CALF plugins?

[beate]

Also, the issue here isn't that much related to end of life of GTK2, but the wrong choice done by the initial LV2 development to support, yes, even force the use of, mainstream toolkits for plugin UI's. Time tell that this leads to a lot of trouble for users and developers.

JUst a side note: ardour uses GTK2 as well, doesn't it? And the developers decided to put GTK2 into their code tree, AFAIK. So it should be possible to maintain GTK2 based stuff as long as ardour still uses that library.

[GMaq]

Also, the issue here isn't that much related to end of life of GTK2, but the wrong choice done by the initial LV2 development to support, yes, even force the use of, mainstream toolkits for plugin UI's. Time tell that this leads to a lot of trouble for users and developers.

JUst a side note: ardour uses GTK2 as well, doesn't it? And the developers decided to put GTK2 into their code tree, AFAIK. So it should be possible to maintain GTK2 based stuff as long as ardour still uses that library.

Ardour uses a heavily patched and modified GTK2 for only certain parts (mostly the track canvas I believe) this has no relationship to having outside Plugins that use GTK2 because the GTK2 development libraries will not be available for Distros in the future.. The whole issue is that the internalizing of GTK2 without certain parts built-in for Ardour has already broken the Plugin UI's even if the Distro still has GTK2..

GTK2 Plugins with Ardour are over, never to come back... they've only been warning people for 10 years or so..

[Michael Willis]

Can I help somehow in this? I am not a programmer though...

If you have graphic design skills, that would help because I'm not great at that. Other than that, maybe one of these days you can test a beta release of a saturation plugin that I'm making.

[marcellendi]

Can I help somehow in this? I am not a programmer though...

If you have graphic design skills, that would help because I'm not great at that. Other than that, maybe one of these days you can test a beta release of a saturation plugin that I'm making.

I will have a look how difficult it is to make a Gui. Of course I am willing to test your beta's, although there are probably more experienced audio engineers in this group

[sadko4u]

I will have a look how difficult it is to make a Gui

Much more difficult than just writing some DSP code. And not because the GUI is hard to write. It is just rapidly consuming your time to make it good.
LSP Plugins Framework allows to write your own plugins. It took some ideas from Calf like providing XML files that contain UI schema and the UI has the GTK-style widget layout because is the legacy from GTK2. But it went further and the framework is now much more advanced than Calf's one: https://github.com/lsp-plugins/lsp-plugin-fw
You can build your own plugins, here is a template: https://github.com/lsp-plugins/lsp-plug ... -template/

[marcellendi]

I will have a look how difficult it is to make a Gui

Much more difficult than just writing some DSP code. And not because the GUI is hard to write. It is just rapidly consuming your time to make it good.
LSP Plugins Framework allows to write your own plugins. It took some ideas from Calf like providing XML files that contain UI schema and the UI has the GTK-style widget layout because is the legacy from GTK2. But it went further and the framework is now much more advanced than Calf's one: https://github.com/lsp-plugins/lsp-plugin-fw
You can build your own plugins, here is a template: https://github.com/lsp-plugins/lsp-plug ... -template/

I guess I am a lesser God as you . I would love to help but I guess it is out of my league.

[RyanH]

What plugins are you thinking of that sound better but ate harder to understand? I am because I want to develop some "easy mode" plugins. I can't make any promises about when they will be released because I'm also trying to hold down a day job and take care of a house full of children, but I've been actively looking at the source code for projects like Calf, Airwindows, blue lab, et. al. to see how they do their magic.

Sorry, looks like I haven't logged in here for longer than I thought!

One example I can think of is Dragonfly reverb. I'm not sure if it sounds better than Calf or not, but it is very good. However, it has more options than my little mind can handle, like "wander," "spin," and "low mult." I'm not suggesting they should make their plugins any different, but I'm not very good at learning by tweaking a bunch of knobs - I'm just pretty limited when it comes to hearing and understanding, like "Oh, I see, if I just do that and that, I will get this result." The more variables, the more lost I get.

Those more complex plugins are great for people who have a mind for it, but I would love for Calf to stick around as a high-quality alternative for people like me that don't (yet).

[Daniele71]

Those more complex plugins are great for people who have a mind for it, but I would love for Calf to stick around as a high-quality alternative for people like me that don't (yet).

I understand your point of view but Calf Reverb is one of the worst reverb plugin in the open source world. IMHO, good only for some fx stuff not to create rooms and environments.

[GMaq]

but Calf Reverb is one of the worst reverb plugin in the open source world

That is highly subjective, any effect that isn't what sounds right for your intended application is the "wrong" effect... no need to get into the pointless better/worse game...

For many people migrating to Linux especially several years ago Calf (and Invada before them) were an important part of making the transition despite their many flaws, even with the 'wrong' UI toolkit they were pretty intuitive for people to use and even though I only use one of them, I can see why they will be sorely missed.

I do hope if @sadko4u or any other developer ports them to a proper X11 UI that they will preserve the controls as they were. LSP is incredible and the power over the parameters for experienced Users is valued but I do think for many Users keeping a collection of intuitively easy to use Plugins similar to Calf (or even the Ardour Community Plugins) is VERY important..

[folderol]

I do hope if @sadko4u or any other developer ports them to a proper X11 UI that they will preserve the controls as they were. LSP is incredible and the power over the parameters for experienced Users is valued but I do think for many Users keeping a collection of intuitively easy to use Plugins similar to Calf (or even the Ardour Community Plugins) is VERY important..

This!
Most people develop habits that are very hard to change, and it's frustrating when things are in the 'wrong' place or behave differently. This completely breaks any creative flow.

[Largos]

Sorry, looks like I haven't logged in here for longer than I thought!

One example I can think of is Dragonfly reverb. I'm not sure if it sounds better than Calf or not, but it is very good. However, it has more options than my little mind can handle, like "wander," "spin," and "low mult." I'm not suggesting they should make their plugins any different, but I'm not very good at learning by tweaking a bunch of knobs - I'm just pretty limited when it comes to hearing and understanding, like "Oh, I see, if I just do that and that, I will get this result." The more variables, the more lost I get.

Those more complex plugins are great for people who have a mind for it, but I would love for Calf to stick around as a high-quality alternative for people like me that don't (yet).

Dragonfly Reverb has good documentation, so you don't need to learn by tweaking knobs. https://michaelwillis.github.io/dragonf ... nuals.html

[sunrat]

I do hope if @sadko4u or any other developer ports them to a proper X11 UI that they will preserve the controls as they were. LSP is incredible and the power over the parameters for experienced Users is valued but I do think for many Users keeping a collection of intuitively easy to use Plugins similar to Calf (or even the Ardour Community Plugins) is VERY important..

This!
Most people develop habits that are very hard to change, and it's frustrating when things are in the 'wrong' place or behave differently. This completely breaks any creative flow.

Conversely, fear of learning new things allows the brain to stagnate and hinder creative advancement. I'm getting older too and I actively try to learn many new things as I encounter them and also seek out new things to learn.

I recall a few years ago the venue at which I worked as house tech/sound engineer decided to replace our old faithful Yamaha PM 4000 and MC3210M consoles with 2 Digico SD10 digital consoles. I think I had done 2 mixes ever on digital consoles before that and the boss told me I had 2 weeks to learn the Digico and teach the rest of the crew, as well as working out the patching and creating a house session template. I spent a few hours on one at our local distributor, read the manual, and practiced at home with the offline software. First show was sold-out with The Church, a top level Australian band, and it went seamlessly.

One of my favourite mottos is "You learn something every day". Learning is life!

[Daniele71]

Drangonfly and Tal-reverbs, Zam-reverb (not sure about the name) are easy to use and better then calf. Myabe it's just my opinion but I know several people that think the same.
We also a few alternative to calf-compressor (zam, x42..).
Same for the EQ and synths.
Calf-vintage-delay, this is very good. GxStereoDelay it's the most similar plugin. I would miss it.
Calf-Transient-Designer, good not many alternatives here :/

General speaking, I like plugins with a simple and clear GUI. for me the lsp-plugins are always the "last chance".
It's time to move on and I hope that @sadko4u won't waste time porting plugins with good alternatives.

[Chibchan]

for Calf-Transient-Designer alternative maybe checkout at the bottom of page for "Transperc" @ https://www.apisonic-audio.com/freeware.html

[funkmuscle]

for Calf-Transient-Designer alternative maybe checkout at the bottom of page for "Transperc" @ https://www.apisonic-audio.com/freeware.html

That's what I've been using since I found it on linuxdaw.org when the site was launched or whenever it was first available. I never mentioned it as I thought everyone knew about it and hated it..