DSSI plugins in Ardour

Getting Stuff Done How do I .... ?
#1

Hi,
I’m trying to use DSSI plugins in Ardour. As I understand it, they can be used fine as LADSPA plugins, but will just have the generic UI. I added my DSSI plugin path to LADSPA_PATH, and the plugins show up in the plugins list (as LADSPA plugins) and the generic UI works fine. But for some reason I can’t get any sound out of the plugins I’ve tried (note that they work fine when I use jack-dssi-host). LV2 instrument plugins work just fine in Ardour (I don’t have any LADSPA instrument plugins to test, but LADSPA effects work). Am I doing something wrong? Here is the basic procedure I am using:

  • Create a MIDI track
  • Set up MIDI routing in Patchage
  • Add a LV2 instrument to test (e.g. MDA ePiano); it works
  • Remove the LV2 instrument and add a DSSI instrument (e.g. trivial synth or nekobee); no dice…

Any ideas? I’m using Ardour 3.5.380 compiled from source on Gentoo.

Paul

#2

Hi,

Ardour does not natively support DSSI Plugins at all, I think at some point you’ve gotten confused with DSSI-VST which is allowed Windows VST Plugins to work in hosts with DSSI support, later versions of DSSI-VST had a LADSPA wrapper that would allow using DSSI-VST in hosts with LADSPA support but only with Windows VST’s not actual Linux DSSI’s…

However all is not lost, but still very convoluted…

The Carla Plugin host developed by falkTX the creator of KXStudio recently has a added a beta LV2 version that can host various plugin types within LV2 hosts (like Ardour). So essentially you add Carla-Rack LV2 to a track in Ardour and then host your DSSI Plugin in Carla-Rack…

Carla is only packaged for Ubuntu, Debian, KXStudio and AV Linux however it has binary versions available that should work in Gentoo:
http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/Applications:Carla

#3

Hi GMaq, thanks for the answer. I’m not sure why I thought DSSI plugins can be used as LADSPA plugins. I thought I read it somewhere, but now I can’t find it, so probably I made it up. Funny that the DSSI plugin loads, though, and shows the controls with the generic UI.

I tried Carla, which seems to more or less work, but Ardour crashes when I try to save a session using the Carla plugin. So real DSSI support has yet to come to Ardour. Anyway, given how much 3.5.380 crashes when using MIDI and various (LV2) plugins it seems to be not time for me to try to do this type of work in Ardour, which is a pity.

#4

Hi again,

I think the Carla causing Ardour to crash bug has been fixed in Ardour’s Master GIT repo, there is some discussion of a hotfix release of Ardour 3.5 coming soon which should include this fix and will hopefully allow you to use Carla successfully to host DSSI’s.