Plugins: Ladspa Questions

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

I will try with the latency report modified to be one lower, then both taps might appear in the part of the impulse response that is considered.

That should plot the correct frequency response, but the signal phase plot will show a 180deg shift

[…] the way that classic network analysers always have done (eg Hewlett Packard 3577A) ?

Ardour is a DAW is not a HP analog spectrum analyzer, but yes it should probably perform measurement in the same way.

Keep in mind that this FFT pane is only visible in generic edit mode. It is not shown for custom plugin UIs. As far as I know it was intended mainly for showing EQ curves in the early days. It is not a substitute for a proper measurement tool.

Moreover, the reported latency should better be the average instead of the peak I would have thought?

I suggest to not change your plugin only to make Ardour’s odd measurement tool happy.

I say the average would be better

In general it should be the max time from input to output. If a shorter value is reported some onset or lead-in may be cut off.

Common latent plugins include look-ahead limiters as well as convolution kernels that do need to buffer data. However in those cases there is no ambiguity: min = max = avg latency.

In your case, the peak (here 40 samples) would be needed to correctly plot the phase response with a proper analyzer.

[GhostsonAcid]

@x42

Exposing LV1 plugins as LV2 is trivial. The DSP code can remain as-is and you basically just have to add proper meta-data.

@x42 Can you elaborate a bit? I have a few old LADSPA v1 plugins (from the TAP, or CAPS plugins packs, etc.) that I would like to migrate as LV2 plugins so that Ardour (6.9+) can still use them. -Any thoughts/ideas/links?..

[Majik (Keith Milner)]

Check here:

GitHub - moddevices/tap-lv2: LV2 port for the TAP (Tom's Audio Processing)...

GitHub - moddevices/caps-lv2: LV2 port for the CAPS Audio Plugin Suit

Cheers,

Keith

[peder (Peder Hedlund)]

Just to clear up any potential misunderstandings; Ardour can still use old LADSPA plugins, it’s just that new ones should be made as LV2.

I just compiled and installed CAPS from your link and it works in Ubuntu 22.04 and Ardour 8
The only slight bug I noticed was that I didn’t get graphical meter indication for the C* Compress X2 plugin.
I see the numerical values change as the compression sets in but the meter doesn’t move

[GhostsonAcid]

@Majik

Check here:

Man, thanks so much! That is awesome. (A lot of people seem to be so much better at finding things online than me…)

@peder

Ardour can still use old LADSPA plugins

Well, that’s great if true(!), which I believe you. -But then why might my old Mac (OS X 10.6.8) now running Ardour v6.9.0 not recognize the TAP, CAPS, and all other LADSPA v1 plugins that were working just fine on the ancient Ardour v2.8.16 I had running before on this machine? -Ardour 6.9 simply cannot find them during plugin scanning (-only the LV2s, AUs, and VSTs):

What am I missing here? I feel the explanation is probably simple…
(-Different folder used to store older LADSPA plugins?)

[peder (Peder Hedlund)]

What folder are your plugins in?

This post, albeit from 11 years ago, suggest they should be in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA

Mac OS Plugin Installation

A couple of things… /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components is the correct place for AU plugins only, VSTs go in their own folder. Ardour on Mac OS X does not use VST plugins, only AU or LADSPA If you are looking to install LADSPA plugins they would go in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA If you are dropping plugins into any of these folders as a different user or authorizing as an admin user when you are logged in as a regular user, you may have a permissions problem. This is the most common problem…

I couldn’t find anything specific regarding LADSPA and Mac in the manual

The Ardour Manual

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

Perhaps architecture mismatch 32 bit LADSPA or PPC?

To check, in a Terminal window, please you run

file ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA/SOME_Plugin.dylib

(Ardour also accepts .so extension on macOS/X)

[GhostsonAcid]

@x42

file ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA/SOME_Plugin.dylib

@peder

suggest they should be in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA

Well, it’s funny you bring this up, because this is a part of my confusion. -A “LADSPA” directory has never existed on my machine, and searching for any of the LADSPA v1 plugins I had used years ago with Ardour 2.8.16 (which I still have, and all the plugins are still available) yields no results. (I have two /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins folders by the way, -that one, plus another one for the user “User” (i.e., /Users/User/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins), -and both do not and have not contained LADSPA folders/plugins ever.)

-So does Ardour 2.8.16 contain them internally somehow? I wish I could remember how I acquired those plugins in the first place, but that would have been over 10 years ago now…

[GhostsonAcid]

@x42

Perhaps architecture mismatch 32 bit LADSPA or PPC?

I have an Intel Core i7, 15" MacBook Pro from 2011 (A1286) running OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) if that info. helps any of you guess where these plugins might be.

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

The hardware does not matter. OSX 16.6 allows you to run PPC, 32bit intel and 64bit intel software regardless of the actual hardware.

So the interesting part is what architecture the LADSPA plugin files are compiled for.

Since you mentioned Ardour 2.8.16, I assume the plugins are not multi-arch, but only made for 32bit or PPC. And you now use 64bit/intel Ardour.

@GhostsonAcid

A “LADSPA” directory has never existed on my machine

Also check /usr/local/lib/ladspa and /usr/lib/ladspa, Ardour 2.x also used those unix paths on macOS. Perhaps you have also set LADSPA_PATH environment variable?

[GhostsonAcid]

-Not in here:

There are a lot of .dylib files in here, none of which seem to immediately suggest that they are the TAP and CAPS plugins, although maybe some are:

I’ve spent some time using an application called “EasyFind” to search for these plugin files, but with no success. -Searching various terms, names, associated tags, author names, etc… -And file names, file contents, hidden/invisible files, etc… -Nothing.

[seablade]

Use find on the commandline instead.

sudo find / -iname '*FILENAME*' 2>/dev/null

Replace FILENAME with caps, c\* for the C* plugins, tap, etc. Leave the leading and trailing asterisk though.

See if that comes up with anything. Will take a while but a much more thorough search that will traverse application bundles etc.

   Seablade

[GhostsonAcid]

It didn’t take very long. I carefully checked the list(s) it spit out, and yeah, they’re not there. I’m thinking at this point that these particular plugins are on my machine with no names/giveaways in the filenames.

So at this point my question is: The old version of Ardour I have (2.8.16) is still communicating with the plugins. -Can’t I use that Ardour to tell me where they’re located?

Thanks for everyone’s help so far! I really appreciate it.

[GhostsonAcid]

Hmm… I just tried to Refresh my plugins list in Ardour 2.8.16, and it gave me this message, which might be of interest in this case:

(“Can’t get core function pointer”)

[seablade]

@GhostsonAcid

So at this point my question is: The old version of Ardour I have (2.8.16) is still communicating with the plugins. -Can’t I use that Ardour to tell me where they’re located?

So I can’t remember as it has been some time since a ran an older version of OS X, but on current OS X versions you can double click on the process name in Activity Monitor and get a list of Open Files and Ports. If you have a session open in Ardour with those plugins loaded, you should be able to do this and then go through that list till you find them, which should give you the full path to the plugin.

   Seablade

[GhostsonAcid]

@seablade

you can double click on the process name in Activity Monitor and get a list of Open Files and Ports.

-Ding ding ding!

I said earlier maybe they were within the application itself… -I should have checked! haha
I will now see if I can just copy-paste them into a new directory, /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA, and get Ardour 6.9.0 to accept them.(!)

Thanks @seablade !

[seablade]

@GhostsonAcid

I said earlier maybe they were within the application itself… -I should have checked! haha
I will now see if I can just copy-paste them into a new directory, /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA, and get Ardour 6.9.0 to accept them.(!)

So it is likely you will have issues honestly, just given how they are likely compiled. But that is where the file command given above can help identify.

[GhostsonAcid]

@seablade

So it is likely you will have issues honestly, just given how they are likely compiled.

-Yep. -Baby steps, though.
Ardour 6.9.0 now recognizes all the LADSPA plugins in my new folder /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA, however, each one exists in error, with the same message: “no matching architecture in universal wrapper”:

Lame…
I think I might just get the LV2 ports @Majik posted… Then again, having the originals is preferred, as transferring projects from Ardour 2.8.16 into 6.9.0 will then include ALL the old plugins I used for this or that project.

If anyone has any suggestions how I might recompile/install the LADSPAs I found to then work with Ardour 6.9.0, let me know. Thanks!

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

@GhostsonAcid

“no matching architecture in universal wrapper”

Please check with the file command what architecture(s) the plugins are for.
If they’re for 32bit intel, you could use the 32bit version of Ardour 6.

Then again, the better solution would be to just get the latest C* and TAP plugins

[GhostsonAcid]

I assume they’re 32bit, but I don’t know how to interperate these results in terms of 32bit or 64bit:

@x42

Then again, the better solution would be to just get the latest C* and TAP plugins

I agree with you. But will Ardour see the newer plugins as valid substitutes for the originals? In other words, if a project in Ardour 2.8.16 containing a LADSPA v1 TAP plugin was opened in Ardour 6.9.0, will that old plugin be ‘swapped’/superseded by the LV2 version, -preserving the various plugin parameter settings?..
(I suppose I can just try this and answer my own question.)