On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:07 AM, Barney Holmes <djbar...@djbarney.org>wrote:
> The criticism about the FX engine is a valid one. I'm currently putting
> together a Blueprint about the way this could be tackled in the context of
> F/OSS and the current state of Linux audio software. I currently have two
> instances (4 decks) set up with Ardour3 with the beautiful sounding Calf
> LV2 plugins. Echo and Reverb plug-ins sound very smooth and silky. Mixxx
> could simply use LV2 plug-ins itself but another way is using Jack to hand
> off FX to other applications. That would also reduce feature bloat,
> handing off special functions to other F/OSS projects.
>
This is a very advanced setup... today people like you and Owen already use
effects with
Mixxx<http://mixxx.org/manual/1.11/chapters/advanced_topics.html#additional-effects-via-external-mixer-mode>.
The main goal of the effects framework is to make it easy to use for a Day
1 DJ to go wild. If our answer to someone who wanted to use effects with
Mixxx is "This is FLOSS -- go install Linux, JACK rack, and some LV2
plugins", then that would be no different from the state of affairs today:
effects in Mixxx would only be used by the most advanced users and would be
Linux-only.
Our v1.0 has to be:
1) Usable out of the box, no assembly required.
2) Dead easy (e.g. most users just ride the SuperKnob)
3) Minimal performance impact.
Not accomplishing #1 and #2 means the project is a failure. Features are
not a zero-sum game but core developer time definitely is -- we have to be
laser-focused on the goal. The nice thing about the design I wrote up in
the doc is that Mixxx deals with effects at the right abstraction such that
it doesn't actually care what format the underlying effect is in -- so in
the future we can add an LV2 backend or a VST backend and Mixxx will use
those effects and be able to chain them together seamlessly.
Linux cannot use
> Windows VST plug-ins (although there are some Linux VST one's). Ardour3
> can run Windows VST plugins through Wine but they are *not* stable.
>
This is super-ghetto. Using a binary on a architecture/OS it wasn't built
for is not a problem we should aim to solve. Users should just get the
plugin built on the platform they want to use it on. The same problem would
happen if you tried to use an LV2 built for Linux on Windows.
> Another possible way of tackling this could be to have separate branches
> for Mac/Windows and Linux. Mac/Windows would use Windows VST plug-ins (of
> which there are many) and the Linux version would either use LV2 plug-ins
> directly or hand off FX through Jack.
>
The effects framework aims to support all backends on all platforms so we
don't need to do this. You can build a VST for Linux just as you can build
an LV2 for Windows. IMO It's not our problem if the user tries to use a
plugin on an architecture it wasn't built for.
cheers,
RJ
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