Hello
Although I’ve been using Renoise for about ten years and am not a beginner, I am a total noob with Linux, which I’m trying to get my head around for the first time. I’ve got it all set up and working lovely, but I’m a bit puzzled by the use of plug in synths. I can see there’s various options and wrappers like Festige and so on, but I just want to be clear… is it right that plugins in Linux are not like they are in Windows? I mean, do you have to load them up externally and route to them through Jack? So they’re like external synths? Or is there a way to use - say - a Loomer synth in Renoise just like a VST in the windows version, with full access to its parameters for automation and everything?
Sorry for the poorly formed question. It reflects my confusion. I see people saying Linux is ace (and I think it is too) but this one thing is not at all ace, unless I’m missing something obvious.
I really like having everything all in one place running under Renoise, rather than things wired all over the place. It reminds me of the bad old days rewiring Reason into Cubase.
There are three types of plugins that work on linux that are supported by renoise: LADSPA plugins for effects, DSSI for instruments, and VST plugins which works exactly the same way they work on windows and mac.
There are plenty of open source LADSPA and DSSI plugins available and you can probably find many of them from your distributions official packages.
For VSTs, there must be linux version available for it to work, just like you need mac version for mac and windows version for windows. There are also some VST wrappers that are trying to enable the use of windows VSTs on linux with wine, but I’ve personally never used them, and knowing wine they probably don’t work too well most of the time.
In case of Loomer synth where there is native linux version you should be able to simply copy the plugin in your vst directory, which is usually ~/.vst/ (where ~ stands for your home directory). According to it’s website (if that’s correct site), you’ll also need libfreetype, libasound, and libXinerama installed. Those are pretty common libraries so you probably already have them by default.
I’ve been using vst-bridge to run Windows VSTs under Linux Renoise and so far almost every VST I’ve used has worked. It’s still a bit rough around the edges and loading times will increase because Wine, but I’m pleasantly surprised with how good the compatibility is. You don’t need to do any “rewiring”. The only extra step you need to get your VSTs working with the bridge is to run vst-bridge-maker to create a .so that points to the Windows DLL so that your DAW can pick it up. After that, you can use the VST just like you would any other VST.