Bored with what I have...

[dchurch24]

Hi all,

I've been up and running for a little while now and am over the moon with what I've been able to achieve in a short time frame.

The problem is I am now becoming bored and/or restricted with my instruments - not so much the guitar, bass, drums (Hydrogen) but the keyboard.

I have a Yammy DX7 and it's great for sounding like everything from the 80's, but I need more modern sounds to be honest.

I thought about buying a new keyboard or module, but it's all starting to look wildly expensive.

My system is using 4xAMD 64 Opteron chips, and I'm running Ubuntu Studio (rt) 64 Bit - I'm told that I won't be able to use VST instruments in Ardour, which is a shame as I'm becoming quite competent using it - does the same go for LMMS?

I heard about Phasex, but I can't seem to find anywhere to download it, and it doesn't appear to be in the packages.

The VST thing seems to be the way to go, but if it's not possible in 64 bit, then I'll have to think again.

[thorgal]

the ardour3 serie will allow you to use whatever virtual instruments in MIDI tracks (LV2, VST, maybe DSSI). Another guy and I are having a discussion with drobilla at the moment on the routing design in the MIDI track (drobilla is one of ardour's dev). It will be all there in ardour3

[dchurch24]

Oooooh - sounds good!

....and this won't matter that the VST instruments are 32 bit on a 64 bit system?

[thorgal]

for VSTs, what matters is the VST host
if you compile ardour as 32bit in your 64bit machine, then you'll have no problems. This is because JACK now allows 32bit clients to connect a 64bit server. So ardour compiled as 32bit will have no problem connecting to the jack graph of a 64bit jackd.

[dchurch24]

I see...I think.

So if I compile the 32bit version I can use a 64bit vst host that talks to Jack, or am I completely confused? (as normal)

[thorgal]

hehe, you're a bit confused:

the VST host should match the bit depth of your VSTs. Since most VSTs are 32bit, your VST host (ardour3 here) should be compiled for 32bit.

[dchurch24]

Confused? Me? I'll say!

Can I compile the latest ardour (2.8?) with VST support as it is now?

How will I be able to record with VST instruments? Do I need another VST host (such as Rosegarden (dssi-vst)?) that talks to jack and on to Ardour(vst)?

Basically, I'd like to use soft-synths and other VST instruments and record the whole lot through Ardour - simply because I'm getting much better with Ardour and IMHO it's the best out there (blows Cubase out of the water - I NEVER got Cubase/Cakewalk doing what I wanted it to do, and yet with a little help from people here, I was able to get up and running really quickly using Ardour).

[thorgal]

with the ardour2 serie, that's what I do:

I don't include VST in ardour (even though ardour 2.8 can accept VST if you compile it to support VSTs, but forget about VST_i_, that will be something for ardour3 with MIDI tracks).

SO, I have dssi-vst or fst (another neat VST host) compiled, that can transform a VSTi as a standalone jack client (think of it as savihost.exe in windows).

The VSTi will show up in the jack graph with audio ports AND MIDI ports. I can then use a MIDI sequencer like rosegarden or qtractor, and tell the MIDI track to use an external software MIDI device. That's how I do my drumming:

- run the VSTi in dssi-vst (dssi-vst comes with a little app called vsthost)
- open up rosegarden, create a track, fill it up with editable segments (piano roll, matrix editor in the rosegarden jargon) and connect it to your VSTi that is an external MIDI device at this stage.

[dchurch24]

...I can feel an evening of frustrating compile errors on it's way

Thanks for that - I'm going to give that a go when I get in.

Once again I have a lot of reading ahead of me!

[studio32]

I heard about Phasex, but I can't seem to find anywhere to download it, and it doesn't appear to be in the packages.

http://linux-sound.org/phasex/

Also take a look at whysynth dssi plugin.

Ingen?
Zynadd (lv2)?


What do you mean by instruments with modern sounds? Couldn't Linuxsampler here helpfull with some pro giga files?

[dchurch24]

Yes! I'd love to use LinuxSampler, but I just don't understand how to get it working.

It's not in the packages, and I can't seem to find instructions on how to install from source.

Incidentally, I'm on 64 bit Ubuntu Studio which probably complicates matters - I've never had any luck with compiling ANYTHING

[studio32]

You could try 64studio for LS or check:
http://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.ph ... d413461d5c

for howto compile check
http://lievenmoors.github.com/linux.html
at the bottom

[dchurch24]

Thanks - I'll head over there now. I just can't seem to find a download for 64 bit LinuxSampler.

Has anyone got this working under 64 bit?

[thorgal]

dchurch24, I suppose you have an AMD CPU: try your luck with this
http://www.viciouslime.co.uk/downloads/cat_view/2-debs
second article

The guy made a deb for ubuntu 64bit that you can download. It depends on libgig6 or something like that in ubuntu.

[dchurch24]

Ahhh - you are a diamond!

That worked perfectly - I downloaded a demo created with this from another site, and it sounds fantastic!

All I need now is to get googling for some free samples!

Thanks guys - this forum is excellent!