LV2 and Windows VST support

[Andrew479]

Hi,
at present windows/osx vst are not supported in linux build of REAPER without additional tools - are there plans for implementing support for cross OS VST compatibility straight to REAPER?

Currently it seems more viable to run REAPER through WINE (due to lack of vst plugs natively for linux), because then Win VST support works as it should. LinVST seems to be troublesome when plugins try to reach out to external resources.

Also are there plans for LV2 support?

Thanks,
A.

[Jack Winter]

Originally Posted by Andrew479

Hi,
at present windows/osx vst are not supported in linux build of REAPER without additional tools - are there plans for implementing support for cross OS VST compatibility straight to REAPER?

Currently it seems more viable to run REAPER through WINE (due to lack of vst plugs natively for linux), because then Win VST support works as it should. LinVST seems to be troublesome when plugins try to reach out to external resources.

Also are there plans for LV2 support?

Thanks,
A.

I'm not a dev, but an interested user. LV2 is most likely coming some day, can't tell you when.

Running OS/X plugins on Linux is impossible, as there is no infrastructure for it, maybe some day.

Regarding support for Windows VSTs I haven't gotten a clue. There are some solutions that are quite good depending on Wine support to run the plugins. But however you turn this, it's a miracle... You are running plugins meant for another OS in an application...

IMO it would be good if reaper could include this, as it's most likely very important to many users, and Wine will just keep on improving so there are good chances that more plugins will start working. On the other hand, maybe the reaper devs have overall more important things to tackle..

Let's let the future surprise us

[Andrew479]

Jack, on an unrelated note - should this subforum include issues/questions on armv7l build as well?
I managed to get the arm build working on my Android phone. With ALSA, it runs fine on 512 samples
No plugins yet though...

[Jack Winter]

Yeah sure. This is for anything related to REAPER on Linux!

And congratulations, reaper on an android phone, that's kick ass!

[Andrew479]

Ubuntu chrooted through Linux Deploy on rooted and unlocked Redmi Note 4.
Latest IceWM and REAPER 5.93.
I had to made a script that bypasses Android audio system and opens the msm8593 soundcard directly.
It's currently being controlled through VNC, but there's a noticeable input latency.
Haven't tested USB MIDI yet, but I suspect it should work as normal.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Andrew479

Jack, on an unrelated note - should this subforum include issues/questions on armv7l build as well?
I managed to get the arm build working on my Android phone. With ALSA, it runs fine on 512 samples
No plugins yet though...

Whoa! what phone? Didn’t realize you could get Android to run linux apps...

[Andrew479]

Originally Posted by Justin

Whoa! what phone? Didn’t realize you could get Android to run linux apps...

Hi Justin!

Yes you can , but it has to be rooted. There's an app called Linux Deploy which install linux distribution of your choice to virtual disk image, which is then mounted and chrooted to your Android shell.
Then you can login and access this installation using SSH (JuiceSSH) and VNC (VNC Viewer). It behaves like a regular arm linux installation and all available packages for that architecture can be downloaded normally through apt/yum/pacman.

You can also connect to it from your PC by either connecting the phone to your wi-fi and entering the phone's IP address or creating a hotspot straight from Android. Building from source is also possible, but you may need protobuf libraries and depending on CPU speed it might take a while.


The above installation was tested on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 with 4GB RAM.

[evanrabby]

Originally Posted by Andrew479

Hi Justin!

Yes you can , but it has to be rooted. There's an app called Linux Deploy which install linux distribution of your choice to virtual disk image, which is then mounted and chrooted to your Android shell.
Then you can login and access this installation using SSH (JuiceSSH) and VNC (VNC Viewer). It behaves like a regular arm linux installation and all available packages for that architecture can be downloaded normally through apt/yum/pacman.

You can also connect to it from your PC by either connecting the phone to your wi-fi and entering the phone's IP address or creating a hotspot straight from Android. Building from source is also possible, but you may need protobuf libraries and depending on CPU speed it might take a while.


The above installation was tested on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 with 4GB RAM.

I haven’t use my android device in about five years. Are you saying that you have to log into your android device from another device? Or are you using the VNC Viewer just looping back to your own device?

I can now run android on my iPhone 7, I have been wanting to get reaper working on my smart phone since ancient Roman times. The iPhone has proper almost no latency hardware even with just a built-in microphone, and with USB interfaces

[Andrew479]

Originally Posted by Jack Winter

But however you turn this, it's a miracle... You are running plugins meant for another OS in an application...

IMO it would be good if reaper could include this, as it's most likely very important to many users, and Wine will just keep on improving so there are good chances that more plugins will start working.

Yes, it's a miracle and almost a necessity at this point.

The clock is ticking to Jan. 14th 2020, with hope and luck, progress could be made before that deadline.
(That date marks the end of Win7 support from MS). The lack of updates isn't disconcerting, but soon afterwards many devs will start dropping support for their software. So before that happens, I'd like to have the audio workstation migrated to linux with all plugins working if possible.
ReactOS might be better alternative in the end, but it's highly unlikely that it'll be anywhere beyond first beta by then.

[Jack Winter]

One observation, with most windows plugins that don't work with wine, it is because they use newer apis, like d2d and newer msvc runtime. So as ms advances the goal post, wine is catching up and falling behind at the same time..

[4duhwinnn]

Originally Posted by Jack Winter

One observation, with most windows plugins that don't work with wine, it is because they use newer apis, like d2d and newer msvc runtime. So as ms advances the goal post, wine is catching up and falling behind at the same time..

For every windows plugin that won't yet, or ever, work in wine,
there are four others as good or better that do. The selection is so vast,
compared to the man-hours most composers or hobbyists have,
that the long list of working plugins is dwarfed by need to figure out
what to do with those one actually has time and a purpose for.

I'll suggest that microsoft isn't advancing much for their customers,
while advancing their data-snatching capabilities as fast
as humanly possible. On the surface, using customer data,
and whatever un-secured data they stumble upon, in one way or another, appears to be their business model, and quite successful, at that.
They'll improve the user tools of the OS just enough
to keep it afloat. There's no money in OS excellence, when there is far
better money in excellent data.
Cheers

[khz]

Originally Posted by Andrew479

Hi,
at present windows/osx vst are not supported in linux build of REAPER without additional tools - are there plans for implementing support for cross OS VST compatibility straight to REAPER?

Currently it seems more viable to run REAPER through WINE (due to lack of vst plugs natively for linux), because then Win VST support works as it should. LinVST seems to be troublesome when plugins try to reach out to external resources.

I copied some Windows VST into my ".vst" folder. I haven't installed Wine.
When I start Reaper, under "Add FX >> VST" all of them are listed.
I can load and play them too.
&& VST 2 coming to an end https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsand...-end-4727.html
&& VST3 Linux (Beta version) https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk#200

[Andrew479]

Originally Posted by khz

I copied some Windows VST into my ".vst" folder.
When I start Reaper, under "Add FX >> VST" all of them are listed.
I can load and play them too.
&& VST 2 coming to an end https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsand...-end-4727.html && VST3 Linux (Beta version) https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk#200

What about the dependent resources (wallpapers, icons, sample archives, registry keys)? Those have to be referenced somehow.
So you didn't have LinVST or anything of that sort installed?

[khz]

I have no LinVST installed, yes. No wine either.
I copied some Windows VST to my ".vst" folder. (e.g. U-HE, Xhip, tunefish. ... )
That was all.
That's all you have to do.
Some (older) VST plugins may need Wine/LinVST.


Most of the VST I have from here:
https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/lin...effects/newest
These run without Wine/LinVST.
:-D

[Jack Winter]

Originally Posted by khz

Most of the VST I have from here:
https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/lin...effects/newest

Quote from that page: "Instrument and effect VST Plugins and VST3 Plugins for Linux. The results are sorted by date added (newest first). You can amend the search above."

That sounds like they are Linux VSTs and not Windows VSTs..

[khz]

Originally Posted by Jack Winter

That sounds like they are Linux VSTs and not Windows VSTs..

Ablolut correct. My bad. SRY 4 OT. :-)

[Jack Winter]

Originally Posted by khz

I copied some Windows VST into my ".vst" folder. I haven't installed Wine.
When I start Reaper, under "Add FX >> VST" all of them are listed.
I can load and play them too.

I find this very strange. I have no idea how that would work without having wine installed and wrapping the plugins with something like LinVst or Airwave..?

[brainwreck]

I think that direct support for windows plugins in Reaper sounds like a bunch of ongoing work, where instead, plugin developers should be targeting a linux native format such as LV2.

Andrew479, that is kickass running a linux distro/reaper on a phone. So since alsa is being used instead of android's audio, does that mean that alsa supported usb audio devices should work with this? And I assume that the audio latency is much lower than with android audio.

[Jack Winter]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

I think that direct support for windows plugins in Reaper sounds like a bunch of ongoing work, where instead, plugin developers should be targeting a linux native format such as LV2.

Or VST3

[Andrew479]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

I think that direct support for windows plugins in Reaper sounds like a bunch of ongoing work, where instead, plugin developers should be targeting a linux native format such as LV2.

Current popularity of VST dictates that targeting its compatibility should be a priority. Even if LV2 was to become next-gen, and it rightfully should, the path towards comparable deployment is a long one. In the meantime, Windows VST support would be highly appreciated, but at the same time I understand the level of commitment required for such goal, especially since WINE already has a headstart.

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Andrew479, that is kickass running a linux distro/reaper on a phone. So since alsa is being used instead of android's audio, does that mean that alsa supported usb audio devices should work with this? And I assume that the audio latency is much lower than with android audio.

Thanks. Yes, I suppose so, but for Lollipop (5.0) and newer, you might need disabling automatic routing in Developer options:


Also such device should be UAD1 or UAD2 compatible (e.g. no proprietary drivers required).
Another, more rudimentary problem with this is supplying power. In OTG mode, it's not possible to supply power for charging the phone, as long as only one port is offered.

I haven't tested the latency using softsynth yet (mainly due to limited selection of plugins available for arm), but it's in my plans.

[osxmidi]

Lindows.

There is a point where it stops being Linux that is being used/wanted and it becomes Windows that is being used/wanted.

ReactOS might be what some want, an open source Windows, if they can get the bugs out.

Microsoft might go open source with Windows in the future, a long shot but maybe.

Linux is mostly a volunteer sort of thing so Linux won't attract many native plugin devs and it never has.

LV2 is not like AU on the Mac that has Logic behind it, so LV2 is pretty small and it might be good but it's mostly going to be supported by Linux volunteer devs.

LinVst etc are just occasional helpers with Windows vst's and not much more.

On Linux there are commercial vst's like u-he and also u-he and don't forget u-he.

There are some very useful native plugins for Linux including all of the Reaper ones.

If someone is using Linux mostly for Windows vst's then that's not really what Linux is about in the first place IMO but it can be done up to a certain point with limits.