I wasn’t aware of Kapitonov guitar amp emulation. Linux users seem to have much to choose from nowadays. I’m lucky to have two Line6 hardware devices for guitar amp, cabinet and effects emulation so I don’t ever have to fight with computer latency, but I wonder what a bit of a guitar amp emulation would do to vocals.
I like these plugins, the kpp_octaver is really fine. Also, there is a bug withe the Tubeamp with Ardour6/Mixbus5 (and probably 6 too) with one parameter (amps profiles). The dev knows it and is working on.
For the record one of my favorite hidden tricks for vocals on occasion was to utilize the C* Tube Amp simulator on the vocal. This also gets listed as CAPS plugins on occasion, an older one, but still nice. Haven’t done that particular trick in a while, should go back and listen to it again.
SeabladeYou can see the effects chain in the screenshot I provided.
The a-* plugins are unbranded versions of existing plugins (zam-eq, zam-comp, b-reverb, etc) with the intention to provide some basic bread & butter processors to get started with.
They are an initiative by Damien Zammit, who volunteered to curate them.
Eventually you probably want to extend your plugin arsenal. This is a very subjective matter, and it’s not realistic for Ardour to provide plugins beyond the basics.
I wonder how hard it would be to use add plugin code or another plugin and re brand certain ones I like
The hard part will be to maintain it; keep in mind that bundled plugins are tried to Ardour release cycles.
Damien from zamaudio regularly contributes to Ardour, and he volunteered to maintain the a-* plugins, most of which are based on code he wrote (I wrote the other ones). It is unlikely that we can incorporate 3rd party software and keep it up to date.
Just have a look how rapidly LSP plugins evolve. Thst’s only one example. Even GNU/Linux distros have a hard time to keep up with packaging, and they have a lot more resources than the ardour-dev team.
Another aspect was to keep a-* plugins neutral without a specific flavor or genre and timeless. As I said just bare bread & butter. We’d like to avoid bundling shovel-ware that is of little use to the majority of users.
If we ask 10 users what plugins they like, we’ll get 10 different answers 
As much as I sometimes dislike the concept of plugins, their great value is that they are maintained decentrally, and it’s relatively easy to acquire them from respective parties.
Perhaps a way forward is to start a “favorite plugins” thread that includes direct download links. Along the lines of https://kx.studio/Repositories:Plugins
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Understood, there is options for sure and plugins are good to have for this very reason. I guess one one the things I miss from my proprietary plugin collection is good sounding analog moddled plugins, but maybe Linux has enough, I just have to give Linux another run and see what happends.
Your idea of a “favs plugins & how to get them” is a very valuable one 
I personally did this in a txt file on my backup drive for the post install process of my laptop, did not have to use it yet but in some years when I will do a fresh install, will be helpful.
A bit off topic, but I was curious if you had any plans to make a LV2 version of Zita-rev1?
I’ll answer for @x42 given he pointed this out to me: https://faust.grame.fr/tools/editor/?code=https://faust.grame.fr/doc/examples/img/src/exfaust115/exfaust115.dsp
If you click on the yellow truck icon on the left, you can create all sorts of exports including Linux LV2! The only thing I needed to change defaults for was delay (default in JACK version is 40ms not 60ms) and I think the volume output needed to be moved to 0dB (which, of course, is non-existent in the JACK version).
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I have a nagging feeling you’ve got a case of “conformation bias” here.
You’re told that your bought, proprietary plugins are “analog modeled” and therefore you “know” that they “sound better” than the open source ones people like Robin and Damien are giving you for free.
Have you done any blind test to see if your proprietary plugins really sound better than the a- ones or the other, free and open source ones?
If you think the certain plugins you like should be freely available in Linux you should either petition the creators to release them under a free and open source license, reverse engineer them yourself, start a fundraiser to pay someone to do it or ask or pay someone to create free and open source versions of the analog equipment of your particular desire.
If you’ve done that and the Ardour developers still want to only include their “generic” plugins you’re free to fork the project and create your own Ardour-AM (Analog Modeled) version.
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Hey, thanks for your response, i understand what you are saying, I have used both, my Mac OS setup and then my Linux setup, I was using mixbus 32c and I have used ardour as well, but what I found was some analog plugins do sound a certain way compared to stock regular eq, the stock eq doesn’t have to be from Linux, there is good Linux plugins and eqs but I I do find myself missing out in regards to some of my analog eq plugins are capable and and able to add a bit of warmth and body to some recordings, I even listened to comparisons and I do hear a difference, it’s not my intent to be hard on Linux but there is a difference overall, I know there is overtone plugins, they do have some nice plugins I have yet to listen to and try but when I use the calf plugins, eq10, and other plugins Linux has to offer I’m not sure if I’m getting the results I’m looking for.
Hey that website I checked it out, what does it do, I saw that it’s used for audio DSP, can people modify existing plugins and export them as Linux audio plugins
x42 has said here on the forum that Calf plugins will introduce all sorts of errors in the sound (links below).
When I was using calf plugin and others such as eq10q, I did feel at times the plugins felt kinda odd, but for the calf I did notice weird sounds while adjusting knobs, and overall I definitely felt I was missing out, but I did have mixbus 32c so it did help as I do like the Harrison eqs and compression so far, but for the Linux open source, I do know of LSP plugins but I really dislike their GUI and I find it like a circus at times, I do know of x42 eq and others, has anyone found better sounding plugins then calf for eq, compression, saturation etc. I’m not an expert on audio on a highly technical level but I definitely don’t want to be using plugins that cause phasing issues, artifacts, or just low quality dsp programing On my sessions when I have lots of amazing proprietary plugins from some of the best in the industry, I still love Linux and willing to still use it but I want to make sure I find the Good plugins. Calf plugins I do still like but I feel they are cheap plugins
If an analog sound is so important to you, I wonder if you should be using analog outboard gear instead of plugins? You could even record to tape, although that’s expensive. I watched a documentary a few weeks ago (not yet publicly available) by the filmmaker Myles O’Reilly about the analog audio engineer Julie McLarnon; she had a lot of interesting things to say about the virtues of analog; you can read a bit about her and her ethos here: https://www.juliemclarnon.com/blog
I hear you, but investing in analog gear is not in my price range unfortunately but on the other side I can just use my paid and free plugins I have on Mac and Windows, problem solved for now, however I do plan on using Linux more for computer work and audio production so I’m trying to see what my options are, but I can use both for certain things as well.
The plugins I routinely install on my machines are: x42 plugins, Zam plugins, Invada studio plugins, Noise repellent, Dragonfly reverb, Zita plugins, MDA plugins, LSP plugins, SWH plugins and TAP plugins (don’t use Tap Scaling Limiter it’s design is broken and it will introduce artifacts).
You could explore these and see if some of them does what you need.
I think I’ve had all of those on my previous setup, I also had some proprietary plugins that had Linux support, but I also have some Harrison plugins are well, I think x42-eq is a good we, i would have to just use it instead of calf plugins or eq10