[LAU] LV2, DSSI and the future of plugins

[Alex Stone]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:08:29 +0000
  allcoms <allcoms at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> I suppose I could've just addressed this to drobilla and got most of 
>my
> questions answered but it concerns us all really as even if A3 and 
>qtractor
> were to achieve feature parity with Cubase and buds tomorrow 
>(obviously I'm
> stretching things a bit there) we still wouldn't see vast droves 
>switching
> to Linux DAWs for a few reasons such as hardware support, people 
>liking what
> they know etc. but most importantly the dearth of quality native 
>plugins
> available for Linux seems to be a primary showstopper for most.
> 
> DSSI has a few things coded for it but not much and its still very 
>early
> days for LV2 so the open plugin format of the future is still 
>anyones game
> and it may not necessarily be either of those that succeeds and gets 
>widely
> used of course. I think a couple of VSTs have been ported over to 
>LV2 but
> I'm not aware of any that have been ported to DSSI and I think that 
>the ease
> in doing so is quite an important factor in the success of any such 
>format,
> if not the be-all and end-all. If anyone here has any experience 
>with coding
> and/or porting VSTis - what is currently lacking from LV2 or DSSI 
>that could
> potentially cause problems for someone wanting to port their big 
>beefy synth
> or snazzy FX from VSTi to LV2 or DSSI? I already know about the 
>incomplete
> persist LV2 extension but I'm pretty sure that won't be the only 
>thing
> needing work.
> 
> A very important factor for such a format would definitely be that 
>the major
> hosts (commercial, foss or otherwise) for all major platforms would 
>be able
> to easily implement support for it and that plugins would be easy to 
>port
> between the different platforms. I'm not aware of any DAWs for 
>Windows that
> support LV2 or DSSI yet but I could be wrong? There's nothing 
>stopping a
> closed source, commecial app vendor adding support for either format 
>is
> there? Another factor I see as increasingly important is that the 
>plugin
> format should be able to take advantage of OpenCL to take advantage 
>of the
> superior processing power of todays GPUs. Quite how we'd convince 
>Steinberg
> and co. we need a replacement for VSTi and get them to support an 
>open
> standard though is anyones guess :/

They won't support a cross platform open standard. (Steinberg)


Good point about DSSI though. I've been trying a few, and they work 
ok. I'd ask what's missing (if anything) in the DSSI protocol that 
could enhance the opportunities for coders to build more plugins, 
synths, etc... Perhaps strengthening DSSI (if needed), coupled with 
LV2 would be sufficient for plugin/synth options/formats?

LV2 seems to be moving along, although i just installed Tom's new 
ir.lv2 and it won't run at all with lv2_jack_host, or lv2jackrack. So 
it's Ardour specific. (As he did indeed indicate.)

I have the mighty jconvolver though, so nothing is lost.

Alex.

Alex.