14 Jan
2003
14 Jan
'03
10:36 a.m.
Greetings:
While Taybin is of course correct WRT *native* VST support under Linux
I must add that Kjetil's vstserver works like a charm. I've been using
it with Pd (via the k_vst~ external) and with the ladspavst host. It
really does work well, especially with Pd. I've only tested it with
various freeware VST plugins but Kjetil's also used it with some
commercial plugins.
vstserver may not be for the faint-hearted: it requires a working
installation of a recent WINE, and some code from the VST SDK, but it
isn't really difficult to get going. I use a fairly new version of WINE
I built on my home machine, the process was relatively painless (the
WINE people have made real progress with their installation routines and
utilities).
I'd never played around with VST plugins before trying Kjetil's
software. I've seen/heard some features I'd like to see in LADSPA
plugins (particularly toggles for randomized parameters) but overall I
must say that I'm still knocked out by some of the LADSPA effects. VST
also supports MIDI, which I believe is a problem for LADSPA (Taybin?).
AFAIK vstserver doesn't support VST instruments, only the effects
plugins at present. Perhaps Kjetil can tell us whether instrument
support is forthcoming ?
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org
Taybin Rutkin wrote:
The Ardour FAQ has a good entry on VST support in linux:
--begin--
2.2. Are VST plugins supported?
There are several issues here:
1) Generic VST support
This is possible, but is also tricky. Steinberg does not allow
redistribution of their header files, and the header files that
they distribute will not work under Linux. It would therefore be
impossible to compile Ardour with VST support unless you got
modified files from (say) me, and that would violate the license
agreement Steinberg has for VST. They have indicated that they are
not opposed to Linux support, but that's the end of the story right
now.
If we end up distributing binary copies of Ardour, this could
be dealt with (I compile it, and so you don't need the modified
header files). But that's not happening yet.
2) Specific plugins
a) executable format issues
Plugins are pieces of executable code. The format used for
the files that store this code is different under windows
and macos than it is for linux. Some people have managed
to find workarounds for this --- there are reports of people
running windows-derived buzz plugins under linux, but nobody
has looked into trying it with vst plugins.
Linux also runs on a lot more hardware than windows or MacOS.
We assume that when you say linux, you mean "linux on an intel
compatible processor", but keep in mind that to most of us,
linux means more than that --- it includes the PPC, Sparc, Alpha,
ARM, MIPS and many other chip architectures. Of that list,
only PPC has any VST plugin support at all.
This problem would go away if a VST plugin was available as source
code, but to my knowledge, only 1 is (freeverb).
b) OS dependency issues
Most VST plugin writers do not follow Steinberg's design advice,
and write plugins that have operating system dependencies. As
a result, even if you could find a way to actually use, say,
a windows-format VST plugin on Linux on an Intel machine, the
plugin would contain calls to operating system services that
don't exist (in the same way) under Linux.
So, the basic answer is "no". I am an active member of the VST-plugins
mailing list, and I try to encourage people who write free plugins to
make their source code available so that we can use it under Linux, as
well as reminding people to try to avoid operating system dependencies
in their plugins. I think this mostly falls on deaf ears.
--end--
Hope that helps,
Taybin
--
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