What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

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digitsun
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What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by digitsun »

Well, that's all... What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2? And maybe you can talk about differences and your preferences.

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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by Basslint »

My pros for LV2:
- Not controlled by a single commercial vendor
- Extensible
- Simple API
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by digitsun »

@Basslint those are really good features... but what about performance?
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by Basslint »

digitsun wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 6:55 am @Basslint those are really good features... but what about performance?
I am not an audio performance expert but I'd say it depends on the implementation...if I understand it correctly, VST3s do not use the CPU while idling whereas LV2s do. This I think is something which must become part of the LV2 standard too.
Last edited by Basslint on Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by elcalen »

Um, I would be very impressed if someone made a computer program that doesn't use the CPU...
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by Kott »

I think there is a typo :)

Anyway, LV2 and VST3 are standards, so, performance depends on DSP implementation, yes.
Though VST3 is "company's" product but there are submits from community to the code, especially for Linux https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vstgu ... ts/develop
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by sjaehn »

Steinberg made big improvements with VST3. And they make sense. Many clear disadvantages of VST2 are resolved (resize, multiple MIDI ports, ...). Including licensing (VST3 now with GPL3 option). But the painful forcing of developers to switch away from VST2 will always stay in my mind.

One advantage of LV2 looks like a disadvantage on the first view. LV2 comes along with multiple files whereas only one file can be enough for VST(3). LV2 store plugin description and (multiple / different) executables in separate files. The user benefits from much faster plugin scanning and fear about plugins crashing the DAW on scanning. And thus no need of a black lists for problematic plugins in the respective DAW.

The clear advantage are the extensions. In theory you can add anything. Only host and plugins need to support the extension. Nice examples for extensions outside standard LV2 are MIDNAM and Harrison/Ardour inline displays.

And don't forget LV2 is FOSS by design :-).
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by sadko4u »

Main disadvantages of LV2 - very steep learning curve. You have to do and learn a lot before your plugins will get properly functioning (with LV2:Atom, LV2:State, LV2:UI and other extensions). Annoying turtle format for metadata. Some things are badly designed (LV2:Resize, LV2:enable, for example).
Main disadvantages of VST - too many excessive code in the tree, no thin layer is provided (like done in VST2), C++ interfaces instead of plain C intermediate layer.
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by glowrak guy »

Now that linux Reaper does well supporting LV2, I'll be exploring more of them.
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by Basslint »

elcalen wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 9:09 am Um, I would be very impressed if someone made a computer program that doesn't use the CPU...
Whoops, I forgot the word "idling"...I meant don't use the CPU (as much) when idling :lol:

One aspect that I don't like a lot about LV2 is that while it's 100% FLOSS, there is no "LV2 Foundation" or official way I know of to participate in the drafting of the standard.
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by tramp »

Basslint wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:47 am One aspect that I don't like a lot about LV2 is that while it's 100% FLOSS, there is no "LV2 Foundation" or official way I know of to participate in the drafting of the standard.
There is a mailing list were most news are discussed/promoted
http://lists.lv2plug.in/listinfo.cgi/devel-lv2plug.in
and a irc channel on freenode #lv2
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by sjaehn »

sadko4u wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:01 pm Main disadvantages of LV2 - very steep learning curve. You have to do and learn a lot before your plugins will get properly functioning[...]
I heard it a lot from others. Especially from non-FOSS DAW programmers complaining about the LV2 documentation. I didn't have any problems with it. And please don't believe I'm a professional programmer.

I had the opposite problem. To understand the VST documentation.

I started with LV2 with reading the LV2 book (big recommendation!). And everything became very logic for me. I further started to analyze @harryhaaren's ArtyFx plugins which are quite close to the given structure in the LV2 book but C++. Especially in the beginning I also looked a lot into atom.h to know how atoms are build. But there are no secrets and no magic.
Annoying turtle format for metadata.
Indeed, this is an often critisized point. After almost three years of working with ttl I can't say that I always understand it. I remember that @falkTX at Sonoj also complained a lot about ttl. But when he was asked why not to use XML instead, he responded with "then I would better take ttl". ;-)
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by nils »

It is unfair to compare low-level LV2 programming with the typical VST process.
Many developers use JUCE or something similar. Of course they find it too complex when asked to write an LV2 plugin from scratch, without any prior knowledge.
At this point they most likely don't know that DPF exist, and even then.. the right comparison would be to request more features from frameworks such as DPF.
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by Basslint »

sjaehn wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:20 pm Indeed, this is an often critisized point. After almost three years of working with ttl I can't say that I always understand it. I remember that @falkTX at Sonoj also complained a lot about ttl. But when he was asked why not to use XML instead, he responded with "then I would better take ttl". ;-)
Would a simpler format like TOML work?
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Re: What are the pros and cons between VST3 (linux native) and LV2?

Post by milkii »

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

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