[Ardour-Users] plugin ideas

[John Rigg]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 10:09:34AM -0400, Christopher Stamper wrote:
> *But*, sometimes we need something a little more than what we have. For
> example, it's much easier to draw an EQ curve than adjust a ton of little
> sliders.. :-)

That's already possible in Jamin. Isn't the plugin that Jamin uses
available for other apps that use LADSPA? That's completely different
from a simple parametric EQ though. It uses a _lot_ more processing
power, and while undoubtedly useful on occasion, there are situations
where it would be painfully slow and difficult to use. For instance,
how do you sweep a cut or boost frequency up and down while adjusting
bandwidth at the same time? That's something I do with parametric
EQs all the time (both hardware and software). I also suspect that it
wouldn't take many channels to use up all the available DSP power.

Nice to have as an addition, but not as a substitute.

> 
> The screenshot on the ardour.org site,
> http://ardour.org/files/main-screenshot-small.png , shows an interesting
> window titled 'x-fade edit'. I'm not sure if its a plugin or not, but I sure
> would like some plugins to look like that. Compressor curves, EQ curves, etc
> would be so easy to use.

It depends on the application. It would be nice to be able to
draw a compressor curve, but in situations where you need separate 
compression on a lot of individual tracks, the additional DSP load would
cause problems. I also find it (maybe it's my background in analogue sound
engineering) much faster to set up multiple channels of compression
with simple slider controls rather than have to mess around drawing
curves. Again, this would be a nice addition but not a substitute.

John