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Comment by codedokode | Hacker News Reader

Ardour's UI is complicated compared to, for example, Ableton Live. For example, I have added a MIDI track and it is unclear how to add notes to it. Right clicking on a track doesn't give an option to do that.

Also on Linux it supports only rarely used plugin formats (LV2, Linux VST), for which there are little plugins.

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> I have added a MIDI track and it is unclear how to add notes to it. Right clicking on a track doesn't give an option to do that.

https://manual.ardour.org/working-with-midi/create-midi-regi...

https://manual.ardour.org/working-with-midi/add-new-notes/

> Also on Linux it supports only rarely used plugin formats (LV2, Linux VST)

https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge

I many times used Ableton ... tbh it's not less complicated then Ardour. You can use yabridge for Win vsts ... works quite good for the most plugins IMHO but on kx.studio you find a hell lot of Linux native plugins ... don't look as fancy as commercial ones but they do what they should do. Music production in Linux is often a bit more hackyhack but it's ok so far. At least this are all tools ... using them is the real art behind that.

> Also on Linux it supports only rarely used plugin formats (LV2, Linux VST), for which there are little plugins.

Ardour used to have built-in support for Windows VST via WINE. It was so bad (as in unstable, unpredictable) it was disabled by default and was eventually removed. Yabridge is the usual recommendation to people who really want/need it.

> Also on Linux it supports only rarely used plugin formats (LV2, Linux VST), for which there are little plugins.

On Linux, Ardour supports LADSPA, LV2, VST2 and VST3. Those are the most widely used plugin formats. What are you missing exactly?

Those are rarely used formats, most of plugins are either in Windows formats like VST, or in Mac formats.

? VST is a cross-platform plugin format, supported by Ardour. I have no idea what you are looking for...

Ardour supports only Linux VST (rarely used, unpopular format). Most of plugins use Windows VST, i.e. they are distributed as Windows-compatible DLL.

> Ardour supports only Linux VST (rarely used, unpopular format).

"Linux VST" and "Windows VST" are not plugin formats. "VST" is the format, "Windows" and "Linux" are platforms. Do you seriously expect a Linux app to run Windows plugins out-of-the box?

> Most of plugins use Windows VST, i.e. they are distributed as Windows-compatible DLL.

Yes, most (commerical) plugin companies only provide Windows and macOS binaries. But how is that Ardour's fault? You can run Ardour on Windows on macOS. If you really want to use Linux and you need to use Windows-only plugins, you can either run Ardour in Wine or use a plugin bridge such as yabridge.

Windows VSTs require a Windows emulation layer.

For Mac VSTs and AU there is no (at least, no stable) emulation layer on Linux.

RTAS SDK is proprietary.

If it supports VST, I imagine yabridge would work fine to allow you to use Windows VST.

https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge

Looks like a pain to install (doesn't support Fedora 37, isn't included in standard Fedora repositories, requires to use non-standard Wine version).

None of that is Ardour's fault, but the 'fault' of plugin developers not providing Linux binaries in the first place.

If nobody provides Linux binaries then maybe it is better to support Windows binaries out of the box?

How? By bundling WINE? No thanks.

Yes because it's trivial to dynamically link to a windows dll from a linux program

For Fedora use this copr https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/patrickl/yabridge/

The link says that it supports only Fedora 38. Also, the main page for COPR says (in a small font): "NOTE: Copr is not yet officially supported by Fedora Infrastructure.". As I understand, it is the repository for packages uploaded by random anonymous users (not related to the authors of yabridge or Fedora).

> The link says that it supports only Fedora 38

That is correct. I didn't think specifically about Fedora 37; it's been a while since I upgraded to 38. I couldn't find F37 builds, even though that's around the time I tested yabridge. You might consider switching to 38 anyway, as 37 is less than two months away from it reaching EOL -- F39 release date (17 October) + 30 days.

> As I understand, it is the repository for packages uploaded by random anonymous users (not related to the authors of yabridge or Fedora).

That is mostly correct. It was not uploaded, but built on the Fedora infrastructure, following the RPM spec you can reach from the builds tab [1], for example the latest change located here [2].

There is an amount of trust you have to give to the copr author, but you can also check the rpm spec file [3]. Important quick checks are around the source0 lines.

> Also, the main page for COPR says (in a small font): "NOTE: Copr is not yet officially supported by Fedora Infrastructure."

Getting a package shipped into the Fedora base repositories seems rather bureaucratic and I understand any hacker that doesn't want to use their own time to deal with that.

[1] https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/patrickl/yabridge/bu...

[2] https://copr-dist-git.fedorainfracloud.org/cgit/patrickl/yab...

[3] https://copr-dist-git.fedorainfracloud.org/cgit/patrickl/yab...

Once installed I've found it to work pretty much flawlessly, very few windows plugins don't work with it.

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