Loomer linux plugins on ardour

Hi, I found these plugins, they are linux native plugins, and look amazing:

http://www.loomer.co.uk/index.htm

They are in standalone and native linux VST format. I was wondering, how do the VST version work in ardour? Are they buggy because of ardour’s unstable vst support? I thought they could run nicely since they are native linux vsts. And what about presets saving/loading?

Thank you!

p.s. I know I could run them in standalone mode or use an external vst host, but I don’t want to do this, I want them inside ardour…

strangely enough :wink: ardourVST does not support native linux VSTs. It supports win32 VSTs …
This is quite different (binary architecture).

Unless Paul infirms what I am saying, you will not run linux native VSTs within ardour, and I don’t think it is on the ardour dev roadmap to implement such a thing.

too bad… what about the dssi ladspa wrapper? I would lose the fancy interface but at least have the sound I guess…

Also, can I ask why Ardour doesn’t support native linux VST?

I think you can use JOST to run them on linux (outside ardour)

http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=4

Thanks, I already know jost, but I’m not interested in running the plugins outside Ardour… and you don’t need any external host to run them anyway since they all have a standalone version.

vervelover,

I realize running them standalone with inserts in Ardour isn’t quite as easy as running them natively, however as long as you have them running in JACK before you reopen any Ardour sessions using them Ardour will remember the connections when it launches so you won’t have to re-insert them every time. I learned this using linuxDSP’s origina JACK client plugins (before his super-cool LV2’s hit the scene).

I’ve had a look at the loomers too…very impressive, when you see the selling price it should make all of us appreciate guys like linuxDSP allowing us to pay what we think they are worth!

You’ll have to wait for Paul or another dev to answer this question.

As to the ladspa descriptor in dssi plugins, if ardour sees these plugins as ladspa, it will at least try to instantiate them (just my guess). I would also assume the whole GUI stuff would be completely ignored (LADSPA is GUI less) so you would have ardour providing them its own GUI based on ardour’s LADSPA GUI template. Have you tried opening a dssi plugin within ardour ?

Jeeeze!!! they’re not given … if they wanted them to be adopted by the linux community, LV2 would be the way … (don’t know about licensing terms though)

The reason native VSTs don’t run in Ardour is simply a time issue. Namely the total number of Native Linux VSTs is very tiny, and thus far it has not been deemed worth the time to implement the functionality and take away time from other features or bugfixes. Even the WINE implementation to run Windows VSTs gets very little development time for issues of time, and there being to many other things to address before that becomes a huge priority.

    Seablade

@ gmaq

The insert thing drives me completely crazy, it’s just not the way, even if ardour remembers the connection you have to remember how many instances of each plugins you have opened for EACH session. To me, it’sjust crazy. And yes, linuxdsp is amazing, but these loomer plugins are not too expensive for a small studio budget, they are though for just a home studio…

@thorgal

I mailed them and they replied that they will consider a LV2 version of their plugins, we’ll see…

@seablade

Well, I don’t agree. There are quite a few very good linux native VSTs out there, like the equinox eq and many others from the jucetice project and others, which I think Ardour can not miss, simply because the linux audio plugin world is just so small, that if you miss a few, it means you miss a lot. And you have no alternatives than sticking with steve harris broken eq…

@vervelover: so so, did you talk to Steve Harris about the brokenness of his EQs ?

In my opinion, if ardour opened to linuxVST, we would see more of those plugins pop up. Just a guess though. Paul and team have a lot to do with A3. Maybe someone else can join in and do it ? If I had the time, I could have a stab at it but I suck a bit at this kind of programming (not my area) and I don’t have time (very soon becoming father :slight_smile: … )

@thorgal

I didn’t talk with steve harris, anyway saying it’s broken is a bit too much I have to admit, the problem is, setting all the frequencies above 0 hz every time is time consuming and boring. My problem is, I want to start a small recording studio, based on linux, but I don’t know which DAW to choose. Ardour has no native linux vst support, so no loomer plugins, energyXT has no LV2 support, so no linuxdsp…

What really makes me think “what the hell!”, is that there are just a bunch of linux audio plugins, and no DAW that supports them all!

no different than other platforms.

on OS X, there are hosts that support AU but not VST, or AU + RTAS but not VST, or AU + VST but not RTAS.

on Windows, there are hosts that support DirectX but not VST, VST but not DirectX, VST+RTAS but not DirectX etc. etc. etc.

Welcome to the nightmarish world of audio software.

yes, but the difference is that on windows and macosx you have hundreds of plugins of each kind, on linux I’m afraid this is not the case at all…

@ thorgal

best wishes for your new father “job” :slight_smile:

My thinking is, use the tools that are there now, even if they’re not perfect … and watch patiently as they get better. Heck, make them better yourself if you’re able… that’s the whole point of the GPL. I guess that’s a long winded way of saying: “want Linux VST support in Ardour? The source is only a couple clicks away…” :slight_smile:

As for EQs, have you tried Fons’s 4-pole parametric filter, from the LADSPA FIL set? I think it sounds great. Though if you want the truth, all digital parametric EQs (if they have the same controls) are the same, unless they add some sort of tube/tape/analog simulation to the chain.

If you want to know how feasible an Ardour recording studio is, the answer is: very, and sound quality won’t be a limiting factor.

Well I would love to contribute to all this, unfortunately I’m not a programmer nor have the time to learn, I do my bit with donations to the software I like, and criticize a bit if I think some points I consider as almost “mandatory” are missing :slight_smile: Thanks for the eq suggestion, I’ll try the fons’s filter (is it the same as the lv2fil eq?). I know the Ardour way is feasible, I think I’ll go for it anyway, since I really prefer it’s open source nature over energyXT, and also think it’s got more powerful editing capabilities, and maybe the loomer devs will listen to my request, one day… and maybe, those juced vsts will be ported to LV2…

@vervelover: I am in the process of porting my plugins to native linuxVST at the moment, as well as LV2 - I have already had a few prototypes running in energyXT and Renoise. (Personally, I actually prefer VST to LV2 as a plugin standard at the moment, since LV2 is still ‘evolving’ and the extensions thing can be a bit of a compatibility problem at times - but I can understand the issues regarding open source and the steinberg license which I thought was the major reason for lack of adoption by projects such as Ardour. )
I think in time more stuff in more formats will be available. There’s a lot of work involved - if I wasn’t so busy with porting my plugins I would volunteer to help with native VST support for Ardour…

its very tipical i am not getting properly you meen “The free and fabulous Mac/Linux DAW Ardour has been updated to version 2.6.1. … Fix: plugin automation tracks would be drawn in the wrong place on the … Synthesizer” but that’s because i am a moron who thought I could SEO spam this forum and didn’t check to see if my URLs were turned into actual links.