LinuxMusicians

Someone has made some home brew synths and is now sharing them at this forum:

http://www.dsprobotics.com/support/view ... f=3&t=5258

They're all Windows plugins and there is nothing particularly impressive there, but they run on the Wine/Airwave bridge and I found at least a couple of sounds that I really like.

If you want to skip the forum or it happens to be down, you can go straight here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rqix6md52oi0 ... 1vD5a?dl=0

Are they FOSS?

I wasn't able to download the instruments as a single zip for some reason, so I'm doing them one-by-one. I'm curious to give them a try!

Thanks for sharing these.


brian

briandc wrote:I wasn't able to download the instruments as a single zip for some reason, so I'm doing them one-by-one. I'm curious to give them a try!
Thanks for sharing these.
brian

Strange, I downloaded the one big zip file, from the blue rectangle "Download" link on the top, right-hand corner. Just tried it again, and it still works.

Perhaps I should point out that the zip file "opened with errors" though said errors were unspecified and all files seem to be there and working. Just thought I'd mention it.

I'm glad you like it.

I've been trying some of the instruments out, I get quite a few xruns though and can't use them as I'd like, unfortunately. I'm sure it has something to do with the GUI of the instruments, as I've seen other synths with similar graphics arrangements cause the same problems. I'm hoping that a future version of Wine will finally address this type of graphics issue, since there are several instruments out there that would be fun to use.


brian

I never quite follow when people talk about xruns, because they are extremely rare to me.

On the issue of GUIs, I've run into a few Windows plugins that blink/flicker hard, it's very annoying.

I'm glad you don't have problems with xruns.
However, since many other VST synths and most native linux synths run for me just fine without xruns, GUI issues, etc, I prefer using these instead. (After all, it's pretty hard to make music with audio glitches happening.)
Still, if improvements are made that will improve this area, then this synthmaker bundle will be a nice addition to my setup for sure!


brian

@Luc: So far, there's one I like the sound of very much, Synthegrated 12A. However, the GUI is not the best. What do you use to host your instruments?
Here's the comparison of the GUI, to get an idea:




brian

I host everything in Tracktion with the Airwave/Wine bridge.

I haven't tested them beyond a few seconds of tweaking on each, but the ones I have marked as favorites so far are the B6, the Chorg ones, the Insoniq and the System One D.

I know the GUIs are pretty bad, but it's the sound that matters the most. The only real problem is some controls are actually inaccessible, but oh well, it's just a free random bundle found on the Internet which can provide some interesting sounds. It's usable.

What is that comparison you posted? Where did you get the one on the right?

Luc wrote:I host everything in Tracktion with the Airwave/Wine bridge.

I haven't tested them beyond a few seconds of tweaking on each, but the ones I have marked as favorites so far are the B6, the Chorg ones, the Insoniq and the System One D.

I know the GUIs are pretty bad, but it's the sound that matters the most. The only real problem is some controls are actually inaccessible, but oh well, it's just a free random bundle found on the Internet which can provide some interesting sounds. It's usable.

What is that comparison you posted? Where did you get the one on the right?

I've never used Tracktion, although I've tried out Airwave a bit. Carla has had some problems hosting the VSTi's done with Airwave though.
The screenshot is the original GUI image (provided in the zipped bundle), and the GUI on the left is the same synth running in VeSTige. Performance seemed pretty good (an occasional xrun over a 10-15 minute period), but using the knobs was a bit troublesome. A shame, because I liked the sound of the synth. I'll have to try it in FSThost on another (32-bit) computer and see if the GUI is better.
Trying it in LMMS is another possibility, although LMMS in 16.04 is giving me problems too. (I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu Studio 16.04 so far. Hopefully that'll change...)

brian

briandc wrote:I've never used Tracktion, although I've tried out Airwave a bit. Carla has had some problems hosting the VSTi's done with Airwave though.

But if I understand you correctly, you're loading the Airwave bridge VSTs on Carla?

That makes a double bridge. No wonder you have problems.

You should instead load Carla (standalone or vst) and have Carla load the Windows .DLLs only, without Airwave
<OR>
have a DAW or host load the Airwave bridge VSTs only, without Carla.

Note: Tracktion 5 is freeware.

Luc wrote:

briandc wrote:I've never used Tracktion, although I've tried out Airwave a bit. Carla has had some problems hosting the VSTi's done with Airwave though.

But if I understand you correctly, you're loading the Airwave bridge VSTs on Carla?

That makes a double bridge. No wonder you have problems.

You should instead load Carla (standalone or vst) and have Carla load the Windows .DLLs only, without Airwave
<OR>
have a DAW or host load the Airwave bridge VSTs only, without Carla.

Note: Tracktion 5 is freeware.

Yes, I use Carla standalone, which loads the .dll file created previously with Airwave. But it sometimes gives problems.
But otoh, what I *do* like about Carla, is that it can open an instrument and provide a native Carla GUI, which sometimes is a better workaround when the original GUI gives problems. So this might be a solution with the VST bundle, too. I'll have to make an Airwave .dll with a synth from the bundle and see how it goes...


brian

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.

Airwave does not create any *.dll files. It creates *.so VST files, which are like overloaded links to pre-existing *.dll files, none of which it has created.

Luc wrote:Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.

Airwave does not create any *.dll files. It creates *.so VST files, which are like overloaded links to pre-existing *.dll files, none of which it has created.

Sorry, I meant .so files.


brian

Either way, you should load the original Windows *.dll files on Carla.

Airwave-generated *.so files are meant to be used in hosts that do not support Windows *.dll plugins.

Carla has some of the same purpose as Airwave, with a different approach. You should use one or another. They are not meant to be used together.