What do we have? What do we need?

[briandc]

The huge problem is that most software is built for popular platforms to cover the largest audience. Until there will be no large audience of consumers that will require VSTs or LV2s for Linux, software companies won't produce them, even for commercial purpose. Even linuxdsp gave up saying that it's hard to support Linux platform any more. But really the situation is different: there are a lot of consumers in Win and Mac segment, in comparison to 3.5 anonymous freaks that use Linux. So we can safely forget about them because Win and Mac licenses are sold out like hot dogs.
Developers are not interested in writing portable software because it takes a lot of time. Write for Win/Mac and support only x86 and x86_64 - it's the top roof for most of them.
So currently what I'm personally missing is a huge linux sound community that can dictate rules to vendors.

Agreed.

Also, as far as synths for linux go, what we have is good, although what we could benefit from is some "clean up" in many apps. Phasex, Add64, WhySynth, PetriFoo... all very nice tools. Yet with a bit of TLC from those who can code, these could be even better. Even awesome.

my 2c...

brian

[briandc]

As the U-he devmaster recently pointed out, to maintain success, you have
to have a great product, great presets, great communication/advertisement,
great technical support, great R/D, and with pricing that can compete. For a start-up,
that means 80 hour work weeks of relentless dedication, and an angelic attitude.
Snowflakes and wannabees need not apply.
Cheers

Yes. But there are some absolutely wonderful synths available gratis for linux that have withstood the test of time. (ie. Zyn)

So you have one group that spend hours and hours trying to keep a business going. (bless their souls!)
And, you have others who, for the love of just making apps, develop and give of their talent for others to use.

Two very different camps, so to speak. (and goes to show that gratis is not necessarily bad quality. On the contrary!)


brian

[funkmuscle]

Again, I'm late to the party...

My biggest hurdle in the Linux world is the ability to visually draw MIDI note velocities in Ardour and Mixbus, especially for drum programming.. I know, I know it's all cleverly done with mouse scrolling but that's not visual. I am completely satisfied with Ardour and Mixbus and have produced a few complete albums with them and their Audio capabilities. But the lack of ability to draw note velocities keeps sending me back to Hydrogen which I really like but is becoming increasingly kludgy to use especially with multiple drum tracks. Ardour's MIDI editing has other great features and capabilities but every other sequencer I've done MIDI programming with over MANY years (Digital Orchestrator, CubaseVST, Reaper, EnergyXT) have had the very simple feature of drawing MIDI note velocity visually even with timeline-based editing, Call me crazy but I absolutely loved MIDI editing in EnergyXT

I've mentioned it several times on Ardour IRC and I'm pretty sure there is a dusty discarded Feature Request for it somewhere in Ardour's Mantis basement but it seems to be a very low priority... Anyone else missing this in Ardour and Mixbus?

dude I use MuSE3 for MIDI drum editing... so easy compare to Ardour.

[glowrak guy]

I'm surprised nobody replied with: love. All we need is love.
And some plugins.

Love is overrated, I'll take "time" any day.

And "talent" is subjective.

Skill is less subjective. It comes with practice, which takes time, and if one does not
love to practice, the time slips through one's fingers with inexorable powers.
Modern luxuries tend to pry ones fingers apart. The life expectancy of the great classic
composers was decades shorter than our's is, so they had far less time,
worse health, and their main distraction was survival itself, rather than
paying bills in a world of distracting screens to stare at.

Ooops! What am I looking at this moment, but a screen?

And when people find their allotted time is suddenly or irreversibly
nearer the end than hoped for, love begins to be the more precious commodity.
Cheers

[GMaq]

Again, I'm late to the party...

My biggest hurdle in the Linux world is the ability to visually draw MIDI note velocities in Ardour and Mixbus, especially for drum programming.. I know, I know it's all cleverly done with mouse scrolling but that's not visual. I am completely satisfied with Ardour and Mixbus and have produced a few complete albums with them and their Audio capabilities. But the lack of ability to draw note velocities keeps sending me back to Hydrogen which I really like but is becoming increasingly kludgy to use especially with multiple drum tracks. Ardour's MIDI editing has other great features and capabilities but every other sequencer I've done MIDI programming with over MANY years (Digital Orchestrator, CubaseVST, Reaper, EnergyXT) have had the very simple feature of drawing MIDI note velocity visually even with timeline-based editing, Call me crazy but I absolutely loved MIDI editing in EnergyXT

I've mentioned it several times on Ardour IRC and I'm pretty sure there is a dusty discarded Feature Request for it somewhere in Ardour's Mantis basement but it seems to be a very low priority... Anyone else missing this in Ardour and Mixbus?

dude I use MuSE3 for MIDI drum editing... so easy compare to Ardour.

Hey funk!

So do you mean you use MuSE3 for programming the MIDI Drums, then import those MIDI files into Ardour?

I'll show some bias here... but I'm totally invested in Ardour, financially, distributionally (yes not really a word), and most importantly sweat and spare time spent learning... Through 10 years of AV Linux I've built 'em all, tried 'em all and used 'em all at various times in their development and Ardour is by far just wired into my brain now. Like MuSE I would imagine Rosegarden also has some pretty great MIDI programming features but most other Open Source Linux DAW's are still lacking in pro Audio features so I can't see jumping to any other DAW just for a relatively minor request like visual MIDI velocity drawing. But I suppose temporarily I could see trying MIDI in another DAW and bringing it into Ardour, but then again that's not much different than using Hydrogen...

[Luc]

Phasex, Add64, WhySynth, PetriFoo... all very nice tools. Yet with a bit of TLC from those who can code, these could be even better. Even awesome.

Interesting that you mention those. I hadn't touched Phasex for more than one year! I had completely forgotten it existed.

Well, looks like all I have is a standalone binary for Phasex. It's not a plugin. How do I use it in a DAW?

The same for petri-foo, Add64 and rakarrack. I also had completely forgotten about rakarrack, and I like it.

Rakarrack is available in many pieces in LV2 format, which we have already discussed.

What about Phasex, petri-foo, and Add64, which are not plugins but standalone binaries? Should they be ported into some plugin format so they can be used in a DAW? Have or need?

(WhySynth is available in DSSI only. I don't even remember how to run DSSI plugins anymore.)

[GMaq]

Phasex, Add64, WhySynth, PetriFoo... all very nice tools. Yet with a bit of TLC from those who can code, these could be even better. Even awesome.

Interesting that you mention those. I hadn't touched Phasex for more than one year! I had completely forgotten it existed.

Well, looks like all I have is a standalone binary for Phasex. It's not a plugin. How do I use it in a DAW?

The same for petri-foo, Add64 and rakarrack. I also had completely forgotten about rakarrack, and I like it.

Rakarrack is available in many pieces in LV2 format, which we have already discussed.

What about Phasex, petri-foo, and Add64, which are not plugins but standalone binaries? Should they be ported into some plugin format so they can be used in a DAW? Have or need?

(WhySynth is available in DSSI only. I don't even remember how to run DSSI plugins anymore.)

Haven't many of these standalone projects that are no longer maintained already been far surpassed by things that are maintained like Helm, Yoshimi, ZynAddSubFX, Dexed, Guitarix etc etc?. Some of these previous standalone developers have long ago ceased to have time, interest or motivation to continue, I wonder if digging some of these things up and shoving them into newer plugin formats really does anybody any justice unless the person porting wants to fork and fix all that was previously wrong with them. I'd rather see 5 synths or Guitar sims that ABSOLUTELY KILL than 20 that are so-so and need various explanations to why they are buggy or incomplete...

[glowrak guy]

Hi gmac, I'd suggest that the synths newer/actively developed products
you mention are fine, but very different, and so 'surpassing' doesn't describe
the state of affairs, as they only indirectly compete.
Phasex is unique with great highs and lows (a 2009-2010 era maybe better
than most recent release)
Whysynth is for '90's and Kawai K4 sounds
Hexter uses Yamha DX7 sysex banks (the megaGigantic horde of which
were *fully* sorted to remove duplicates, by BlackWinny from KVR
in the form of a large all inclusive 'Cartridge' zip file, which can
be unzipped, and used with DX7 sysex-import-capables like
Dexed, FM8, etc)

Compare the Whysynth 'Hannah's Dream Flute' to U-he Diva's 'Magic Flute',
and then to U-he Zebra2 'Scarlet Flute'. All are good synth fake flute sounds.
And fun to layer and tweak.

With modern effects, old synths come alive, while high-end devs are going nuts
trying to replicate what some people refer not so lovingly to, as
ancient crummy unmanageable dinosaurs.

We don't have the good fortune yet, to choose new linux native 'synths or Guitar sims that
ABSOLUTELY KILL'. They haven't been made yet. I don't think bringing some good old tools
to the forefront will either speed that up, or slow it down.
Cheers

[glowrak guy]

As the U-he devmaster recently pointed out, to maintain success, you have
to have a great product, great presets, great communication/advertisement,
great technical support, great R/D, and with pricing that can compete. For a start-up,
that means 80 hour work weeks of relentless dedication, and an angelic attitude.
Snowflakes and wannabees need not apply.
Cheers

Yes. But there are some absolutely wonderful synths available gratis for linux that have withstood the test of time. (ie. Zyn)

So you have one group that spend hours and hours trying to keep a business going. (bless their souls!)
And, you have others who, for the love of just making apps, develop and give of their talent for others to use.

Two very different camps, so to speak. (and goes to show that gratis is not necessarily bad quality. On the contrary!)

brian

I would posit that there can be, and probably is, more love and sacrifice involved
in keeping a successful business with employees who have dependant families,
up and running for a decade and counting, than is typical of short-term open-source
or freeware developers. Zyn is a pretty unique case, not typical, for this discussion.
Multiple devs are now handling a great creation where the author moved on.
Cheers

[rghvdberg]

I haven't been able to get Muse to run. Somehow Muse doesn't like my jackd. Compiled successfully from git, that one didn't run either.
I'm on Mint 18 with kx repo.

[glowrak guy]

Well, looks like all I have is a standalone binary for Phasex. It's not a plugin. How do I use it in a DAW?


(WhySynth is available in DSSI only. I don't even remember how to run DSSI plugins anymore.)

To use linux standalones in a daw, the Bitwig way is to open the 'Hardware Device' plugin from it's
'Routers' list, then in Hardware Device gui, choose 'Audio-Inputs'. Use qjackctl to connect a standalone's
output to Bitwig's input. If you have a hardware instrument, also conect it's sound output
for a layer while you're at it!
Probably can route things normally with qjackctl, watching relevant ardour/mixbus/qtractor gui's
as you go, to see the i/o is correct.

for dssi, like whysynth,
command: jackdssihost /usr/lib/dssi/whysynth.so

Cheers

[skei]

i made a new version of the ladspa wrapper, with a tool to convert all installed ladspa plugins to vst, and a bunch of bugfixes.. i don't want to hijack or derail this thread, so this will probably be the last post here about it.. from now on, i will make updates available on my blog, and for updates and other announcements, i might make a new thread in the plugins section here instead..
http://torhelgeskei.blogspot.no/2017/01 ... -v001.html

[sadko4u]

and for updates and other announcements, i might make a new thread in the plugins section here instead..
http://torhelgeskei.blogspot.no/2017/01 ... -v001.html

Better to do it in 'New Linux Music News' section. Just publish your news with [ANN] prefix.

[briandc]

Isn't it what linux is all about, being able to take someone else's project and reviving it and making it better?

Synths like Add64 and WhySynth are, imho, very nice instruments that would benefit from a bit of updating. If the authors of these are no longer willing/able to do the work, this is where I think we need some new energy put: into making some good apps already in existence even better.

The idea of "throwing away the old because it's old" is very typical in the country I was born in (USA) but I don't epouse that idea any longer. If something is useful, I say, let's keep it, use it and build on it. Linux-based synths work much more solidly than VSTs (in my experience) and I would hate to see some very good-quality instruments get put to the wayside because they aren't "new."


brian

[davephillips]

... The life expectancy of the great classic
composers was decades shorter than our's is, so they had far less time,
worse health, and their main distraction was survival itself, rather than
paying bills in a world of distracting screens to stare at.

Just to clarify:

Monteverdi 1567-1643 66 yrs.
Palestrina 1525-1594 69 yrs.
Josquin de Pres 1450-1521 71 yrs.
Vivaldi 1678-1741 63 yrs.
JS Bach 1685-1750 65 yrs.
Haydn 1732-1809 77 yrs
Mozart 1756-1791 35 yrs.
Beethoven 1770-1827 57 yrs
Schubert 1797-1828 31 yrs.
Mendelssohn 1809-1847 38 yrs.
Wagner 1813-1883 70 yrs.
Liszt 1811-1886 75 yrs.

So it wasn't the Classical period that did 'em in, it's the early Romantic era's fault.

I've already lived twice as long as Schubert. You'd think I'd have more to show for the time I've been around.

Best,

dp