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Qtractor 0.5.3 - The Delta Whisky natural cask strength!

TYOQA is over.

Qtractor 0.5.3 (delta whisky) drops from angels share!

nuff said.

Impromptu highlights:

  • Clip drag-and-move stepping with keyboard arrow-keys (FIX)
  • Plugin parameter automation GUI feedback (FIX)
  • LV2 plugin Qt4 GUI support (FIX)
  • Clip/Split on current play-head location (FIX)

Slaintheva!

Website:

http://qtractor.sourceforge.net

Project page:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor

Downloads:

  • source tarball:
    qtractor-0.5.3.tar.gz
  • source package (openSUSE 12.1):
    qtractor-0.5.3-2.rncbc.suse121.src.rpm
  • binary packages (openSUSE 12.1):
    qtractor-0.5.3-2.rncbc.suse121.i586.rpm
    qtractor-0.5.3-2.rncbc.suse121.x86_64.rpm
  • once upon the time, eons ago: : user manual:
    qtractor-0.3.0-user-manual.pdf
  • Weblog (upstream support):

    http://www.rncbc.org

    License:

    Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.

    Change-log:

    • Fixed initial LV2 plugin UI widget/window titles.
    • Attempt to get any brand new LV2 plugins Qt4 enabled UI's working on either slv2 and lilv build modes ;) (nailed by falkTX, thanks).
    • Current clip is ultimately inferred from the one under the play-head position and current selected track; the last one clicked over and/or selected still has precedence (following request by Loiugi Verona).
    • Drag-moving clips horizontally with the keyboard arrow-keys just got a step better with a fixed minimum of one pixel, depending still on the current snap-per-beat setting and horizontal zoom level (as suggested by Louigi Verona, thanks).
    • Get maximum and minimum peak values back when drawing audio waveforms.- Automation play/feedback has been missed to show on those plugins that provide their own GUI, now on par with all the rest 'homebrew' widgets (eg. generic plugin properties dialog).
    • All plugin parameters automation and selection were left inaccessible until the generic native plugin dialog is eventually shown, now fixed (re. bug #3463916).

    Donate to rncbc.org

    Enjoy && Happy New Year!

Comments

Hi !
I've successfully built Qtractor from SVN today in the hopes to get Windows VST support working (however, this might be a "user error", too). Here are my configure options:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-vst=~/Source/qtractor-svn/vstsdk2.4/pluginterfaces/vst2.x/ --enable-lilv --enable-suil --enable-lv2-state

The package built and installed successfully. Hehe, it runs, too.

However, I'm not seeing any Windows VST plugins in the plugin browser. I do see "dssi-vst" (twice) but it simply cannot be added to the plugin list. Maybe that is the problem ? Running "vsthost" by itself works just fine (as well using both fst and dssi-vst via "festige".

I guess my question is this: How do I actually add a Windows VST(i) to the channel plugins ?

rncbc's picture

windows VST are indeed supported through dssi-vst (and wine); windows VST dll's should be located by VST_PATH environment variable search path and listed on qtractor under DSSI plugin type.

cheers

That's odd:

$ echo $VST_PATH
/usr/lib/vst:/usr/local/lib/vst:/usr/lib32/vst:/home/stonecut/.vst

$ ls /usr/lib/vst/ | grep .dll
Classic Auto-Filter.dll
Massive.dll

$ vsthost Massive.dll
-> Works fine.

In Qtractor: Add Track -> Plugins -> No Massive or Classic Auto-Filter found anywhere :( Trying to add "dssi-vst" as plugin directly does nothing (doesn't come up in list).

What can I do to troubleshoot the issue further ?

Ok, it appears I'm closing in on the issue: I copied a new plugin over "Sound Delay.dll". Now when I launch Qtractor I can see that RemoteVSTClient has updated the cache to include the new plugin. However, no matter what I try I cannot get Massive.dll and Classic Auto-Filter.dll to show up. I tried deleting them from there and readding them but no dice.
Are there any particular restrictions regarding VST plugins ?

rncbc's picture

i'll say it again, slowly:)

  1. windows VSTs are supported through DSSI-VST and WINE.
  2. DSSI-VST looks for windows VSTs executables (.dll) under the directories listed on VST_PATH environment variable.
  3. windows VSTs that are eventually found by DSSI-VST (dssi-vst-scanner) are listed on qtractor as of the "DSSI" type; do not ever expect to find them under "VST" plugin type which stands for native linux VSTs (.so), not windows.

if you still cannot find your way through this indirection, please tell what is the output of:

dssi_list_plugins -v

with special attention due to the ones under .../dssi-vst.so ...

anyways, also do try to set VST_PATH variable to directories with windows VSTs and only.

also take a look to some ramblings and comments around here:

hth.
cheers

I finally understand how this one will work. thanks for giving me this one.

I've read other posts and I cannot find any suser-j.engelh repository to get kernel-rt. I get this error when I try to start qjackctl:
12:50:18.709 Patchbay deactivated.
12:50:18.714 Statistics reset.
12:50:18.715 Could not open ALSA sequencer as a client. ALSA MIDI patchbay will be not available.
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:457:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: Permission denied
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server socket
jack server is not running or cannot be started

what do I need to do to make it run? I want to hook my keyboard up for recording...

rncbc's picture

it seems you need alsa sequencer kernel module loaded, otherwise you won't get any midi out qtractor and several other midi applications...

iirc, from the YaST \ Hardware \ Sound settings panel, have the "Start sequencer" option tuned on and that's all. you only have to do it once.

cheers

I downloaded the source but how do I get all of its dependencies?

rncbc's picture

add the great "Packman" repository to your YaST \ Software \ Software Repositories and there everything you need is readily available for install.

you must have the following installed before running qtractor (-devel for building from source):

libqt4(-devel), libjack(-devel), alsa(-devel), libsndfile(-devel), libsamplerate(-devel), libvorbis(-devel), libmad(-devel), dssi(-devel), liblo(-devel), librubberband(-devel), slv2(-devel)

and all sub-dependencies which yast/zypper will command you to follow install.

hth.
cheers

thanks for your quick response. I have it running now. Just have a big problem with installing dssi-vst. when Before running make, I set the directories in the make file and I'm using the vstsdk2.4 but when I run make, I get this error only on dssi-vst-server.cpp:

wineg++ -m32 -I./vstsdk2.4/pluginterfaces/vst2.x -Wall -fPIC dssi-vst-server.cpp -o dssi-vst-server -L. -lremoteplugin.w32 -lpthread
/usr/bin/ld: Relocatable linking with relocations from format elf64-x86-64 (/usr/lib64/wine/libwinecrt0.a(exe_entry.o)) to format elf32-i386 (dssi-vst-server.khOzyk.o) is not supported
winebuild: /usr/bin/ld failed with status 1
winegcc: winebuild failed
make: *** [dssi-vst-server.exe.so] Error 2

Everything before that had no problems with the linking so it doesn't make any sense to me. Here is my make file:


DSSIDIR = /usr/lib64/dssi
LADSPADIR = /usr/lib64/ladspa
BINDIR = /usr/local/bin

# To compile with the VeSTige compatibility header:
#CXXFLAGS = -Ivestige -Wall -fPIC

# To compile with the official VST SDK v2.4r2:
CXXFLAGS = -I./vstsdk2.4/pluginterfaces/vst2.x -Wall -fPIC

LDFLAGS =

TARGETS = dssi-vst-server.exe.so \
dssi-vst-scanner.exe.so \
dssi-vst.so \
dssi-vst_gui \
vsthost

HEADERS = remoteplugin.h \
remotepluginclient.h \
remotepluginserver.h \
remotevstclient.h \
rdwrops.h \
paths.h

OBJECTS = remotevstclient.o \
remotepluginclient.o \
remotepluginserver.o \
rdwrops.o \
paths.o

OBJECTS_W32 = remotepluginclient.w32.o \
remotepluginserver.w32.o \
rdwrops.w32.o \
paths.w32.o

all: $(TARGETS)

install: all
mkdir -p $(DSSIDIR)/dssi-vst
mkdir -p $(LADSPADIR)
mkdir -p $(BINDIR)
install dssi-vst.so $(DSSIDIR)
install dssi-vst.so $(LADSPADIR)
install dssi-vst-server.exe.so dssi-vst-server dssi-vst-scanner.exe.so dssi-vst-scanner dssi-vst_gui $(DSSIDIR)/dssi-vst
install vsthost $(BINDIR)

clean:
rm -f $(OBJECTS) $(OBJECTS_W32) libremoteplugin.a libremoteplugin.w32.a

distclean: clean
rm -f $(TARGETS) dssi-vst-scanner dssi-vst-server *~ *.bak

%.exe.so: %.cpp libremoteplugin.w32.a $(HEADERS)
wineg++ -m32 $(CXXFLAGS) $< -o $* $(LDFLAGS) -L. -lremoteplugin.w32 -lpthread

libremoteplugin.a: remotepluginclient.o remotepluginserver.o rdwrops.o paths.o
ar r $@ $^

libremoteplugin.w32.a: remotepluginclient.w32.o remotepluginserver.w32.o rdwrops.w32.o paths.w32.o
ar r $@ $^

%.w32.o: %.cpp $(HEADERS)
wineg++ -m32 $(CXXFLAGS) $< -c -o $@

%.o: %.cpp $(HEADERS)
g++ $(CXXFLAGS) $< -c

dssi-vst.so: dssi-vst.cpp libremoteplugin.a remotevstclient.o $(HEADERS)
g++ -shared -Wl,-Bsymbolic -g3 $(CXXFLAGS) -o dssi-vst.so dssi-vst.cpp remotevstclient.o $(LDFLAGS) -L. -lremoteplugin -lasound

vsthost: vsthost.cpp libremoteplugin.a remotevstclient.o $(HEADERS)
g++ $(CXXFLAGS) vsthost.cpp remotevstclient.o -o vsthost $(LDFLAGS) -L. -lremoteplugin -ljack -lasound -lpthread

dssi-vst_gui: dssi-vst_gui.cpp rdwrops.h
g++ $(CXXFLAGS) dssi-vst_gui.cpp rdwrops.o -o dssi-vst_gui $(LDFLAGS) -llo

Any ideas of what I can do to get this working? I got some VSTi's I would really like to be able to use... I might never login to windows again after this!

rncbc's picture

i'm afraid we're both on the same boat (dssi-vst fails to build on opensuse 12.1 x86_64).

afaics, you're compiling dssi-vst against wine-32bit on a 64bit system. there's nothing wrong with that. the actual problem is that there's one 32/64-bit compatibility package missing on the opensuse 12.1 repos and build service--i think it's should be called wine-devel-32bit.

if you're brave enough you could (re)try the whole wine (re)installation with wine-snapshot from the community repos--i believe the missing package is there alright--however do all that on your own risk ;)

byee

Hello Rai Nuno Capela,
While searching for a linux-native 'long term replacement' for (wined) REAPER (as I use several Win-VSTs), I played around with QTRACTOR today.
I encountered a similar problem as StoneCut - whenever I go to View > Options > Plugins and look around for the (dssi-vst wrapped) DSSI plugins, none are listed. Pointing the dialog to my vst directory (/home/[user]/vst = standard search path) won't help. Neither does reloading the session, restarting QTRACTOR, logging off/on again.
FUNNY thing is:
If I add a new track and (right click) for the tracks' properties, opening plugins' tab, all my (dssi-vst wrapped) Win Vst plugins are existant and choosable :)
I can add which ever I like - all works fine and as expected then!
Again: I can use all my plugins and they work as expected - they simply do not show in the View > Options > Plugins dialog, no matter whatever I do.
So there seems to be a bug /problem in QTRACTOR's communication with dssi-vst?!?

qtractor version is 0.5.3-1 (from Debian testing repo)
dssi-vst version is 0.9.2-1 (from Debian sid repo)
wine version is 1.4~rc1-0.1 (from WineHq, compiled for Debian sid)
system is running 3.2.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-686 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT i686 GNU/Linux
$VST_PATH is set (to /home/[user]/vst - which is correct)
dssi_list_plugins -v gives the whole bunch of plugins:
warning: DSSI_PATH not set, defaulting to '/usr/local/lib/dssi:/usr/lib/dssi'
-- warning: couldn't open DSSI_PATH directory element '/usr/local/lib/dssi'
-- scanning directory /usr/lib/dssi
/usr/lib/dssi/dssi-vst.so
RemoteVSTClient: all cache files are up-to-date, not running scanner
mda*Leslie.dll mda Leslie.dll VST
mda*TestTone.dll mda TestTone.dll VST
mda*SubSynth.dll mda SubSynth.dll VST
mda*Degrade.dll mda Degrade.dll VST
[...]
...and so on, and so forth...

Even invoking dssi-vst-scanner manually or renaming some vst .dll to force a rescan do not change anything for qtractor.

Anyway, I appreciate your program and will test it out a little further the next days :)

Cheers, Chris

rncbc's picture

the View/Options.../Plugins dialog tab shows and lets you setup search paths, not plugins

there's no way you can see any plugins on that dialog, be that DSSI or any other type, as it is not meant to show any but a list of directories, not files.

another thing you might have confused is that Win32-VST plugins (.dll) are searched via dssi-vst-scanner, a component of dssi-vst, which search path is given by VST_PATH environment variable.

the search paths in the plugins tab on the options dialog above does not apply here. the only relevant setting is the one related to DSSI plugin type, where the exact dssi-vst proxy-plugin should be found.

hth.
cheers

Hello again

and thanks for your fast reply and the given clarification -
I really misunderstood that View > Options > Plugins dialog, thinking it would show the plugins found in those given pathes.

And, no, I haven't misunderstood the mechanism of dssi-vst. I do know dssi-vst-scanner(.exe(.so)) scans for Win32-VST plugins (.dll) libraries in $VST_PATH, as I have written this explicitly in my last post.

Two more questions I have (if I may) -
I used to patch dssi.h /dssi-vst-0.9 with aderyabins chunk patches (works well with REAPER and MusE -I actually try on a local build which merges recent rt patch code (from koppis github branch), too) - do you know of any problems /isssues concerning the use of QTRACTOR with chunks-patched dssi-vst (yet)?
(I'll try this the next days..)

Second - is there a way to merge /dock the 'Mixer' window into the main window (as a 'child window'), as this can be done with the 'Messages' and the 'Files' dislplay (I haven't looked into your code yet)?

Regards, Chris

rncbc's picture

re.do you know of any problems /isssues concerning the use of QTRACTOR with chunks-patched dssi-vst (yet)?
can't really tell, i guess it's ok. i don't use dssi-vst that much nor winvsts at all :) sorry.

re. is there a way to merge /dock the 'Mixer' window into the main window?
nope. the mixer window is a stand-alone top-level, tool window of its own--might get handy on a dual monitor setup--note there's this View/Options.../General/Keep tool windows always on top option, which might help in some situations.

the mode you ask was indeed featured long ago when qtractor was still an early qt3 application (5y+). not anymore. sorry.

byee.

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