linuxDSP Mac ports

The linuxDSP PEQ-2A Pultec style EQ is now available for Mac OS X - released as the PTC-2A under our ‘OverTone’ brand (where we spin out some of our linux projects onto more ‘mainstream’ platforms) it requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later and an AU compatible host application (cocoa UI only). More details and free demo here:

Anyway - a while back IIRC a lot of people were asking about Mac ports, so here's the first one.. :)

Yep I was one of them in fact! :wink: I am just dead broke right now (Just had to purchase Final Cut and Motion, there goes any spending money I had).

While trying not to hijack my own thread and turn it into a discussion about the financial aspects of linux (After all, this is supposed to be about Mac plugins:) ) I will say that I don't see why there is a problem - I mean I genuinely no longer understand why there is a problem - political discussions aside, and the merits or not of free software, it's clear that there are a lot of linux users who rate this software very highly, and a lot of users who say they want software of this quality, so..

Just for clarification’s sake I hope you understand I don’t consider it a problem myself.

That aside part of the problem isn’t because of the people you mention or even the philosophy for the most part. It is those people that want stuff for free(As in beer), and also confuse open source and free cost. You have seen it even on these forums in fact I am certain. I could go much farther down the rabbit hole on this, but I suspect that is a conversation better had over a nice cold beverage of the alcoholic variety while relaxing someday.

        Seablade

@linuxdsp Good to hear !

I didn’t really think this was the end but I felt I wanted to check if we all can keep buying and using the really fabulous products you come up with.

/Anders

@seablade:

It is sad that at this stage we can’t support plugin development on Linux easily, I think it may be possible still, but not very easy certainly.

While trying not to hijack my own thread and turn it into a discussion about the financial aspects of linux (After all, this is supposed to be about Mac plugins:) ) I will say that I don’t see why there is a problem - I mean I genuinely no longer understand why there is a problem - political discussions aside, and the merits or not of free software, it’s clear that there are a lot of linux users who rate this software very highly, and a lot of users who say they want software of this quality, so…

If we accept that this particular software costs significant money to make, and to advertise and to make available on the web and to support and to improve and test against the miriad different linux distros, hosts, plugin ‘standards’ etc etc then I think to ask a price which (at UK prices) is about 2% of the cost of the other equipment needed to actually use the software is not excessive. I genuinely believe that for the majority of users, if you can afford to buy the equipment needed to run the software you can afford the software - and in return you get a good quality reliable product with high quality support.

So I don’t see why there is any real obstacle to supporting high quality (linux) plugin development.

Anyway - a while back IIRC a lot of people were asking about Mac ports, so here’s the first one… :slight_smile:

@ahellquist: No it’s definitely not the end - in fact we will continue to focus on development for linux, but it has become apparent that we need to look at other options too if that is to be a viable strategy. To that end we will be bringing the same level of commitment to high quality software (and support) to other platforms.

Hi! Sad to hear this.

I really hope the Linux Audio user base is growing and I hope there will be enough people using and paying for both linuxDSP and Ardour. Is this the end of linuxDSP plugins as we know them or how will the future look like ?

/Anders

I’m more than happy to look at and address genuine problems with the functionality, however, in this case I’m confident the preset functionality works as intended - you can press the individual preset selector buttons and the settings are recalled, in much the same way as they would be in for example a VST plugin. At the time the plugin was designed, the underlying plugin format / API did not provide a mechanism to implement the preset management in perhaps a better way. Many improvements to LV2 have subsequently been made, and I’m sure it will continue to evolve and improve.
The focus of the upgrade was to add some extra unrelated functionality and not to address that particular issue, as was made plain at the time.

Minor upgrades and of course bug fixes are always free. In this case, significant extra functionality was added, however, the upgrade is optional, the old version continues to work as intended, so the only real issue seems to be that you made a choice not to purchase the new version at the advertised price. That’s entirely your choice but I don’t think that is a valid reason to publicly claim that the product is bad or the support poor.

I remember being told the program (the first version of the multi-band compressor) was OK and I should read the manual. In fact there are a number of problems re settings persistence which are not dealt with in the manual (exactly five sentences in two short paragraphs to “explain” how this works) which can be extremely frustrating in use.

Alongside this was the fact that there was no upgrade price available for the newer version. I would have been happy to help out by discussing how to improve settings persistence, and I’d have been happy to upgrade, but I was not prepared to pay twice for the same problems.

@mcgruff: It’s unfortunate you feel let down. You will recall we actually spent a significant amount of time working with you to resolve the particular issue you highlighted which, if I remember correctly, was not due to a fault with the product.

As this is the first of what hopefully will be more ports to Mac OS X, any feedback is welcome (as it is with the linux versions) - bugs can and will be fixed, but only if they are known about. The software is thoroughly tested, but as a small business there are not the resources to test for every eventuality on every configuration etc.
There is a known issue which affects GUI control operation with AU plugins in Ardour / Mixbus, but as this appears to affect other plugins too and does not happen in any other host, the assumption is that it is likely a GTK / Ardour specific problem.
For anything else, please let us know.

in return you get a good quality reliable product with high quality support

That has not been my experience with Linuxdsp plugins. I discovered a bad product with poor support and no proper upgrade path. I wanted to be a paying customer supporting the development of high quality plugins but now I’d never consider buying a linuxdsp plugin again.

During recent testing of this plugin with Logic 8 an unfortunate error has come to light which can cause a horrendous crash during plugin validation… :frowning: This shouldn’t affect Ardour / Mixbus however, an updated version is now available to download which should fix the problem. Apologies to anyone who experienced problems with this plugin.

Updated version here:

Interesting. The one downside is that it seems like it doesn’t allow for session compatibility between Linux and Mac on Ardour/Mixbus/etc. Any thoughts on addressing this at any time?

I may still pick up the Mac versions anyways to have on my laptop, but session compatibility would be killer so that I could work on sessions on the road while away from my Linux workstation.

    Seablade

@seablade: I can’t give you a definite answer at this stage - a lot depends on how successful this turns out to be (it’s really a separate project, and at the moment it makes sense to keep it that way as, given the huge amount of work involved in porting to a different OS - and in the case of Mac OS X, a different language - in part - I can’t guarantee that all plugins will ever be available on all platforms).
That said, things may get re-structured at some point, again, depending upon the outcome. The one thing that is apparent is that the market for professional quality linux plugins sadly seems unable to support the development costs of products like the PEQ - and as a result there needs to be a serious look at other ways to finance such projects, possibly by diversifying to other platforms

Yep there is a long conversation to be had on the merits of diversifying platforms vs support costs, etc. In general I would consider myself in favor of it, but one of the greatest strengths of it I think would be interoperability which losing session compatibility is of course a strike against.

It is sad that at this stage we can’t support plugin development on Linux easily, I think it may be possible still, but not very easy certainly. As I said I may still pick these up for the mac myself sometime as well.

     Seablade

@14

Please don’t try to tell me I don’t have a valid reason to complain when you still do not appear to understand why I was complaining in the first place. You were not “happy to look at problems”. We had no meaningful discussion. You dismissed my comments and basically told me to RTFM - a manual which did not explain any of the issues with your software.

I do think there’s a niche for affordable, high-quality plugs for linux and, if that’s what I’d received, I would have been glad to give you my support.

This supposed issue applies to a linux plugin, so there is no point attempting to pursue it on a thread about a completely different product with completely different functionality for a completely different operating system.

I'm more than happy to look at and address genuine problems with the functionality, however, in this case I'm confident the preset functionality works as intended - you can press the individual preset selector buttons and the settings are recalled, in much the same way as they would be in for example a VST plugin. At the time the plugin was designed, the underlying plugin format / API did not provide a mechanism to implement the preset management in perhaps a better way. Many improvements to LV2 have subsequently been made, and I'm sure it will continue to evolve and improve. The focus of the upgrade was to add some extra unrelated functionality and not to address that particular issue, as was made plain at the time.

Minor upgrades and of course bug fixes are always free. In this case, significant extra functionality was added, however, the upgrade is optional, the old version continues to work as intended, so the only real issue seems to be that you made a choice not to purchase the new version at the advertised price. That’s entirely your choice but I don’t think that is a valid reason to publicly claim that the product is bad or the support poor.

V1.0.3 is now released - which should fix a glitch with the demo mode splash screen which could happen on some hosts using 64Bit.

The PEQ / PTC-2A emulates all the signature sounds of the original Pultec hardware at a fraction of the cost, even including emulation of the transformer-coupled valve (tube) amplifier stages, something which is not always found on similar plugins.

No iLok / copy protection dongle, no extra hardware required.

your site does not find the section of this plugin.

The link should be correct:

(Unfortunately, but for entirely understandable reasons, it isn’t possible to post a clickable link on the ardour forum)

Following on swiftly from the previous update, V1.0.2 is now available, this adds the following improvements:

Extra factory presets.
Bug fix - Power switch operation with effect bypassed.
Some tweaks to the internal plugin architecture (for the technically minded / interested, we no longer use AUKernels for managing the audio streams to and from the DSP. This provides a better architecture for future plugins in which I/O channels may require some interdependency e.g. stereo dynamics).

As before, requires Mac OS X v.10.5 or later and an AU compatible host (cocoa UI only). Works with Ardour / Mixbus OS X. 32 and 64Bit versions included.

hello all. and a good thing to know of these ports, but your site does not find the section of this plugin.

with regard to financial problems and is not an old story that Linux carries a bit of time, due to hardware compatibility, and much, without which you can not work, and this leads many users to other platforms, hence less users of programs for this purpose and not sold plugin, or finanaziamenti to continue development.