[linux-audio-user] Information on using LADSPA plugins

Greetings all: I am trying to learn about the LADSPA plugins. I have downloaded and installed the ladspa_sdk, read the ladspa.h header file and read Dave Phillips article on the O'Reilly network. I've also added the CMT plugin library. Okay, so I've got my plugins but I need some helping making them go. I don't really understand how they work. I am trying to learn about them in a console environment, that is to say just by themselves (if that is possible, maybe that is part of the difficulty). I understand the basics of the C language and the Linux operating system but most of the information I have found seems to cover developing plugins and consequently goes right over my head. Lets say I wanted to use the sine.so plugin from the sample library to play a continuos pitch from my sound card, how would I do that? I'm confused by the need of an input file for this as I see the sine.so plugin as the source. Can the output file be a dev file? How about using the ALSA hw plugin hw:0,0 as the output, how would I do that? I've read the ALSA library documentation about plugins and LADSPA but again it goes right over my head. Anyway, I though I'd ask these questions to this list and see what came of it. I'm using recent ALSA drivers, with a 2.2.20 kernel on a very old computer (hence the desire to learn about the plugins from the console). Thank you in advance for any consideration and advice. Sincerely, Paul