Hello everybody, this is my first time here. I’m looking for some help… I’ve been using Ardour on Ubuntu for the last 10 years. But since i updated to version 8, i can’t install any plugins…
I don’t know much about terminal coding. I need basic plugins like Visual EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay.
Any hint please ?
Hi Mariano,
Welcome to the Ardour community.
We discussed this on IRC. It appears it was due to the version of Ardour you were using being a snap version.
Did you manage to install the official version?
Cheers,
Keith
Hey Keith,
thanks for your help !
I installed the Official Version. I will now try to find my way to plugins i like. Are there some that look like Calf Studio’s ? I really liked them: clear, good looking. Especially the EQ, that included a visualizer to make the EQ edit easy.
Thank you again, have a great day !
The trouble with the CALF plugins is that the visualizer was, as I understand it, misleading: it didn’t actually properly represent the EQ. Also there are phasing artefacts with many of the CALF plugins.
The LSP EQ plugins are pretty good although there’s a lot of options. For most purposes, I would use one of the x16 ones, such as “LSP Graphic Equalizer x16 Mono” or “LSP Parametric Equalizer x16 Mono” (assuming mono channels). The LSP EQs have visualizers (and, unlike CALF, they are accurate).
LSP includes a bunch of more advanced EQs like Mid/Side EQ. Unless you know what these do, I would avoid those initially.
There’s also ZL EQ which is pretty good and is a lot less intimidating than LSP and also includes a visualizer:
These plugins install in the way I discussed on IRC: Download and extract, then copy the contents of the LV2 directory in the to your ~/.lv2 directory.
If you install any plugins from the Ubuntu application manager, these should now also show up in Ardour.
Cheers,
Keith
In addition to LSP and ZL I would also recommend Ardour co-developer Robin Gareus’ x42 plugins.
They’re great from both at visual and audible standpoint.
Hey again, thank you !
i just tried to download LSP and ZL. Then i extracted and copied in snap/Ardour/lv2
but it displays error in the plugins manager in Ardour.
This is really frustrating. i wish it would be as simple as i read you.
i feel bad to ask, but could you explain it one more time
Did you install the official version, as Keith asked you to do?
lv2-plugins should be placed in ~/.lv2 , /usr/lib/lv2 or /usr/local/lib/lv2
I don’t know where snap versions of Ardour look for them but you really should try and avoid snap versions anyway, if at all possible.
yes, i installed the official version, bought it through through the official website while chatting with Keith.
i downloaded these:
i’m on Ubuntu.
i don’t know what you mean by /usr/local/lib/lv2… is there another lv2 folder somewhere i should use ? I just put it in Ardour lv2 folder, and it so happens to be in Ardour/snap/lv2
Ardour/snap/lv2 (or snap/Ardour/lv2, as you said before) is likely folders belonging to the snap version of Ardour you have.
Your official version should be installed in /opt/Ardour-8.12 (or something similar) and I doubt it has a snap folder.
Yes, when you’re using the official Ardour version (or a distro’s non snap version) you should put lv2-plugins in the folder /usr/local/lib/lv2 or /usr/lib/lv2 or in the .lv2-folder in your home directory.
You need to be root to put anything in the /usr subfolders so the easiest way is usually to put them in ~/.lv2
Start a Terminal, type this into it and press enter :
mkdir ~/.lv2
That’ll create the .lv2 folder if it doesn’t already exist.
Then you can use your file manager and put the plugin’s lv2-folder into that one.
Note that you may need to enable" show hidden directories" in your file manager, since files and folders starting with a dot are usually hidden.
For ZL it’s the “ZL Equalizer.lv2” folder you should put in your .lv2
IT WORKED !!! Thank you so much !!!
I think you may have missed this instruction, and were still following the instructions for the snap version.
But I’m glad you got it working.
Cheers,
Keith
Thanks for your message !
the thing is that i can’t go back to the IRC chat !!!
… and it’s not working, again… Ardour now recognizes the plugins, but crashes instantly when i try to add one of the LSP plugin…
do you think you could re-explain the process here, so i can save it on a note on my pc ? sorry…
Sorry, I missed this as I was travelling when you posted it.
The instruction @peder gave is correct and the same as I described. If the plugin is crashing, then i may be an issue with the plugin or with some local OS libraries. I know there have been some issues with buggy libraries on Arch Linux recently.
Cheers,
Keith