Hello, I installed Ardour 7 yesterday as my first DAW so I’m a complete newbie.
I installed a piano vst and did everything folowing this video. The piano doesn’t appear in my MIDI tracks instruments list though.
I have no idea why it doesn’t work, but hopefully someone can help me out.
Is the VST listed in Ardour > Window > Plugin Manager?
On What OS do you use Ardour? Linux, like unfa? and if so, have you perhaps installed a Windows VST rather than a Linux version of the plugin
thanks for the fast reply.
I’m using linux and de ‘Maestro Concert Grand V2’ on this website (the website says it’s for linux).
I see this when I open the plugin manager:
Ah, that is a sample-library (a collection of sound-files), not a plugin.
You need a synthesizer plugin that can load the sample-library.
This plugin used to be Linuxsampler, although it is rather dated, not packaged by most GNU/Linux distros, and there are likely better options out there these days.
I do however not know what people use to load gig v2 sample-libraries. Perhaps someone else here does.
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For piano, I’d probably use the salamander-grandpiano soundfont with ACE Fluidsynth (that synth plugin comes with Ardour). You can get the soundfont from Soundfonts 4U
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Ah, thanks. Not sure how to download the soundfont though. I can only play a demo.
So I downloaded the Yamaha C5 Grand-v2.4, I scanned the folder I placed it in (this is my plugin manager now:
), added ‘ACE fluid synth’ in ‘add MIDI tracks’, then to ‘plugins provided’. There I saw a long list of built-in instruments wich don’t make sound. Not sure where my plugin went.
Again, a soundfont or a sample library is not a plugin.
You create a MIDI track with ACE Fluid Synth as the instrument. Then dbl-click on the plugin in the relevant mixer strip to bring up the plugin’s UI. From that UI, load the soundfont from wherever you put it on your disk(s).
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And, to (possibly) clarify further, FluidSynth isn’t really a synth in a traditional sense. It doesn’t make sounds on its own. It’s really a soundfont player which requires a soundfont to make sound.
A soundfont is a collection of sounds (often samples) and instructions on how to play them, organized in a file that can be loaded into a soundfont player, like Fluidsynth. Fluidsynth will then interpret the MIDI events and use the soundfont to render the appropriate sounds.
So, when you first load Fluidsynth as a plugin, it won’t make any sound as it doesn’t have a soundfont loaded. You have to load a soundfont to get it to work.
Cheers,
Keith
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I figured it out, thanks for the help everyone!
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