VST hosts

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

studio32

VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

Who is using VST's on Linux? Which host do you use/ or which apps? Which VST's?

I saw that indamixx uses this host: http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm
User avatar
funkmuscle
Established Member
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:30 pm
Has thanked: 129 times
Been thanked: 31 times

Re: VST hosts

Post by funkmuscle »

I use dssi-vst host. I do have fst and the indamixx vsthost also. They all work but the indamixx vsthost is a Windows app and I find it crashes too must. I think it needs the wineasio (funny, as I'm typing this, wineasio was just updated on my distro ArchLinux), so that makes it an app using wine to launch another app that uses wine and the host. It slows down my system but I will try the latest wineasio and see if that helps.

When I used lots of vsts in the past, I had to switch between fst and dssi-vst depending on which ran the vst better.
studio32

Re: VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

What are VST's which works on Linux and which you don't find in other normal available linux software?
What are usable vst's?
User avatar
funkmuscle
Established Member
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:30 pm
Has thanked: 129 times
Been thanked: 31 times

Re: VST hosts

Post by funkmuscle »

this link will answer more for you as I'm trying to stay with Linux native plugins because too many times I'd be recording to have a vst plugin crash on me.
This link maybe posted here already so forgive for if it is: :oops:
http://ladspavst.linuxaudio.org/
cb951303
Established Member
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:34 am

Re: VST hosts

Post by cb951303 »

thorgal
Established Member
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Re: VST hosts

Post by thorgal »

as I said somewhere else, I use dssi-vst because it makes your VSTs standalone jack clients. I don't want a VST to crash hosts like ardour or other important app that you want very stable.

Since I only use VSTis, no VSTs for dynamic effects, I am quite safe. My VSTis are Addictive Drums, which I sequence in rosegarden and sync with my ardour sessions (beautiful combo, faced no problem), and Pianoteq, a piano sound generator (no sample lib) which to me sounds amazing. That's basically it. I know I could use other VSTs, but as long as I don't need them, I won't.
User avatar
funkmuscle
Established Member
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:30 pm
Has thanked: 129 times
Been thanked: 31 times

Re: VST hosts

Post by funkmuscle »

that's how I use dssi-vst or fst to host keFIR or Voxengo Boogex as standalone...or anyother vst or vsti. If I use Qtractor or Rosegarden, they use dssi-vst built in so I launch vsts from the plugin option.
thorgal
Established Member
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Re: VST hosts

Post by thorgal »

hey funkmuscle,

I tried rosegarden with its internal dssi-vst handling. I didn't find it good, for some reason all output ports of my drum VSTi disappear from the jack graph, and the output sound of the VSTi which is treated internally in rosegarden is far from correct, it's like the rosegarden dssi interface picks the audio way before the VSTi adds its own bus effects. So I get basically crap. I use the vsthost app that comes with DSSI-VST and use VSTis externally, and declare them as software output devices in rosegarden, not as a plugin.
studio32

Re: VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

Do you have to build Rosegarden on a specific way to enable VST support?
thorgal
Established Member
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Re: VST hosts

Post by thorgal »

I don't think so. What counts is the dssi architecture, you need dssi enabled when compiling rosegarden, which is there by default in prepackaged versions I think. The thing you need to compile is dssi-vst, which rosegraden will understand because it has dssi support built-in.
studio32

Re: VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

thorgal wrote:I don't think so. What counts is the dssi architecture, you need dssi enabled when compiling rosegarden, which is there by default in prepackaged versions I think. The thing you need to compile is dssi-vst, which rosegraden will understand because it has dssi support built-in.
ok, clear, thanks
studio32

Re: VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

where can I wget an recent debian version of wineasio?
thorgal
Established Member
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Re: VST hosts

Post by thorgal »

along my recent experimentations with kernel 2.6.29, jack2, etc (in order to upgrade my main DAW for production, as spring / summer is nearing), I have also tested the latest (or so) wine and wineasio:
1- I grabbed the wine and wine-dev 1.1.18 debian sid package from winehq.org and updated my wine (did not touch the $HOME/.wine directory though!! as there is no need to do that!)

2- pulled the latest svn code of wineasio and compiled-installed it (code in trunk) with
make
sudo make PREFIX=/usr install

3- Re-registered wineasio.dll.so with
regsvr32 /usr/lib/wine/wineasio.dll.so.

4- I then fetched the win32 vst host called savihost.exe, went in my vst directory, copied savihost.exe to Addictive_Drums.exe (as I have Addictive_Drums.dll in there).
Get it here: http://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihost.zip

5- Then, I launched AD:
wine $HOME/vst/Addictive_Drums.exe

6- I set up the Wave output device to wineasio in the Devices main menu of the savihost window, selected the MIDI pass through in the input MIDI device setup

7- connected my rosegarden track to MIDI passthrough and this is the result

Image

or direct link : http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/629/savihost.jpg

It works amazingly good!! :D

The cool thing about savihost is that it is a win32 VST host so the VSTi will synchronize to the host tempo. savihost provides a settable tempo and AD has a sync to host button. So the internal beat loops can be played at whatever tempo you want. This feature is not provided by dssi-vst, and possibly not by FST.

I also started using Pianoteq 3.0 as a standalone app, not via dssi-vst or fst any longer. I select wineasio as the Wave output device, and listen to MIDI incoming events from a relevant system input (like my hammerfall MIDI in, connected to my digital piano). I am getting an amazing performance!!

So, conclusion: latest wineasio + latest wine + latest RT kernel + latest jack2 is a killer combo!
studio32

Re: VST hosts

Post by studio32 »

why not replace that pianoteq with LinuxSampler and the nice piano gig file they offer? I tried pianoteq but was not impressed by it...

Anyway, thanks for sharing.
thorgal
Established Member
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Re: VST hosts

Post by thorgal »

why not ? because that's the way I like it :) Pianoteq is small in size (a few MB, not a crazy GB sample lib), is extremely flexible, is very well designed and thought, and has excellent customer support. I am as a matter of fact discussing the possibility of bringing to life a native linux version with one of the devs. They asked me what would be preferable: standalone, dssi or LV2 ? I said LV2 and standalone would be cool as ardour supports LV2.

Sure you have to pay a licence and it's not open-source. But who cares ? it sounds great. I think you overlooked what it can do. But if you find linux sampler good for your work, then keep to it and learn it to its full depth :)
Post Reply