CLAP

Programming applications for making music on Linux.

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skei
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CLAP

Post by skei »

very interesting!
https://github.com/free-audio/clap
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 3#p8240683

Code: Select all

> nm -D ./Hive.so | grep clap
0000000000b8e2a8 D clap_plugin_entry
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Largos
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Re: CLAP

Post by Largos »

More details on u-he's CLAP

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 1&t=574861

Don't even need to break social distancing to get this new clap
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d.healey
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Re: CLAP

Post by d.healey »

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sysrqer
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Re: CLAP

Post by sysrqer »

@d.healey I have to say that was my reaction as well. I would be interested to know why lv2 has apparently failed if big names are already jumping on this as I've heard u-he is doing.
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sunrat
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Re: CLAP

Post by sunrat »

Harrison Mixbus and Reaper both support LV2 across all 3 main OS platforms. If U-He wanted to really do something useful for open source plugins they would contribute to LV2 to add features they may believe are missing. Bad move U-He creating a competing standard, you have just lost a sizeable percentage of my previous respect.
PS. I love XKCD, it seems to have a poignant comic for so many situations.
barbouze
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Re: CLAP

Post by barbouze »

sunrat wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 9:46 pm If U-He wanted to really do something useful for open source plugins they would contribute to LV2 to add features they may believe are missing.
:!: my 2 eurocents :!:

I agree but sometime starting from scratch is necessary. Try to have a look at the jungle of programming languages.
Following your thinking, nothing should exist other than C/C++ and every effort should be done to add new features to them.

Obviously this isn't the case and there is A LOT of other ones. Some are dying from being out of touch with modern IT, other are trending for a few years then get forgotten, other are evolving to production-ready robustness and cross platform usage.
It is natural evolution/selection applied to programming languages.

Back to plugin formats. I haven't been there for a while and when I started audio on Linux I quickly understood that lv2 was the actual standard for Linux audio plugins.(Yes, there were VST(2/3) Linux native plugins but VST always seemed to me like an alien format, a by-product of Windows.)
Audio plugins in Linux were first LADSPA then an attempt was made to improve them with DSSI then a third standard was created with LV2.

What LV2 has achieved already is great but it was too closely related to Linux and stayed in that ecosystem for too long.
Yes, it is open source and cross platform capable but external circumstances made it "that plugin format that is only useful on Linux".

Now, and for a few years thanks to Steinberg, there is a need to have a cross-platform free open source plugin format. Should it be LV2, that niche format developed by individuals over a few years with all its merits and quirks or something new backed by a major plugin developer that has some leverage in this industry?

This depends on a lot of things but my guess is that it will not be LV2.

Looking back at programming languages, if you want to get out of C++, you would want to go with Rust instead of D. Not that one is better than the other but Rust has that "by the industry for the industry" thing written all over it. It even is knocking on the Linux Kernel doors, who wouldn't be seduced by that battle-hardened-and-long-term-safety feeling using it?

I don't feel sad or bitter because I know that LV2 is still there for a long time and VST3 can be used as a backup. I'm optimistic because if this move from u-he succeed, we (linux musicians) will be in a great spot as all efforts made to CLAP will benefit to us (more DAWs/plugins/users).

Let's hope that the actual mess with Alsa/Jack/Jack2/PulseAudio is settled soon with Pipewire so that any new Linux musician won't hit that wall of complexity like many of us did.
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Re: CLAP

Post by dawhead »

as all efforts made to CLAP will benefit to us (more DAWs/plugins/users).
The fact the CLAP could be used on Linux isn't going to do much to get Izotope (for example) to release plugins for Linux. VST3 is already designed with Linux in mind, and although it has resulted in a small increase in the rate of plugin releases from non-Linux-based plugin developers, it's existence doesn't change much at all.

The reasons why certain (a lot!) of plugins are not available for Linux have very little to do with plugin APIs.
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Re: CLAP

Post by barbouze »

My intuition tells me that VST3 locked devs mind into porting their VST2 to VST3 "as is", not looking for cross platform compatibility.
From what I read so far, the general opinion is of course "why another standard?" followed by "this seems cool nevertheless" and "this could work and seems not that hard, so why not?"
A new plugin format combined with an increasing number of cross platform DAWs, and audio manipulation being more common on devices other than PCs and Macs (rapsberry pi, phones, etc.) could change old trends.
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Re: CLAP

Post by dawhead »

An increasing number of plugin devs now use JUCE to do their work. JUCE means they can generate plugins in a multitude of formats, include VST2, VST3, LV2, AU, etc. with almost no extra work.

Adding CLAP to the things that JUCE supports will do almost nothing to see more plugins available on Linux. Developers could do that already by ticking the LV2 box or the VST3 box and building Linux native versions. The fact that they do not is an important thing to understand.
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Re: CLAP

Post by milkii »

From what I've heard, an increasing number of devs now use JUCE because the VST3 SDK is so horrible to work with :)

Only a small fraction of devs using JUCE know of the falkTX/KottV fork that allows LV2 builds, so that option isn't really a checkbox until folk working for PACE finally implement LV2-as-a-target in-house.

The best way to use PipeWire atm IMO is with JACK clients that use the PW emulation of JACK (which is seamless with it's emulation of PulseAudio), and PipeWire native EasyEffects is an LV2 host, so I'm not sure of the power of some of the phrasing of prior statements made above (as you can argue another layer of complexity makes things simpler).

But regarding being libre, CLAP is open, which is cool. Will an open format from commercial operations with a big and relatively big fan bases probably take off? Sure could. In relation to the biggest existing libre audio plugin format, maybe I or one can find the time to go through KVR threads etc. to figure out the fuller gist of purported issues CLAP folk have with LV2 again, aside from the FUD element, and be critical about those points, but I don't have the energy and you can lead a horse to water ;) Vaguely put, it feels a bit NIH, reinventing the wheel, kinda top-down or insular, and somewhat economically right-wing driven. I would wonder what thoughts of extending LV2 to meet needs could have been (and could still be), though I understand it has taken on concepts from LV2 already.

There certainly is a coherent LV2 documentation problem, a problem that is seeing work; drobilla got as far as tooling for a single page Serd doc, and the recent B.Music LV2 videos are also great, very little ambiguity as to how a plugin comes together. Even if the documentation is still evolving, it feels like various questions weren't asked, assumptions were made, accomodations passed over, and now there's going to be a possibility of split efforts on a general open audio plugin format.

they/them ta / libreav.org / wiki.thingsandstuff.org/Audio and related pages / gh

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Re: CLAP

Post by barbouze »

milkii wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 3:50 am In relation to the biggest existing libre audio plugin format, maybe I or one can find the time to go through KVR threads etc. to figure out the fuller gist of purported issues CLAP folk have with LV2 again, aside from the FUD element, and be critical about those points, but I don't have the energy and you can lead a horse to water ;) Vaguely put, it feels a bit NIH, reinventing the wheel, kinda top-down or insular, and somewhat economically right-wing driven. I would wonder what thoughts of extending LV2 to meet needs could have been (and could still be), though I understand it has taken on concepts from LV2 already.
This thread in particular is quite interesting because it involves a lot of well known actors like Paul Davis, falkTX, Urs discussing things like what should an open audio plugin format provide, the pros and cons of lv2, going deep into UI/DSP separation, some history related to previous attempts at designing a good plugin format, etc.
It is a lengthy read but it explains a lot on why CLAP has been created.
Yes, there may bit a FUD/NIH taste to it, but afaik, no one has as much weight as u-he on the plugin dev side to initiate a new and hopefully better trend to get out of the global mess audio tools are in.
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Re: CLAP

Post by oddy.o.lynx »

The initial thread.... first comment reads like an About

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 1&t=574861

From Steinberg...
Moreover, within the next 24 months, Steinberg’s host applications and plug-ins across macOS and Windows will offer VST 3 compatibility only.

To ensure that you are prepared for these eventualities, we recommend to check if any third-party VST 2 plug-ins are in use and, if so, to contact the corresponding plug-in developers for details on supporting VST 3.
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Re: CLAP

Post by sadko4u »

If all other hosts will use CLAP, Steinberg will be forced to add CLAP support to become competitive to others.
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mike@overtonedsp
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Re: CLAP

Post by mike@overtonedsp »

I mentioned this on the Reaper forum, but for those who might be interested, I ported a plug-in to CLAP to see what all the fuss is about.

Image

Inspired by the Pultec HLF-3C, the ACM-3SA is free to download. While every attempt has been made to test CLAP functionality, the CLAP version should be regarded as experimental at this time. Tested with Bitwig and Reaper+dev804 for Linux - YMMV. The ACM-3SA can be downloaded at:
https://www.acmt.co.uk/products/downloa ... index.html
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Re: CLAP

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

mike@overtonedsp wrote: I ported a plug-in to CLAP to see what all the fuss is about.
And your conclusion is...?

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