VST plugins with Qt user interface

[studio32]

This could be interesting news, maybe especially for Funkmuscle

http://vokicodder.blogspot.com/2009/04/ ... rface.html

[thorgal]

hey Studio32,

how should we understand this ? that VST GUIs can be redrawn with QT ? does it mean that it would be a way for VST devs to recompile their VSTs for linux (as I guess the DSP part is not so much platform dependent since it's just a matter of interfacing with a VST host, which itself is platform-dependent) ?

[studio32]

Not totally sure, but I think this is the core of the article

but the basic question on whether you can use qt to edit a vst plugin is now out of any doubt.

So it seems that it is better possible to make an gui with qt which can edit VST plugins? So yea I think it should making Vst plugins for Linux, at least an Gui more easy AFAIK

[studio32]

From:
[LAD] VST and Qt

The principle we follow is "design once, generate many". We are aiming on
building any kind of plugins or audio backends our users want to build using
the CLAM framework. See: http://clam-project.org/wiki/Network_Editor_tutorial

One of those targets is building VST plugins *for Windows* (crosscompiled from
linux or natively from windows). The main advantage for linux users is that
they can visually build their plugins or JACK applications in linux with
CLAM, and then, if they want their plugin to be available for Windows users,
just click a button and you'll have a VST plugin as well.

LV2 is also on our roadmap, and I guess that having already support for Ladspa
it won't be that difficult. But right now our interests where VST just
because a project partners asked us for some vst's and, well, it was funny
doing that from linux. We had vst code working for a couple of years but
without GUI, and in order to make this code valuable we had to unlock the GUI
front. That's what we did.

The good news, if you are interested in AudioUnits, is that one of our
coworkers, Ferran Orriols, already has an assigned time slot to implement
AudioUnits in CLAM, after his eastern exams.

Of course, any help on supporting whatever plugin/backend platform would be
very appreciated as we have a limited number of hands.

[thorgal]

aaah, I see, they want to use linux to make VST plugins for windows ... mmmm ... sounds like the twilight zone to me

[studio32]

again from LAD

that's the point, reusing the same Qt interface for JACK apps, LV2 and
VST. No need to use VSTGUI which is tailored just for VST and not even
inventing a new toolkit, just taking a general purpose one.

It more easy to make (visual) plugins on Linux and also make them work on Windows..

[funkmuscle]

sounds great. I like this concept but yes thorgal, Windows will always be served.. My Windows user buddies laugh at me all the time because of all the linux apps being ported to Windows and very little from the windows world to us.
They say it will be a matter of time before we all give up and come back to windows... I think hell needs to freeze before I make that move....LOL

[thorgal]

moving to windows because of some stupid plugins ??? I mean, we're talking plugins here ... you gotta be kidding!!

I've got the best multitrack recorder in the world, a DAW that can stay up and running for weeks in a row without a single crash, an audio and MIDI server and router (jack / jackmp) that is a state-of-the-art server, that allows me to patch things the way I want, and I mean the way I REALLY want! I can even have hardware inserts in my jack graph, publish h/w latencies if needed, etc, etc. I can even use my gigabit network and add more stuff in the graph (I experimented with my laptop and rosegarden sending MIDI events through the network to my main DAW PC, triggering a VSTi, works great!)

Why the hell would I move to windows ???

[funkmuscle]

yep, like I said, hell has to freeze over first!!!!
but, jack is ported to winbozes, hydrogen and ardour are in the works too so winbozes still get it's royal booty kissed... face it, we'll never be an independent OS in the sense of having it's own apps as long as we're open source which I'm cool with.
I just wish that the devs would say to the winbozes porters that if the wanna use our apps, ask the windows devs who make free plugins, etc to concider porting some our way.

I experimented with my laptop and rosegarden sending MIDI events through the network to my main DAW PC

that is awesome.... Keep us up to date on that experiment in a an new thread...

[thorgal]

funkmuscle,

I will start up a thread about netjack one of these days. I am just too busy with my work ATM. But last week-end, I have been toying around the newest SVN code of jackmp and wanted to try out netjack2. It works very nicely but you must expect some latency, i.e. if you have an already existing session (ardour, etc) on the master server and you start introducing network clients to an existing set of tracks, you will have to delay your existing tracks, as there's no automatic compensation (that's what I observed). If on the other hand you start a new session with network clients as well, everything will be aligned. That's the only drawback. Maybe you can fiddle with publishing some latency in some way, I have to experiment with that.

The idea to use the network came after I realized how well my laptop performed with 2.6.29-rt1. I thought that I would decouple rosegarden from the rest of the jack session on my main DAW as rosegarden tend to be a little annoying at times. Or maybe I should switch to seq24. I tried it for stratotak (other discussion thread) and found that it was a very neat app.

[studio32]

Other nice thing for crossplatform (audio) apps:

http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/juce/