[LAD] LV2 Achievement of GMPI Requirement

[Jeff McClintock]

> > My concept with GMPI (not everyone agreed) was that MIDI was not
> > required *in* the plugin.
> >  I decided the *host* should provide that routine (mapping MIDI to port
value). Written once,
> > available to every plugin developer.  

> This is almost exactly what I proposed as an LV2 extension in this
> previous thread - " In practice, however, there are a few border cases
where the plugin
> would want to indicate its default MIDI bindings".

Cool, I like it. I disagree that synthesisers are 'border cases' though ;)

> The only real worry is that hosts will be unhappy of the "bloat" added
> to the library they are using.  

Yeah, Host developers want the 'bloat' in the plugins, plugin developers
want the 'bloat' in the host.

I think I good experiment is to imagine you have to write both an LV2 host
and 100 LV2 plugins, and you have to write MIDI-binding code. Do you put it
in the plugin OR the host?
-If a feature consumes 100 kB RAM and disk space, and it's implemented on
the host side - that's 100 kB.
-If it's implemented on the plugins side, that's 100,000 kB.

Which choice is more 'bloated'?

A very real scenario is you write this MIDI-binding support, ship 50
plugins, then 6 months later discover a bug. Now if that feature is in the
host - that's one fix and everyone is happy. If that bug is in the 50
plugins, already shipped to 1000 customers. Then you have a much bigger
problem.

It's not a question of 'bloat' YES/NO. The code has to go *somewhere*, there
is only a tradeoff - HOST vs PLUGIN.

My choice was to have very lightweight plugins, and a more sophisticated
host.


P.S.

The one other reason you want the host handling the MIDI Binding...

> On Fri, 2012-06-08 at 09:45 +0000, Jeremy Salwen wrote:
> > Currently, a plugin writer is in a bit of a sticky situation: if the
> > plugin supports MIDI CC events, then the internal parameters are
> > hidden from the host.  You can do something where you have a switch
> > which toggles between MIDI CC control, and Control Port control, but
> > this is not a fun thing to do, and I think it is additionally
> > confusing for the user.

True, a plugin's parameters can be set by many sources:
* pre-recorded automation.
* The user tweaking the GUI.
* MIDI messages.

What if they all happen at once? Only the host is in a position to mediate.
For example if you click-down on a plugins GUI slider - you don't expect
that slider to continue jumping arround in response to MIDI automation. The
human is in control until the mouse-up happens, then automation resumes
control. This is a host feature, it can only be implemented of the MIDI
message is decoded by the host, the plugin can't be changing it's own
parameters 'in secret'.

Best Regards,
Jeff