This brings the builtin, LV2, and VAMP effects inline with the
Audio Units, LADSPA, and VST effects. All effects now share
a common UI.
This gives all effects (though not implemented for all):
User and factory preset capability
Preset import/export capability
Shared or private configuration options
Builtin effects can now be migrated to RTP, depending on algorithm.
LV2 effects now support graphical interfaces if the plugin supplies one.
Nyquist prompt enhanced to provide some features of the Nyquist Workbench.
It may not look like it, but this was a LOT of work, so trust me, there
WILL be problems and everything effect related should be suspect. Keep
a sharp eye (or two) open.
Gale found that the previous fix for bug #857 didn't
completely address all crashes.
In this case, the sequence of events:
1) Dynamic module is added to list of module using its name, "VST Effects"
2) Language is set (during init) to one that has "VST Effects" translated
3) Language is changed to something else via preferences, which changes
translation of "VST Effects" to something else.
4) During termination, the module is deleted, but since the language
has now changed due to translation, it isn't deleted from the list
of modules
5) An attempt is made to delete the next module, which happens to be
the same one becuase it was never removed from the list.
6) Boom...
Even though this is only a P2, I felt it would be
quite bothersome for the users and might cause some
confusion.
The problem was the the wxLocale was being deleted
before all usage of it was complete. The fix was
to explicitly delete the plugin and module managers.
I've added some of the new plugin stuff to LV2, Nyquist, and
Vamp so that they play better in the new system. They no
longer get bunched in with the Audacity effects when sorting
or grouping the menus. They have not been fully converted
but they should be good for 2.1.0.
Nyquist plugins now include ";author" and ";copyright"
statements.
Added the 4 new Nyquist plugins to the Windows build.
Audiounits are still coming...had to push them to the back
burner to get this other stuff out of the way.
Scanning for new plugins has been improved so that newly
discovered ones will be shown to the user when Audacity starts.
Effects menu sorting has been fixed and improved.
Disabling effect types in Preferences works again and you
no longer have to restart Audacity for them the change to work.
Effect usage in chains works again.
Plugin registration dialog code simplified a bit.
Group names in the pluginregistry are now base64 encoded. I
never really thought about it, but wxFileConfig group names
are case insensitive and since I was using the group name as
the plugin ID, I ran into a conflict on Linux where there
were two plugins with the same name, just different case. (And
they were different plugins.) Hoping all of this will change
when/if the config file gets converted to XML. (wx3 if finally
including XML support)
A fair amount of cleanup of this new code has been done and
will continue as more stuff is converted.
The big thing is the common efffects UI. Right now Ladspa and VST
have been converted to use it and Audiounits will be next. It makes
everything nice and consistent while reducing the clutter in the
dialog.
Other goodies are:
Ladspa effects now show output controls when supplied by the effect
Ladspa effects now work fine as Analyze type effects
Ladspa now has user presets
VST effects dialog is now less cluttered...leaving more room for the effect
Ladspa and VST effects now share a common UI
Ladspa and VST effects are now usable in chains
Ladspa and VST effects now handle user presets the same way
Currently active effects settings automatically saved and reloaded
Can now do numeric range checking on input fields.
And, as always, plenty of critter squashing.
This gets meter type VST effects working again by extending the
The master now maintains his own internal buffers and sums (mixes) all
playing tracks into those buffers. The buffers are then fed into the
VST effect that is presented to the user. This allows the effect to
provide feedback to the user if it support it. Such effects may display
meters or clipping indicators.
Several issues with treading have also been corrected (hopefully ;-)).
These showed up mostly on Linux, but could have happened on the others
as well.
The realtime support is no longer limited to 2 channels per logical
track. Once support for more channels is added, this should be ready
for it.
The rack dialog can now be toggled via the edit toolbar button. It
doesn't stay pressed because the closing of the dialog would have to
be communicated back to the toolbar.
As the rack is updated with new or removed effects or active state
changed, all effects in the active list were shutdown and all effects
in the updated list were initialized. This now shuts down only the
effects no longer in the list and initializes only new ones.
The rack now uses wxBitmapButton instead of Audacity's AButton. The
AButton has a timing issue that prevents it from being deleted while
processing the click event. I looked into it, but gave up and switched
to the wxBitmapButton. Unfortunately, there's a problem with the
wxBitmapButton as well...at least on my setup here. Either the bitmaps
are being scaled or antialiased. Will have to get feedback on this.
I finally figured out why some VSTs didn't seem to do anything in
realtime, at least in my case anyway. I've installed a lot of demo
VSTs and while they work in "batch/offline" mode, some of them will
not work in realtime since vendors tend to remove automation as one
of the demo limitations.
More changes coming shortly...
I've made it where you can enable and disable via experimentals:
EXPERIMENTAL_REALTIME_EFFECTS
EXPERIMENTAL_EFFECTS_RACK
You will notice that, as of now, the only effects currently set up for
realtime are VSTs. Now that this is in, I will start converting the
rest.
As I start to convert the effects, the astute of you may notice that
they no longer directly access tracks or any "internal" Audacity
objects. This isolates the effects from changes in Audacity and makes
it much easier to add new ones.
Anyway, all 3 platforms can now display VST effects in graphical mode.
Yes, that means Linux too. There are quite a few VSTs for Linux if
you search for them.
The so-called "rack" definitely needs some discussion, work, and attention
from someone much better at graphics than me. I'm not really sure it should
stay in as-is. I'd originally planned for it to be simply a utility window
where you can store your (preconfigured) favorite effects. It should probably
revert back to that idea.
You may notice that this DOES include the API work I did. The realtime effects
were too tied to it and I didn't want to redo the whole thing. As I mentioned
elsewhere, the API stuff may or may not be very future proof.
So, let the critter complaints commence. I absolute KNOW there will be some.
(I know I'll be hearing from the Linux peeps pretty darn quickly. ;-))
