[linux-audio-dev] soft synth as a plugin

[nikodimka]

--- Paul Davis wrote:
> >IMO running each synth in its own thread with many synths going is
> >definitely _not_ the way forward. The host should definitely be the only
> >process, much how VST, DXi, pro tools et. al. work.
> 
> i think you need to scan back a year or 18 months in the archives to
> where we measured this. the context switch under linux can be
> extremely quick - on the order of 20-50 usecs on a PII-450, and is not
> necessarily a problem. switching between contexts is massively more
> expensive under windows and macos (at least pre-X), and hence the
> multi-process design is not and cannot be an option for them at this time.

But could something change throuh 18 months? sigh...

> 
> >No, there is no real "instrument" or "synth" plugin API. but since my
> >original post I have been brewing something up. its quite vst-like in
> >some ways, but ive been wanting to make it more elegant before
> >announcing it. It does, however, work, and is totally C++ based ATM. You
> >just inherit the "Instrument" class and voila. (ok, so it got renamed
> >along the way)
> 
> thus guaranteeing that no instruments can be written in other
> languages. for all the mistakes the GTK+ crew made, their design to
> use C as the base language so as to allow for other languages to
> provide "wrappers" was a far-sighted and wise choice. OTOH, i will
> concede that the real-time nature of most synthesis would tend to rule
> out most of the languages of interest.

Yes. I was asking about C API mostly.

> 
> >Although in light of Tommi's post (mastajuuri) i have to reconsider
> >working on my API. My only problem with mastajuuri is its dependance on
> >QT (if im not mistaken), sorry.
> >
> >If people would like to my work-in-progress, i could definitely use some
> >feedback ;-)

But anyways. I would really love to look at what you have.
Is this only a specification or you have a reference implementation?

> >
> >
> >This discussion is open!
> 
> the discussion is several years old :)

But could something change in several years? sigh...
Still no API. 
Isnt it was a great idea behind the LADSPA 
"simple API _now_ is better than several years old discussion"?

> 
> you managed to touch upon the central problem in your penultimate
> sentence, apparently without realizing the depth of the problem.
> 
> if a synth comes with a GUI, then the issue of toolkit compatibility
> rears its ugly and essentially insoluble head once again. you can't
> put GTK based code into a Qt application, or vice versa. this also
> fails with any combination of toolkits, whether they are fltk, xforms,
> motif etc. etc.
> 
> if the synth doesn't come with a GUI, but runs in the same process as
> the host, then every synth has to have some kind of inter-process
> control protocol to enable a GUI to control it.

So what? Isnt it just a two-three more API functions?

Damn! I never wrote any audio application ever,
and I dont want to create the ninth or tenth possible winner 
instrument/synth API for linux.
So I see no reason for me to say "okay I can do it".

So I ask all of you guys once again:

What should we (I) use? 

We already have some possibilities 
-- MusE LADSPA extensions, 
-- nick can finish his work,
-- MAIA
-- mustajuuri's API
....

why dont we use what we have?

> 
> these are deep problems that arise from the lack of a single toolkit
> on linux (and unix in general).
> 
> this is why JACK is designed in the way that it is, and why it
> (theoretically) allows for both in-process and out-of-process
> "plugins". this allows programmers to choose which model they want to
> use. i predict that any API that forces the programmer to use a
> particular toolkit will fail. JACK's problem in this arena is that its
> designed for sharing audio data, and does not provide any method for
> sharing MIDI or some other protocol to control synthesis parameters.
> 
> besides, if SC for linux is in the offing, who needs any other
> synthesizers anyway? :))

Which SC are you talknig about?



> 
> --p 
> 


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