KXstudio: Problems with Windows VSTi

[StoneCut]

Hi everyone, this is a cool forum I found !

I set up the (complete) KXstudio packages on my Oneiric installation yesterday and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm trying to get NI Massive (massive.dll) to work with it and haven't been very successful.

I can install NI Massive using the KXstudio Wine package just fine. The standalone EXE works, too, but offers no MIDI options when run. The VSTi can be launched with Festige (using fst), but the instrument GUI does not react to my mouse movements. I can't twddle any knobs or anything. However, MIDI input works fine.

On the other hand, if I use the (windows) VSTHost program - www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm - then the DLL gets loaded just fine and the interface also works. However, this has a severe performance impact and MIDI doesn't work yet again (or I'm too daft to figure it out).

Slightly off-topic: Any good recommendations for (native) Bass syntesizer to replace Massive ? Also looking for a nice sampler, Hydrogen is a bit of a dog, IMHO.

[Capoeira]

you tried dssi-vst in festige? some VSTs seam to work better with it

[StoneCut]

Yes, I tried - it crashes upon load of "Massive.dll" - the description in festige says that dssi-vst is good for VSTi that do not have their own GUI whereas fst is good for VSTi with their own interface. Well it loads it fine I just cannot do anything with the GUI

I'm assuming this may actually be a WINE issue, I'm gonna try a different distro (maybe give AV Linux a shot) in the hopes that it comes with a different WINE version to verify.

[Capoeira]

Slightly off-topic: Any good recommendations for (native) Bass syntesizer to replace Massive ? IMHO.

looks like a simple analog synth. try Bristol or Amsynth

[slowpick]

Yes, I tried - it crashes upon load of "Massive.dll" - the description in festige says that dssi-vst is good for VSTi that do not have their own GUI whereas fst is good for VSTi with their own interface. Well it loads it fine I just cannot do anything with the GUI

I'm assuming this may actually be a WINE issue, I'm gonna try a different distro (maybe give AV Linux a shot) in the hopes that it comes with a different WINE version to verify.

Reaper is by far the best vst option linux users have. Small and fast, and packed with features.
Try massive in reaper, lots of youtubes to get you into the learning curve.

Alphatron from H G Fortune has a free version, and is great for bass runs and thumps.
The Bass-rack on Computer Music Magazine dvd is also excellent, as are many other
instruments and fx on the monthly dvd.

The Phasex linux synth is oft neglected, but it's a sonic monster waiting to be unleashed.

qsynth gui for playing bass soundfonts with fluidsynth, is also a good option.

Calf Monosynth is also excellent, especially when used with rakarrack fx.
Its part of the calf-plugins.

You can uninstall wine, and download various other versions to test. AVLinux has lots of
details accounted for, that make it a solid choice for musicians.

[falkTX]

dssi-vst is not working on Oneiric (it was actually about to be removed from repos).

For VSTHost, try to set Wine Audio output to ALSA (so you get MIDI support), using 'winecfg', and use WineASIO for Audio.
afaik, VSTHost should work with MIDI, but I'm not sure how it handles it...

There are some good native synths, TAL-NoiseMaker is my favourite.
The PPA version is a bit outdated (I'm waiting to get to get LV2 versions working), you can find binaries here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/distrho ... L-Plugins/

And of course what the others said, Bristol and Phasex are pretty cool (You can use 'klaudia' to see all Bristol synths).

[StoneCut]

First off: Thanks for everybody's feedback, it's much appreciated !!

@Capoeira: Thanks for the suggestions, I've tried Bristol before but it was VERY slow to react to my keypresses. I tried tweaking the settings but couldn't figure it out

I haven't heard of Amsynth but I'll try it. However: NI Massive is not a "simple" synth as you say. Or - if it is - it is VERY well tuned. I've tried hundreds of Windows VSTi but none come close to Massive for gnarly, dirty and rotten bass sounds. Hence why I bought it.

@Slowpick: Reaper is nice but I was really hoping for a non Wine-based solution. If all else fails I will reevaluate it, though. I will definitely give it a shot just to see if Massive would work.

I've also noted Alphatron and the Bass-Rack (we don't have Computer Music Mag here, though). Phasex sounds interesting, too, even if it looks a bit too "scientific" at first glance. I usually try to avoid those as I end up twiddling knobs for hours and getting nowhere Yes, I do understand synth basics, but can't be arsed most of the time, lol.

I already had a look at Qsynth in the meantime and it looks like it might be what I need. Too bad that many audio softs really look like 1999 in the Unix/Linux world, though ... The Calf Monosynth is also noted but what are those rakarrack FX ?!

@falkTX: First off: Many thanks for cadence - it's awesome !!! Is there any hope that dssi-vst will get fixed for Oneiric ? Also thanks for your suggestion regarding VSThost setup - I'll try it. As for TAL-NoiseMaker: I've been seeing that in some videos but haven't tried it. Thanks for the suggestion and the reminder. However, regarding Bristol: Like I mentioned above - the Bristol synths are extremely slow to respond on my machine (which makes then unusable). Do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong ?

Also - have you considered offering Ardour3 Beta with KXstudio or did you decide against it for particular reasons ?

I still haven't tried AV Linux, I'd really prefer to stay on Ubuntu as I also want to use the machine for other purposes (and I like the candece tools) but I'll give it a shot from the CD at the weekend when the wife's not in the house and I have time to mess about Is anyone actually working on a "receptor"-like clone ?

[falkTX]

Bristol uses non-conventional ways to show GUIs, I'm not surprised they won't work well for you.
(There was a time when I couldn't even the those GUIs...).

As for Ardour3, I'm still considering what is the best option. I've been packaging official debug builds "as-is" in the latest PPA, and beta-1 brings VST support using LXVST_PATH. The problem is that this doesn't make sense in the KXStudio world, so I need to change that to the normal VST_PATH, and for that I need to recompile it.
But Ardour devs say packaging ardour should not be done at this time.... (since I was using official builds, it was no problem).
I think I'll end up compiling it sonner or later on the PPAs though...

A thing worth trying is synthclone:
http://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
The idea is to run your synths in jack once, render the keys to wav files, and create some sort of sound bank. I can see myself using this for unstable VSTis, so I get rid of Wine dependencies
This is not yet in the PPAs though, so it needs to be compiled first. I'll try to add it to the PPAs some time later.

[StoneCut]

Ok, I fiddled with those "Massive" issue some more today (pun intended) and here are my odd results (well, to me they are):
Launching Massive.exe as a standalone EXE via Wine and using ALSA/WineASIO works nicely (KXstudio). However, I don't see any MIDI inputs on Massive when using Catia (16 audio channels instead).

MIDI does seem to work somewhat, though: I can go into Massive's MIDI settings and I'll have three choices which I can set to "On" instead of "Off" (default). There are no other settings:
1) "a2jmidid - port" - I cannot enable this for the life of me. It stays at "Off".
2) "VMPK Output - VMPK Output" - obviously I'll need to launch VMPK first but enabling this will then work just fine !
3) "Midi Through Port-0" - Enabling this makes no difference whatsoever, except ...

So that "VMPK Output" thing works fine, however Catia still won't display and MIDI input devices for Massive ?!
So what can I do to have my MIDI sequence from Qtractor played by Massive ? Hah, some crazy stuff: Route Qtractor's Master MIDI to "VMPK Input" in Catia. Haha, I guess you know the consequences of that once I have some more instruments set up
Anyway, at some point I had to restart Massive once again and *WHOOPS* all of a sudden the Qtractor Master MIDI port also showed up (and any subsequent busses I added). So yeah, the MIDI problem is probably sorted - is this just a display error in Catia ?

As for all your other great suggestions - I have some peace of mind that things work now so I can truly enjoy trying them now !

@FalkTX: I'm not sure I understand why LXVST_PATH would be an issue for KXtsudio since I *thought* I understood that VST_PATH was for native Windows DLL VST(i) whereas LXVST_PATH would be for native Linux VST(i) but I'm relatively knew to the Linux audio world and you sure know what you're talking about

[falkTX]

Ok, I fiddled with those "Massive" issue some more today (pun intended) and here are my odd results (well, to me they are):
Launching Massive.exe as a standalone EXE via Wine and using ALSA/WineASIO works nicely (KXstudio). However, I don't see any MIDI inputs on Massive when using Catia (16 audio channels instead).

MIDI does seem to work somewhat, though: I can go into Massive's MIDI settings and I'll have three choices which I can set to "On" instead of "Off" (default). There are no other settings:
1) "a2jmidid - port" - I cannot enable this for the life of me. It stays at "Off".
2) "VMPK Output - VMPK Output" - obviously I'll need to launch VMPK first but enabling this will then work just fine !
3) "Midi Through Port-0" - Enabling this makes no difference whatsoever, except ...

So that "VMPK Output" thing works fine, however Catia still won't display and MIDI input devices for Massive ?!
So what can I do to have my MIDI sequence from Qtractor played by Massive ? Hah, some crazy stuff: Route Qtractor's Master MIDI to "VMPK Input" in Catia. Haha, I guess you know the consequences of that once I have some more instruments set up
Anyway, at some point I had to restart Massive once again and *WHOOPS* all of a sudden the Qtractor Master MIDI port also showed up (and any subsequent busses I added). So yeah, the MIDI problem is probably sorted - is this just a display error in Catia ?

As for all your other great suggestions - I have some peace of mind that things work now so I can truly enjoy trying them now !

@FalkTX: I'm not sure I understand why LXVST_PATH would be an issue for KXtsudio since I *thought* I understood that VST_PATH was for native Windows DLL VST(i) whereas LXVST_PATH would be for native Linux VST(i) but I'm relatively knew to the Linux audio world and you sure know what you're talking about

You need to understand the differences between ALSA MIDI and JACK MIDI.
What you're seeing in Massive is ALSA MIDI, as provided by Wine.

Catia only supports JACK MIDI, so the ports displayed on Massive won't show up in Catia.
There's a quick way to "fix" it though - Set Massive MIDI input as "Midi Through", and any MIDI connection made in Catia to "MIDI Through" _input_ will be sent to Massive.

There must be some docs explaining JACK MIDI vs ALSA MIDI somewhere....

anyway, Ardour3 LXVST_PATH just don't follow what is already used in Linux - Qtractor, Renoise, Carla and maybe others use VST_PATH to look for vst plugins.
If I'm going to package Ardour3, I'll change LXVST_PATH back to VST_PATH, but later, there's still so much things to do..

[slowpick]

MIDI does seem to work somewhat, though: I can go into Massive's MIDI settings and I'll have three choices which I can set to "On" instead of "Off" (default). There are no other settings:
1) "a2jmidid - port" - I cannot enable this for the life of me. It stays at "Off".

after starting jackd, issue this command

a2jmidid -j default

now a jackd midi port will appear in the qjackctl midi tab
between the audio and alsa tabs. If you have both midi and midi-through ports
in your alsa tab, cross-connect them, midi to midi through.

In qjackctl Setup panel, options tab
there is a an 'execute script after startup' entry where you
can put the a2jmidi -j default
This will save a step, if your system is happy enough.

[falkTX]

after starting jackd, issue this command

a2jmidid -j default

now a jackd midi port will appear in the qjackctl midi tab
between the audio and alsa tabs. If you have both midi and midi-through ports
in your alsa tab, cross-connect them, midi to midi through.

In qjackctl Setup panel, options tab
there is a an 'execute script after startup' entry where you
can put the a2jmidi -j default
This will save a step, if your system is happy enough.

The thing is, Wine MIDI only appears when you connect at least one port. So you'll basically have to get the app's GUI and set input to "MIDI Through" (which connects midi-through-alsa to wine-midi).
With a2j in place, you never actually need to use the ALSA tab in qjackctl

[StoneCut]

Haha, I'll see if I can get the MIDI stuff working ... thanks for all your feedback !

Little bit of a rant:
You know I bought Propellerheads Reason a couple of years ago (when I was still using Windows) in order to reduce all the clutter. I absolutely loved how I didn't have to reinstall some obscure VSTi plugin (from a likely abandoned website) and do tons of patching again a year later when I opened a project again but now ... I'm back at square one again and it's even more complicated/elaborate

I realize all the possibilities with the routing but I guess for some people all that stuff is a bit in the way of actually making any music. If I want to do some tricked out routing I can actually do so in Reason, too, though. I really wished there was better integration of the various plugins into the DAWs - or even just a self-contained DAW with selected instruments. And please don't suggest LMMS - it's a very functional and good free software, it's just not my way of making music (I hated FruityLoops, too).

Back on topic:
As for Qsynth: I played with it but it kept locking up when it had to reload the audio engine after assigning an SF2 to it. I haven't been able to get it to load even the factory SF2 files it comes with Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I'm not sure what.

I also gave LinuxSampler/Fantasia-GUI a shot but I guess I'm a bit too stupid for it. I'll need to read the DOCs and watch some videos on how to use it, all these programs are new and confusing to me. I was hoping I could somehow directly import my .SXT files (Reason NN-XT sampler patch files) into either Hydrogen or LinuxSampler but I ended up converting them to SF2 with Awave (one by one, damn demo). LinuxSampler also missed its library and complained about permissions so I had to start it from the command-line and supply it with a writeable path to an (empty) instruments.db file. This might be a packaging error ?!

I also had a look at the MusE and OpenOctave websites. MusE(2) seems like a nice software, I wonder why it didn't get installed with KXstudio by default ?

[falkTX]

For linuxsampler, you might wanna read this:
http://wootangent.net/2011/07/everythin ... uxsampler/
(it's 4 pages)

I have openoctave in the PPAs, so as MusE. Sometimes I just get so busy it's hard to keep up with all the updates in the FLOSS world...
I do like OpenOctave, and I plan to give it a spin some day. Their wiki is very nice - https://github.com/ccherrett/oom/wiki/Getting-Started

[StoneCut]

Thanks for your feedback. I've assembled 4 pages of links related to linux audio that I need to go through. I've added these two links to it