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plugin~: LADSPA and VST plug-in hosting for Pd
==============================================
This is a Pd [1] tilde object for hosting LADSPA [2] and VST [3] audio
plug-ins on Linux and Windows systems, respectively. The LADSPA
plug-in interface is supported completely on Linux, while the VST 1.0
audio processing plug-in interface (without plug-in graphics) is
supported on Windows.
This text corresponds to release 0.2 of plugin~ as of 4th April, 2001.
This release of plugin~ has been tested with Pd 0.32P1.
plugin~ is distributed under the GNU General Public License. For more
information, please read the accompanying file "COPYING".
Loading the plug-in
-------------------
The plug-ins are located using the environment variable LADSPA_PATH or
VST_PATH. You need to set the corresponding variable to specify the
directories where you have the plug-in files. For example, on Linux
(bash) you should use something like
$ export LADSPA_PATH=/usr/local/lib/ladspa:$HOME/myplugins
and on Windows something like
C:\>set VST_PATH=C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Vstplugins;D:\myplugins
Note that Linux and Windows use different delimiters within
paths and directories.
LADSPA. You can load a LADSPA plug-in in two ways: (1) Create the
plug-in by label: "plugin~ lpf". Here, "lpf" is the label of the
plug-in that is to be searched for. All LADSPA plug-in libraries in
your LADSPA_PATH are searched; (2) Create a plug-in by label and
library name: "plugin~ lpf filter.so". Here, "lpf" is the label as
before, and "filter.so" is the name of the plug-in library, which
contains the plug-in. Only the selected LADSPA plug-in library is
searched.
VST. There is always only one VST plug-in within one DLL and thus you
only need to create the plug-in by library name: "plugin~ northpole".
This will search through your VST_PATH for the plug-in library named
"northpole.dll".
After loading the plug-in successfully, the number of inlets and
outlets of the corresponding plugin~ object should represent the
number of audio inputs and outputs to/from the plug-in (plus one inlet
and one outlet for control information, see below).
In- and outlet functionality
----------------------------
The audio inputs and outputs ports of LADSPA and VST plug-ins are
represented as separate signal inlets and outlets. The control input
and output ports (LADSPA) or the parameter inputs (VST), however, are
all represented together with one inlet and one outlet.
The first inlet and the first outlet are for control input and output
messages, respectively. Control messages are messages, which start
with the text "control". Second should come the name of the
corresponding control port (called parameter in VST parlance), and
third the value. The first inlet accepts and the first outlet sends
this kinds of messages. Additionally, you can use port/parameter
number (like this: #1, #2, ...) instead of the name to send control
changes. You should note, however, that the port numbering is not
necessarily the same between different versions of a plug-in, so you
should use port/parameter names where possible.
The first inlet and outlet are always there, even if the plug-in
doesn't have control ports. The rest of the in- and outlets are for
audio input and output signals, respectively.
The first inlet accepts other messages in addition to "control". You
can investigate the plug-in inputs and outputs by sending a "print"
message to the first inlet. You can reset the plug-in internal state
(clear delay lines etc.) by sending a "reset" message.
Loading the plugin~ object
--------------------------
In order to be able to use the plugin~ object with Pd, you need to
start Pd with the "-lib" command line parameter. On Linux, the
plugin~ object resides in a library called "plugin~.pd_linux", while
on Windows the library is called "winplugintilde.dll". Thus, you need
to say either "pd -lib plugin~" (on Linux) or "pd -lib winplugintilde"
(on Windows) to start Pd with the plugin~ object loaded.
You probably need to give the "-path" parameter to Pd as well in order
to specify the exact location of the "plugin~.pd_linux" (on Linux) or
"winplugintilde.dll" (on Windows) library file. By default, the
library file is installed to the "extra/plugin~" directory under your
Pd installation directory.
Compiling the plugin~ object
----------------------------
Linux. All the necessary files for compilation under Linux are
included in the distribution. Just type "./configure" and "make all
install" and you should be done. The plugin~ object file will be
installed in your Pd directory tree, in "extra/plugin~". You may
specify the path to your Pd directory with the "--with-pddir" argument
to configure, eg. like this: "./configure --with-pddir=/usr/local/pd".
Windows. The winplugintilde.dll library is included in the plugin~
distribution, in the directory "win", so it is not necessary to
compile plugin~. Anyhow, in order to compile plugin~ for VST plug-ins
yourself, you need to download the VST SDK from Steinberg and agree to
the Steinberg SDK license. The SDK and the license are available from
http://www.steinberg.net/developers/VST2SDKAbout.html. After
downloading you need to copy the files from the SDK subdirectory
"source/common" to the "vst" subdirectory of the plugin~ distribution.
You can then compile plugin~ using the ready-made project and
workspace files for Microsoft Visual C 6.0, found in the "win"
subdirectory. You will need to modify the MSVC project settings by
hand to point to your Pd directory.
Remaining problems
------------------
Pd. There is a problem with Pd which makes it really hard to send
"control" messages to parameters with a space character in the
parameter name such as "filter freq" or "filter q". When you
send a `control "filter freq" 440' message, Pd will (incorrectly) not
handle "filter freq" as one symbol. You can currently circumvent this
by addressing problematic control parameters by number instead of
name.
LADSPA. No known issues.
VST. plugin~ doesn't support VST 2.0 synthesizer plug-ins.
Additionally, the VST 1.0 plug-ins are required to implement the
processReplacing() interface in order for them to work with plugin~.
You will get an error message if this is not the case. Furthermore,
no graphics is displayed for the plug-ins; I am helplessly waiting for
someone to volunteer to add VST GUI support. Also, plugin~ should
observe the Windows registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VST\VSTPluginsPath)
for the VST plug-in path.
For more information, see:
--------------------------
[1] Pd: http://iem.kug.ac.at/pd/
[2] LADSPA: http://www.ladspa.org/
[3] VST: http://www.steinberg.net/
All trademarks are acknowledged.
Jarno Seppänen, jams@cs.tut.fi
|
