Windows VSTs in Ardour (via wineasio and Reaper)

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

For people looking to use VSTs with Ardour, this is the answer you need.

Instructions are here:
http://www.davehayes.org/2007/04/27/howto-reaper-on-ubuntu-linux-with-wineasio/

Basically, you run Reaper(a DAW made by the creators of Winamp) and use wineasio, which will connect to JACK. From there, you use it like any other JACK application.

So there you have it. Windows VSTs running with JACK.
I read on a discussion thread somewhere that this setup had latency of about 10ms, which I’m sure is good enough for a lot of people. Of course, I don’t know their hardware setup, but at least we have a ballpark figure.

#2

There are much better options than Reaper for doing this.

Windows has several small, minimal VST hosts that would do the job as well as, if not better than, Reaper.

#3

Thanks Paul.
Can you list some of these minimal VST hosts
so that I can try them out?

I’m only mentioning Reaper since it seems to be the most popular DAW used for wineasio. And it’s proven to work with nearly all Windows VSTs. AFAIK, the viability of most other DAWs under wineasio is untested.

Reaper works well with JACK. I’ve actually read of latency in the 2-10 ms range. Also, Reaper is a nearly complete DAW and the install package is only 3 megabytes. So I assume it’s extremely efficient and minimal(especially when compared to other Windows software packages). I guess you can think of it as the uTorrent of the DAW world.

Thanks.

#4

I’ve had decent results with VSTHost and wineasio but so far, only with rather high latency. Of course that’s while it’s running… when I close it, I get the delightful “subgraph starting at … timed out” message from jack, which then makes ugly sounds until a restart. That’s the usual with any buggy jack app, I hate to say. So yeah, is there a VST host that might not do that, or perhaps is it just that my wine leaves a bad taste in jack’s mouth?

#5

well, you can always try Reaper (http://www.cockos.com/reaper/).
Tell me if the latency is any better than VST Host.

Thanks.

#6

I suggest you there to try the new VstHost version 1.45
http://www.hermannseib.com/vsthost.htm
I think you have to ask to the developer to give you the fixed version without the dropouts.
We have tested it with the new wine 0.9.47 and now finally all is working fine.
Under the new Ardour is also full nice working!Paul made really a great job!!

I have also posted a lot of new Vst that are full working:
http://www.lionstracs.com/store/information_pages.php?info_id=24

still is missing to fix the wineasio audio-midiports, because wine will shown ONLY the clients and under jack connection kit will not shown the all true named ports.
here you can see the setup:
http://www.lionstracs.com/store/images/gui2007/kontakmidi.jpg

cheers

#7

I see that I can use vsthost by configuring it to process “audio through”. Is there a similar way to use reaper? From what I can see, reaper looks geared to processing it’s own recordings and projects rather than as a link between asio input/output.

Can anyone tell me if they’ve successfully used reaper this way? Thanks!