Ardour with VST
From JackLab UserWiki
HOWTO: Build ardour2 with VST support on jacklab/openSUSE 10.2/10.3/11.0
NOTE: There's a new and simple way to have VST support in ardour: since the release of version 0.7 dssi-vst acts as LADSPA plugin too, and will make your VST plugins available to ardour if installed. Drawback: No GUIs so far...
You can do all of this as normal user, except installing the generated rpms.
You can install both ardour2.x and ardour 0.99.3. Ardour2 creates backups of ardour 0.9.x session files under a name like "<session-1>.ardour".
Currently it is not possible to have a plain and a vst-enabled rpm version of ardour2 installed at the same time.
DISCLAIMER:
THE RESULTING BINARY RPM IS ONLY FOR PERSONAL USE! IT'S ILLEGAL TO DISTRIBUTE THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
We from jacklab want to help our userbase to legally obtain a working ardour2/vst install, but license issues force us to do it in such a way now. sorry!
1. Get the sources
Open a terminal window and cd to a directory where you want to keep the downloads. (our example user stays at his home)
a) ardour source rpm
For 10.2/JAD 1.0:
snafu@jad:~/> wget http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/jacklab/SUSE-10.2/RPMS/src/ardour2-2.5-0.jacklab.1.src.rpm
For 10.3/JAD 1.1 alpha
snafu@jad:~/> wget http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/jacklab/openSUSE-10.3/RPMS/src/ardour2-2.5-0.jacklab.1.src.rpm
For 11.0/coming JAD 2.0
snafu@jad:~/> wget http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/jacklab/openSUSE-11.0/RPMS/src/ardour2-2.5-0.jacklab.1.src.rpm
b) VST SDK 2.3
URL: http://ygrabit.steinberg.de/~ygrabit/public_html/vstsdk/Download/VST Plug-Ins SDK 2.3/
Be sure to read and accept the license agreement (see the html and rtf files in that directory).
Download and unpack the needed files to your working directory:
snafu@jad:~/> wget "http://ygrabit.steinberg.de/~ygrabit/public_html/vstsdk/Download/VST Plug-Ins SDK 2.3/vstsdk2.3.zip" snafu@jad:~/> unzip vst_sdk2_3.zip snafu@jad:~/> rm vstsdk2.3.dmg vstsdk2.3.sit vst_sdk2_3.zip
(Sorry for the broken links, I seem to be unable to quote space characters in URLs for this wiki page...)
2. Install build requirements
Most of the needed devel packages missing on the openSUSE dvd/cd edition, so you have to setup the yast installer for the internet installation source (openSUSE OSS repository).
a) compiler environment
Go to yast2/install software choose the filter Patterns (Schemata)
Check the box for the pattern Development/Basis Development (Entwicklung/Grundlegende Entwicklung)
Choose the filter Search (Suchen)
Search for "scons" and mark it for installation
Same for "update-desktop-files"
NOTE for openSUSE 11.0:
The bundled version of scons will fail with an error message about the boost header files not being found even if they are installed. Update to this version to be able to compile:
http://people.jacklab.net/edogawa/files/BS/openSUSE_Factory/i586/scons-0.98.5-8.4.i586.rpm
b) devel packages:
Like above, search for "-devel" and mark:
alsa-devel, jack-devel, curl-devel, gettext-devel, libxml2-devel, libxslt-devel, libart_lgpl-devel, libsamplerate-devel, raptor-devel, liblrdf-devel, gtk2-devel(which pulls in pango-devel, atk-devel, cairo-devel), glib2-devel, boost-devel, libsndfile-devel, liblo-devel, gtkmm2-devel, libgnomecanvas-devel, wine-devel, fftw3-threads fftw3-devel libaubio-devel
Click "Accept", also accept any automatic selections and watch yast installing the changes.
3. Build and install ardour2 from src.rpm
snafu@jad:~/> rpm -i ardour2-2.5-0.jacklab.1.src.rpm snafu@jad:~/> cp vstsdk2.3.zip /usr/src/packages/SOURCES snafu@jad:~/> cd /usr/src/packages/SPECS snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SPECS> rpmbuild -ba ardour2.spec
After unpacking, scons starts and asks you a question which you hopefully know how to answer. ;)
Have a cup of coffee, or several of them, or maybe start dl'ing VSTs.
snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SPECS> su -c rpm -i ../RPMS/i586/ardour2-2.5-0.jacklab.1.i586.rpm
Congratulations! You have a working ardour2/VST binary now
4. Clean up the rpm build tree:
snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SPECS> cd ../SOURCES/ snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SOURCES> rm -R ../BUILD/ardour*/ snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SOURCES> rm ardour*
And, after having saved a copy of the vstsdk for your future ardour2 updates:
snafu@jad:/usr/src/packages/SOURCES> rm vstsdk2.3.zip
5. Dealing with VST plugins locations
The environment variables VST_PLUGINS and/or VST_PATH can be set up so that they point to several vst plugin dirs of your choice. Ardour2 looks at both variables, in this order, and if neither is set ardour2 searches /usr/local/lib/vst and /usr/lib/vst.
To avoid the need to become root whenever you want to add a plugin, you can use one of the two strategies below:
a) don't touch the variables, and set up a symlink to your ~/vst
As root, create a symlink from your home to the system dir:
snafu@jad:~/> su -c "ln -s /home/snafu/vst /usr/lib/vst"
Now you can, as normal user, copy any vst dlls to your ~/vst/ to make them available systemwide.
b) set up VST_PLUGINS and/or VST_PATH
Most other apps only look at VST_PATH.
To see if the variable is set:
snafu@jad:~/> echo $VST_PATH
Set it up to point at your plugin dirs, like usual with colons as path seperators:
snafu@jad:~/> export VST_PATH=/home/snafu/vst/effects:/home/snafu/vst/instruments:/usr/lib/vst
To make this permanent put the "export VST_PATH=..." statement in your ~/.bashrc, using a text editor.
Restart X to let your desktop recognize the changes.
To unset the variable:
snafu@jad:~/> unset $VST_PATH
and remove the export... line from .bashrc
If ardour2 sees VST dlls for the first time, it creates corresponding .fst files. beta10 crashes while doing that, after having written a few .fsts. Therefore you will need to restart ardour until it has processed all of them...
6. Setting up a MIME type for *.ardour session files (in KDE)
In konqueror, right-click/Properties on a .ardour file
Click at the tool icon at the right of "Type:"
In the lower field "Priority of executing programs", press "Add..."
Type "ardourvst" or select Multimedia/Recording/Ardour2/VST
If you want to read ardour's messages, there's an option to run it from a terminal window, and an additional checkbox to keep that window open after program exit.
Press OK here and in the previous dialog.
Now you can click a session file and ardour will fire up and load it.
