Abandoned Electronix?

[Geddulp]

Hi there smex people..!
I was thrilled to discover this forum at KVR - I just discovered KRV itself 2 days ago,
and posted a DestroyFX question in a different forum

Stumbling across the Destroy FX VST pack, I was dumbfounded - they may be exactly what I need for a sound I have in mind.
Of course, they are out of my reach, since:
1) I run Pro Tools, and
2) I have an Intel mac(book), effectively keeping me from converting the VSTs to RTAS.
I guess is the most serious issue.

So, the hunt begins. And there are a few questions:

- Does anybody know other effects that do similar things?
- Or, can anybody tell me what is needed to get the the provided source code recompiled to a UB?
- Or has this already been done by somebody? In which case, can you please 1) call me an idiiot for not finding out, 2) tell me where it is.
- other possible solutions?

I am amazed at the talent displayed by people doing these things, and hope that someone will at least have the patience to answer my questions.
Regarding 2) above, I have varied programming experience in several languages. Most relevant: plenty from embedded prog in C, mainframe (UNIX) prog in C, some C++ and VisualBasic on windows, but nothing on mac. I converted one year ago.

Cheers and best regards;
Eivind

[Pantsdown666]

hey there -
yeah it's a bummer .. Smex ppl seem to have abandoned OSX VSTs in favour of AUs since Intel came around ... and AU, of course, is the one format you're not gonna get into PT. I reallllllly miss DFX Buffer Override

[Geddulp]

Well, can you get AU into anything but Logic?
And I suppose its not trivial to migrate an AU, either, in terms of PPC builds vs. UB..?
I am only assuming that the AU also are PPC, since they were built in 2005-06...

[sophia]

Stumbling across the Destroy FX VST pack, I was dumbfounded - they may be exactly what I need for a sound I have in mind.

Fabulous.

Of course, they are out of my reach, since:
1) I run Pro Tools, and
2) I have an Intel mac(book), effectively keeping me from converting the VSTs to RTAS.
I guess is the most serious issue.

So, the hunt begins. And there are a few questions:

- Does anybody know other effects that do similar things?

Not that I know of. Our stuff is kinda unique, for the most part.

- Or, can anybody tell me what is needed to get the the provided source code recompiled to a UB?

If you have the source code and a working Xcode project and nothing needs any further updating, then it's pretty simple: You just set the project to use the "Mac OS X 10.4 Universal SDK" and open the "Architectures" option and check both the PowerPC and Intel checkboxes. However, for the old VST versions of our plugins, neither of these things are the case.

For one thing, they do not have Xcode projects already created for them. When we discontinued development of the Mac VST versions, we were at that time using CodeWarrior, so our source code distributions for those come with CodeWarrior projects. CodeWarrior itself was discontinued before a version was ever made that compiled UBs, so a CodeWarrior project will do you no good for updating those old plugin projects to UB. You will have to set up a new project according to whatever you like working with (Xcode, the Intel compiler, command line tinkering, etc.).

Another larger obstacle is that those old VST projects will need to be updated to build with the 2.4 update of the VST SDK, and consequently also the 3.0 version of VST GUI (as that's the only VST GUI that works with VST SDK 2.4). VST 2.4 is the earliest version of the VST SDK that supports Steinberg's specifications for UB VSTs. It also is not a trivial SDK revision and generally requires tons of nuisance little detail changes in your source code, on the order of hundreds of little changes, also with little details of changes in VST GUI 3.0. It's boring and tedious, and in my opinion more crap that is totally unrewarding and not worth the time since AU is a better and more worthwhile path to follow for Mac, in my opinion. So I can say for certainty that you will not see us doing that. But someone could, if they were motivated to.

Well, can you get AU into anything but Logic?

Yes, there are dozens of applications that support AU. We try to maintain our own list of host applications where you can get an idea of your options. There are actually vastly more applications on Mac OS X that support AU than support VST (about three times more), and most of the ones that support VST also support AU, except for I think only two stragglers (Cubase/Nuendo and Tracktion). So yeah, that's one part of why we're focused on AU now and VST is not worth dealing with anymore.

And I suppose its not trivial to migrate an AU, either, in terms of PPC builds vs. UB..?
I am only assuming that the AU also are PPC, since they were built in 2005-06...

No, our AUs have all been available as UBs since 2005.

[Geddulp]

Thanks for a good detailed post, Sophia.
I'm off to call Digidesign and have them add AU support!

Cheers;
Eivind

[Pantsdown666]

I'm off to call Digidesign and have them add AU support!

Better, and more hopeful call , would be to keep pushing Fxpansion to do an AU-RTAS adapter.
Their ratiionale for not doing it over the last few years has been that most AUs are also available as VSTs .
Clearly, this isn't the case anymore.

[Geddulp]

Good call, Pantsdown. The loud rushing of my own broken VST dreams clouded my vision there for a moment...
I have been skipping around the web on this subject, and several sources seem to state the same, indirectly:
- AU's are the new, "better" solution, while VST's happened to happen because Steinberg rushed out first.
- Nevertheless, perhaps VSTs are the "de facto", considering what is the most popular amongst users?

(these are just my own impressions).
FXpansion have already stated that they so far have not seen the demand.
I say adding an AU->RTAS adapter would make a perfect threesome that could be bundled for EUR199,-

Angus & co, are you up to it?

Best regards;
Ego