More / confusing LADSPA Plugins

Hey all,

I’m using ardour now for the second time for a band mix, and althought I think that ardour is better than Cubase (that I used before), I don’t come along with the plugins too well.

I’ve installed Steve Harris Plugins, CMT, the TAP-Plugins, I guess everything that I can get from Debian-unstable so far.

But the Problem is that I still only got 3 gate-plugins, from which 1 (hard gate) produces only extremly distorted signals, and the gate and tap-dynamics plugin aren’t satisfying for me. Maybe I have to get used to it, but it hurts that I can get hundreds of free VST plugins, but by far not so many LADSPA plugins, so I feel limited. For example I love the digitalfishphones (http://www.digitalfishphones.com) plugins, which are free VST plugins I even saw used in profesional studios.

So maybe some of you can help me: Are there more LADSPA plugins, am I too unpatient with them, is there maybe something wrong with my system (the distortion noise with the hard gate)?

Thanks very much!
Benjamin

What’s wrong with the regular “Gate” plugin? It’s has about every option available for it and sounds fine. I’ve used it quite a bit. Maybe you should also try out some of the expander plugins and see if that’s more of what you’re looking for.

Ok, maybe i should give it a better try, I have to say that the regular gate is what I used in my last ardour project, probably i’m just too used to some VST gates and want them back.

Where do I find the expander plugins? That is one more thing; the plugins aren’t sorted well when I open it from ardour. The most haven’t a category, like the parametric EQs aren’t under EQs etc.

Hi again,

Maybe someone reads that - in addition to that “confusing LADSPA” subject, I have to ask 2 things:

  1. How can I fon plugins faster when using ardour? I get a list where all plugins are listed, but even the EQs are listed under “EQ” and “parametric”, and there’s no way I find al plugins of one kind at the same time (e.g. reverb etc.). Couldn’t that be made a bit better, using the categories?

  2. Anybody knows an exciter/enhancer plugin? I need one!

Thanks!

You can sort the plugins by clicking on the header that you want them sorted by in ardour.

Luke MacNeil

A recent feature added to Ardour2 is that you can just start typing in the plugin window and it will start filtering for whatever you type. It’s pretty great.

It will actually start a search, not a filter. At least yet. The difference between filtering and searching is that filtering will match any part of the text while search will match if the plugins name starts with the search term.

Even with filtering, it would be nice if, eventually, there was something like a “favorites” category that would provide quick access to plugins that you use often, while keeping installed all the hundreds of other ones that you Just Might Need Some Day. Alternately, maybe a way to blacklist certain plugins that are only useful in synthesis-type applications, such as oscillators, CV generators, etc. would be useful.

good idea. i thought of something similar after installing all 4 ladspa plugin packages…

oh a spotlight style search in the plugins dialogue would be divine…