithic blocks together.
Cu... Stefan
--
-* Stefan Westerfeld, stefan_AT_space.twc.de (PGP!), Hamburg/Germany
KDE Developer, project infos at http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde *-
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