[LAU] ZynAddSubFX Usability Survey

[Joel Roth]

Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Presets are also useful as basis for sound designers and a must have
> for musicians who just want to make music.

As far as this is true, it is not an issue of ZynAddSubFX
specifically, but Linux audio in general.

We have an abundance of great software, but no portable
standard for sharing presets among DAWs and other plugin
hosts.

I would guess that there is enough diversity and experience
in our community to develop, share, review presets.
Informally, we already do that when someone writes to the 
list asking about appropriate parameter settings.

What exactly would a preset include? 

In Nama, presets are called "effect chains", and consist of
a series of one or more LADSPA/LV2/Ecasound plugins with
their parameter settings.  A limited subset, including
LADSPA and LV2, could be portable among Linux audio plugin
hosts. 

This implies a single signal path (e.g. track). Perhaps some
processing could involve a more complex topology, signals
being split, processed and rejoined. 

I'd be willing to take a stab at drafting a spec using JSON
(which Nama already uses), however before that I'm wondering
if a sequence of plugins with their parameters would be
sufficiently expressive to describe what commercial presets
provide.


-- 
Joel Roth