Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] TAP-plugins reverb presets
From: Steve Harris (S.W.Harris_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Mar 05 2004 - 14:03:27 EET
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 12:21:42 +0100, Dr. Matthias Nagorni wrote:
> > Because they weren't thought of at design time. There is allready
> > enumerated value support in RDF. Very simple hosts do not need it.
>
> Steve, I can not agree with any of these three sentences. My experience with
> ams and real analogue synths show that _any_ synth needs named switches.
> Already the first Moog modules had them. And all of my analogue synths
> have some of these selectors. They are as basic and fundamental as
> continuos sliders/potentiometers. If developers have not been aware of
> that at design time, well then it just needs to be fixed now on the basis
> of new insights ;-) So what we need is a HINT_ENUMERATION and a list of
> strings for the item names. Actually LADSPA would then have the complete
> controls I use for ams: continuous sliders, integer sliders, toggles and
> combobox selectors. I think this is the complete set you need.
That is not complete, you also need strings, push-to-make (momentary)
controls and probably opaque blobs. The problem for enumerations is where
to put the list of strings and values. Unfortunatly a simple hint will not
do it.
I agree that combo boxes are very useful, and LADSPA should have access to
them, but AMS is /not/ a simple host, why should it not use RDF? Just the
ability to do plugin categorisation is a huge bonus, bordering on
essential if you have a lot of plugins installed.
There are hosts that wouldn't use enumerations, eg. Pd, applyplugin and
ecasound.
> I think most people agreed that RDF should be optional. But it is not
> optional if any of the above mentioned "canonical" types is missing.
> Open e.g. the TAP reverb in the control center of ams. the preset
> parameter will look quite messed up. Look OTOH how beautiful it looks in
> the combobox selector hack I did yesterday. And we could have that by
> adding just some tiny HINT to LADSPA.
A tiny hint and changing one of the structs - thats quite a big deal.
On the other hand, RDF has had LADSPA enumerations for something like 12
months. They work, thier easy to support and they dont break compatibility
with anything.
I honestly dont understand the problem. Your saying that you dont like
fact that the TAP reverb has a big port label and no machine readable
enumeration (and that's fair enough), and I'm saying "go to
http://plugin.org.uk/lrdf/ and get a library that will give you
enumerations for it", what is the problem, really? You allredy have the
metadata installed, and probably the library too, just no way to read it
from AMS.
- Steve
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