[ardour-dev] issues with plugin in/out counts

[Paul Davis]

>On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 15:38, Paul Davis wrote:
>> in the last few days, i've been staring down some of the problems
>> people have reported when using plugins that change the number of
>> active streams in a track (e.g. a 1in/2out reverb).
>
>My personal biggest frustration with the way plugins work is related to
>panning. I have a mono track, and I pan it. Then I add a 1-in/2-out
>reverb. Now I have to redo the panning. Say I then remove the plugin and
>add a second 1-in/2-out reverb. I have to redo the panning again.

but you added a plugin with 2 outputs! how is a panner configuration
that was built to manipulate a single stream supposed to work when
there is more than one stream?

>The other thing that seems to me doesn't work here is that stereo
>panners operate as stereo-width as well as panners. That sounds vague
>because I haven't really managed to get my head around stereo panning
>yet.

Thats the core of your problem, I think. Most people's experience of
panning (including most other DAWs, PT excepted) do not do stereo
panning correctly.

>So maybe it's worth having a post-panner plugin stage where 2-in/2-out

This is an idea that has been mentioned before. We might do that at
some point. You can "fake" it now by routing to an intermediate bus
with the plugin in its own redirect lists.