14 Jan
2003
14 Jan
'03
1:50 p.m.
On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 10:45:31AM -0500, Dave Phillips wrote:
I know this subject has been extensively chewed on LAD but perhaps you
can summarize for normal users why it's a bad idea or implementation. I
imagine the MIDI + VST arrangement is quite popular with Win/Mac
musicians. Those musicians coming into Linux might wonder "Why no MIDI
with LADSPA plugins?" (though of course XAP should work to make 'em
happy ;).
Mainly because MIDI is very primitive and supporting MIDI at a low level
ties you to it to some extent. XAP has a highlevel control interface that
MIDI can be converted into trivially, but can handle other things.
LADSPA has no concept of instruments, so MIDI support is bound to be
limited, with only a single plugin. It is possible to build MIDI synths
with LADSPA + AMS, SSM or pd, if you like getting your hands dirty. I
guess it's not what most users want though.
- Steve
Steve Harris wrote:
Yes, thats useful. Infact I have one plugin I want to write that requires
this.
It would be tricky in LADSPA though, because plugins aren't allowed to
write to thier control inputs.
I guess it could be a host feature... the host knows the allowed range and
meaningful values and weighting for the control port so it should be able
to randomise them. Not ideal, but it would work.
To give better control there could be a RANDOMISABLE control hint that
tells the host that its useful to randomise this port. Any host authors
out there who would want to implement this?
Can you explain what you mean by "toggles
for randomized parameters".
As in "a tiny toggle switch to randomize parameters". The dfx_Transverb
is a nice example. I don't think it's doing anything fancy, it's just a
neat way of instantly shuffling parameter values. also supports MIDI, which I believe is a problem for
LADSPA (Taybin?).
Yes. XAP is supposed to address this (at an abstract level), I believe
that explicit MIDI support ala VSTi is a serious mistake.