Linux Instruments For Renoise

Well as some of you may of noticed from recent posts I have lately been using Ubuntu Studio 9.10 as my main OS on my laptop. Main actions over the last week or so have been getting the system working so that I’m (near enough) happy with it so have done little playing with Renoise, although the few quick checks I have done have gone well and it’s seems pretty stable, similar resource usage to WinXP and am quite liking the way Jack works in general (although I do think Renoise may even take the place of my wave editor as can’t find one I’m quite happy with.)

Anyway can anybody point me to some decent soft synths to use with it?

So far I have tried out ZynAddSubFX briefly but it seems a bit long-winded having to open it as a separate program, Jack audio into Renoise to apply efects, Jack the MIDI to play any notes and I’ve not even tried any automation or multi-timbrality/instances yet to see how much more of a headache I can see this becoming if you want to use many synth sounds in on song.

Now I know Renoise assumes every LADSPA plug-in is an Effect so that limits us somewhat. Had a look on KVR and seems to be almost nothing for Linux which is VST. I know there is a new format which has been discussed on here before (sorry can’t remember name and it’s too early in the morning to be searching) but isn’t supported yet but is there even much in the way of instruments yet, if Renoise was to support it from the next version?

Any hints and tips for non-sampled sounds from other Linux users much appreciated (although I had been moving a little towards purely samples and native effects my last couple of productions, in part as it had been so long since I’d done much it’s a good way to try and get back to familiarity with the nuts and bolts of Renoise.)

The name you are looking for is LV2.

If you want to use external soft synths on linux, I think the only way to go is to use some VSTi. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much native VSTi for linux (I’m not even sure I found some, probably only VST effects). So you are bound to use the arcanes of wine to run your windows VSTi, and with my current knowledge I won’t be of much help.

This is all that comes up on KVR and I think some of them are actually LADSPA on the Linux versions, not VST.,

So really not that much choice and Jacking in with external program only way to really do it natively with Linux at the moment :(

LV2 support for R2.6 please ;) Not that I’ve seen how much there is of it yet but at least the one synth I’m currently using could be used from within Renoise, rather than externally with Jack connections and headaches.

http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=7

ive used drumsynth and it works well. the best ive come across(and i’ve searched everywhere!!!). just put it in a folder called “.vst” in your home folder, eg “/home/[username]/.vst/drumsynth.so” .it loads inside renoise as normal.(you might have to scan the folder from the renoise plugin preferences). try out the others and see if they are any good!!

hi,i am using ubuntu as well.the only native plugins ive gotten to work so far with renoise are soundcrab(sf2 player) and peggy 2000 (synth)wich is a decent synth.
theres also bristol synths wich are external but may be of use to you.i dont know the link right off but on the ubuntu forums,under ubuntu studio,theres a ppa you can add
that has many music progs that might be of usehttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1350304 (found the link).
hope this helps!
Rick

I can thoroughly recommend the linux vst synths from loomer.co.uk, I like them so much I paid for them! They both run like a dream on my ubuntu/renoise setup.

+1

I haven’t tried those yet, but I can absolutely recommend Alsa Modular Synth. Like zyn it has to be runas seperate program and you’ll have to fuck around with jack alot, the GUI is a pain in the ass and I never worked out how to get polyphony working BUT!!! (big but) It sounds amazing! Oscillators are great, filters awesome, you can use ladspa plugins in it (sometimes) and it takes midi for every one of its many many parameters. You will get lost inside this synth… And its free.

I would recommend editing the presets to get going. The multi oscilator ones are great. Massive brass!

You’ll get a setup running in max half an hour.
It’s good to your processor too. I run it on a crap laptop from five years ago without too much trouble.

Hi all,

First post here :) and I’m another linux fan. Definite +1 for Alsa Modular Synth, it sounds massive! Also I’ve recently been playing with JX-10 VST plugin (part of the mda collection). It’s not a hugely complex synth, but it has plenty of potential and good sounds. The presets are quite useful too, and it works great alongside renoise track effects.

And yes please, LV2 support for renoise!

I’ve just set up a blog about getting up and running with linux audio (specifically mint 8). It’s early days yet, but I want to cover renoise, synths etc in the future. Right now I’m just getting round to documenting mint 8 configuration for audio. Link is in my sig.

I understand that this is a vicious circle, but it’s not likely that Renoise is going to support LV2 until there will be a good number of stable LV2 projects

Yes, I understand. Luckily I have some hardware synths to play with, so the lack of plugins in the linux world isn’t too bad. And with clever use of samples with DSP effects, renoise becomes an instrument in itself :)

There are some new linuxVST plugins here - compatible with renoise - there are also LV2 and JACK versions for use with other DAWs and linux audio applications:

http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk

I discovered at the weekend that the Windows version of Renoise seems to work perfectly in Wine 1.1.41, with the only issues being increased audio latency and some odd background colouring of the shortcuts in menu items.

However, loading of Windows VSTs seemed fine, which is much easier than trying to connect the Linux Renoise to a Wine-emulated VST plugin.

:drummer:

Many great LV2 plugins exist for GNU/Linux…

Renoise should be able to use them…

Why Ardour is one step afterfoward Renoise ?

:panic:

Its true that there are some good LV2 plugins around - but I suspect that one of the obstacles to wider adoption is that a lot of the plugins you see working in Ardour are tied to using the Gtk toolkit for their UI. I would expect this might make it difficult to integrate with a host such as renoise - the linuxDSP LV2 plugins have been specifically designed from the beginning to work with any host regardless of its UI architecture, so they display the same in a host that uses Qt e.g. Qtractor, as they do in a host that uses Gtk e.g. ardour, and of course the GUI in the VST versions uses XLib, so they are compatible with just about any linux host application that supports linux VSTs e.g. Renoise, energyXT, Qtractor (with VST support) JOST etc.

Some cool plugins LinuxDSP but at the same time one of the worst layed out sites i have seen for a long time

:drummer:

Calf plugins, and Invada plugins are great too…

:guitar:

Seems to be pretty much all either LV2 (not supported) or Jack as far as synths recommended. Seems there really is not much in the way of software instruments to use within Renoise itself and Jacking into a standalone application (with the headaches of loading them up each session and finding the right preset etc each time) is the only way to go. At least until LV2 support comes along for the few of those we are starting to see.

Or maybe it’s time to truly dive into my Virus B properly. Although that’s not going to help when messing around at work on the lappy.

Lash support would be cool, then you could save configurations and reload them easily :)

there are the http://code.google.com/p/juced/, loomer.co.uk, discovery’s discodsp in the proprietary/free field

a list is here: http://www.linux-vst.com/

some proprietary plugins (like the discodsp/loomer are worth to try) also the juced!