Ardour
Using Windows VST
Plugins on Linux
Thanks to the
combined work of Torben Hohn, Kjetil Mattheusen, Paul Davis
and a few other developers, it is possible to use Windows
VST plugins (that is, plugins in VST format built and
distributed for the Windows platforms) on Ardour running on
Linux.
However, doing
so has three substantial downsides:
-
It requires
a special build of Ardour that is fundamentally very
different from normal builds
-
Support
depends on Wine, a Windows "emulator"
-
As usual
with plugins, a crashing plugin will take Ardour down
with it—and crashes in Windows VST plugins are more
likely when used in this way
The dependence
on Wine makes it almost impossible for the Ardour project to
support this feature. Wine's functionality generally
improves over time, but any given release of Wine may behave
worse with some or all Windows VST plugins. It may even just
crash Ardour completely.
Step back and
think about what "using Windows VSTs" really means: taking
bits of software written with only one idea in mind—running
on the Windows platform—and then trying to use them on an
entirely different platform. It is a bit of a miracle
(thanks largely to the incredible work done by the Wine
project) that it works at all. But is this the basis of a
stable, reliable DAW for a non-Windows platform? Getting
Ardour on Linux to pretend that its really a Windows
application running on Windows?
It is
understandable that there are many outstanding plugins
available as Windows VSTs and, that in many cases, no
equivalent is available for Linux. If a workflow is so
dependent on those plugins, Ardour should be used on Windows
(or potentially used with an actual Windows VST host running
inside of Wine). If the effort can be made, a better
environment can be obtained by using a normal build of
Ardour and exploring the world of plugins built to run on
Linux natively. This covers LADSPA, LV2 and Linux VST
formats