What do we have? What do we need?

[sysrqer]

Apart from calf I can't think of many lv2 plugin which have no vst version. That said, it would be great to be able to load calf, x42 and eq10 in renoise a more easily.

[sysrqer]

You just mentioned 2

Yeah I started to think of more as I was typing.

[glowrak guy]

I'd be competing in the massively saturated free VST world.

Saturation maybe at the journeyman level, but every year there are
millions of hi skrool advancees who are temporarily quite clueless,
(University Of Hard Knox awaiting) but can learn, and will develope
new hobbies/careers. Little wonder many commercial devs have added
lowcost IOS apps to lure them in.

And despite some plugin/instrument saturation, the sounds provided
with them, are usually 128 or fewer, leaving room for more.
And sometimes the soundsets delivered with commercial products
contain a lot showboat advertisement patches,
not easily used as part of a song, and if an attempt is made to cater to
a wide range of genres, then users mainly looking for a small but quality range of sounds,
will always have a craving to be met. Hence the Pro sound design market exists.

And a good portion of people are simply cyber hoarders. To them,
saturation just means a 3 terrabyte drive, instead of 2. And some hoarding
among musicians has a purpose, as those who have no desire/time/skill
to create new sounds with their aquired software, will want or need
some of the latest offerings.

A synth that can load user created .wav files, has a decent mod matrix, eq, and effects,
with good enough filters, is probably going to be popular and used for as long
as people still make .wav files, and have time to bicker about filters.
Very few such plugins exist, while bickering from a to z is high art
in some places.

A solid windows vst plugin or savi-host style standalone to host lv2's
would be a great way to expose lv2 to creatives using a commercial OS,
as would a linux vst plugin for linux daws that lack such support.
Would be cool to use Triceratops lv2 synth wherever. Even dssi
has a few excellent instruments, if supporting would be easy
while under the hood
Cheers

[rghvdberg]

A One Synth Challenge friend of mine J.Ruegg is doing a OSC this month in Linux using Ardour. One of the reasons he's doing this in Linux / Ardour is Carla.
So I guess carla is kinda selling point.

Other reason. Ardour is full featured and .... free

When he was trying out Linux he was blown away by jackd. Endless possibilities to hook up stuff.

Btw J.Ruegg is an excellent producer and has won the challenge several times. This is NOT easy.

I'll ask for his input in this thread.

[gimmeapill]

Regarding Guitarix, it doesn't seem like too much of a big deal to get most low level FAUST modules built as Linux-vsts.
I raised the topic a few months ago, and thanks to Tramp's pointers, I could get some of them running in Renoise, but I didn't push it much further as I quickly ran into performance and stability issues.

Details here:
http://guitarix.sourceforge.net/forum/v ... f=7&t=4704

I didn't think about LADSPA,though, need to try that
Otherwise, In the long run, I'd probably prefer to run Ardour full time if it had something of a looping sequencer suitable for practicing. The LUA extensions suggest this is now possible, but I have unfortunately very little time available to find out...

[progwolff]

I often waste hours searching for good plugins that suffice to realize my ideas. And from what I read in this thread, there are others that have similar problems.

What I really miss is a central database or repository of plugins.
From what I know, there is no such a system that allows me to search for plugins e.g. by instrument name, tone color, synthesis method or target architecture.
There also is no standardized concept of deploying plugins. Some are available in repositories of specific distros, but it's not easy to find them between tons of system packages.

If such a system existed, one could even integrate a package manager for audio plugins in the plugin browser of DAWs and other audio software. You could browse for the plugins you need inside the application you want use it in.

Actually, I wrote myself Arch PKGBUILDs that silently download and install plugins from Native Instruments, including all neccessary dependencies and configuration of Wine. It's definitely possible even for proprietary plugins (though one has to check the legal aspects) and should be very easy for open source software.
We would just have to specify a method of categorization and setup a database system. The AUR sources might be a good starting point.

[Baggypants]

What's the point of a bunch of diehard freedom fighter LV2 plugins that stand their ground but don't get used really that much?

Because they still might win? How much use are a billion free precompiled window vsts on an arm processor? Or a snapdragon? Or POWER? Which of the two protocols are more likely to be retooled for html5 based web-midi?

[glowrak guy]

When he was trying out Linux he was blown away by jackd. Endless possibilities to hook up stuff.

That's funny, a lot of windows users complain about linux requiring
musicians actually having to hook stuff up, over and over, like it's a medieval torture.
I've found that manually connecting things inspires experimentation,
and results in discoveries moe valuable than the time saved
waddling about within defacto session management boxes.
Maybe you'll join Mr Ruegg on the OSC victors platform someday!
Cheers

[sadko4u]

The huge problem is that most software is built for popular platforms to cover the largest audience. Until there will be no large audience of consumers that will require VSTs or LV2s for Linux, software companies won't produce them, even for commercial purpose. Even linuxdsp gave up saying that it's hard to support Linux platform any more. But really the situation is different: there are a lot of consumers in Win and Mac segment, in comparison to 3.5 anonymous freaks that use Linux. So we can safely forget about them because Win and Mac licenses are sold out like hot dogs.
Developers are not interested in writing portable software because it takes a lot of time. Write for Win/Mac and support only x86 and x86_64 - it's the top roof for most of them.
So currently what I'm personally missing is a huge linux sound community that can dictate rules to vendors.

[Luc]

Linux has never dictated rules to vendors. In fairness, vendors have never dictated rules to Linux either.

[gimmeapill]

Linux has never dictated rules to vendors. In fairness, vendors have never dictated rules to Linux either.

<Off topic> With Microsoft now a platinum member of the Linux Foundation, I would be more nuanced with those kind of statements.</Off topic>

[glowrak guy]

There's a crack in the foundation
Requires heavy duty repair.

[glowrak guy]

in comparison to 3.5 anonymous freaks that use Linux.....
...So currently what I'm personally missing is a huge linux sound community...

You should ask Alexandar Bique for the download stats of his U-he plugin ports,
to get an idea of the commercial uptake of quality linux products. It's a very unique case,
to have a catalog of very successful mac/win products to get ported, far different
from many linux developers who are quite anonymous by comparison.

And their catalog is appealing to a wide and insatiable market. Many people
get by with one DAW, and some small core of mastering apps,
but own stacks of instruments and effects, and buy more every year.
And being in Berlin/Germany, there is a larger percentage of the population
that fear no penguin, because of linux penetration into some government and school systems
was not the disaster competitors had hoped for.

As the U-he devmaster recently pointed out, to maintain success, you have
to have a great product, great presets, great communication/advertisement,
great technical support, great R/D, and with pricing that can compete. For a start-up,
that means 80 hour work weeks of relentless dedication, and an angelic attitude.
Snowflakes and wannabees need not apply.
Cheers

[skei]

i use only (linux) vst plugins myself, so i recently made a basic ladspa -> vst wrapper.. haven't done much with it after i got it to work, but maybe i should continue working on it? and maybe try to expand it to support dssi (?) and lv2?

[Luc]

That looks very interesting! Is it available somehow?