[LAD] Plugin buffer size restrictions

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 05:08:02PM -0400, David Robillard wrote:

> > Assuming that by 'signals' you mean audio rate controls, yes.
> > Again, the exception is 'synthesis' modules. You'd expect a
> > VCA in a modular synth to do what the ADSR tells it to do,
> > even if that results in artefacts. But you wouldn't want a
> > fader in a DAW (essentially the same thing if implemented as
> > a plugin) to do the same.
> 
> Sorry, that term isn't clear.  By 'signals' I meant basically a single
> numeric value (float), whatever the rate.
> 
> As opposed to an 'event' (also an ambiguous term) which actually says
> "hey, this control changed to 4.0 now" when it changes - and only when
> it changes.  An 'event' could also have ramp information for
> interpolation and whatever else.

Dave, thanks for this reply. Reading your complete post, there's
a lot to discuss - more than I'm prepared to write at this time
(past midnight here) - but I'll do so ASAP.

It's not a simple issue. For example you mention that control
values should somehow look ahead (how is another matter, and
it can get hairy). That is true, but otoh in many cases the
delay you get when not doing this doesn't matter, so there's
good reason to avoid the complexity in those cases, etc. etc.

So it ends up as an exercise in weighting pros and cons, you
can't reduce it to some simple 'binary' statement. We wouldn't
have this debate if things were so simple. 

More later,

Ciao,

-- 
FA

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It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
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