About CLAP

[baconpaul]

CLAP's really cool features can be implemented gradually... so first one does CLAP, then one takes their time to figure out how to do parameter modulation, then polyphonic parameter modulation…

This is a super important point urs, I agree. The journey with surge was focused at first in being functionally on level wirh other formats (and since we were pre 1.0 banging out the bugs). But once surge was as good as a CLAP as it was as anything else in bitwig, I could get a cup of coffee and really think about deep things like modulation with Alex and you and others.

We’ve talked about this before but really this ability to co-innovate with a daw is something which is new. And it will be gradual. At first we will get lots of “functionally on the level” claps (including some of the other surge synth team plugins) but that option to do more is so compelling…. I’m already thinking about polymod in a couple of other open source synths….

[Urs]

Absolutely. And the same goes for hosts.

I was interviewed recently regarding the business side of things. The guy was portraying multiple companies, we were the smallest outfit. During that meeting I learned that one problem that some of the host and plug-in developers have is that their products are "out developed". What he means is, the products have reached a level of "final state" where room for improvements is very small. The large changes in the industry might even be rooted in this problem.

So CLAP offers some of these companies another window of opportunity. A host dev won't say "oh, but we have no concept for parameter modulation, so why would we support CLAP?", they'd say "Splendid, we have some grand new points on our press release next year!". And that's just the one concept we've been focussing on.

[Tim Janik]

This weekend I started working on CLAP support for Anklang (github.com/tim-janik/anklang).
The API looks fairly straight forward for the most part, I have two questions thus far:

1) Why was get_factory() introduced, i.e. what use besides `clap_plugin_factory* get_factory(CLAP_PLUGIN_FACTORY_ID);` is planned here?

2) So far I can only test my code with Surge XT, (clap-host and clap-plugins cannot build on Ubuntu 20.04 due to an outdated cmake and the clap-imgui build artifacts have expired). Are there any other Linux CLAP plugins available yet?

[Echoes in the Attic]

Hey Urs, I have a question about CLAP and mpe. Will the clap format allow your plugins that have duophonic modes to split the voices betwen oscillators as they are split between notes? For example in Diva currently in duophonic mode, notes from different midi channels play both oscillators, but it would be nice if it still played duophonically in mpe mode, that is, play both oscillators when one note is played, and split the notes when a second note is played on a second channel. Arturia's new MS-20 does this and it allows for pitch bend of each voice, which results in really cool stuff if you have ring mod or other audio rate modulation going on between oscillators. Would love that for Diva and Bazille.

[Urs]

This weekend I started working on CLAP support for Anklang (github.com/tim-janik/anklang).
The API looks fairly straight forward for the most part, I have two questions thus far:

1) Why was get_factory() introduced, i.e. what use besides `clap_plugin_factory* get_factory(CLAP_PLUGIN_FACTORY_ID);` is planned here?

I'm not 100% sure. It might have to do with scanning the plug-ins without instantiating them. Best to ask here https://github.com/free-audio/clap/discussions

(As I mentioned, I'm not deeply involved in the technical details, I just really only wrote some extensions to our own engine to make some features of CLAP available)

2) So far I can only test my code with Surge XT, (clap-host and clap-plugins cannot build on Ubuntu 20.04 due to an outdated cmake and the clap-imgui build artifacts have expired). Are there any other Linux CLAP plugins available yet?

On Wednesday there are plans to make public several open source projects, one more host besides Bitwig Studio and public betas of several of our plug-ins. The clap-imgui example should be updated soon (schwa mentioned something). More plug-ins should follow shortly in the coming days and weeks.

Surge XT is a pretty good bet though, it's been constantly developed in parallel to CLAP, and it's probably the most tested CLAP plug-in out there atm.

[Urs]

Hey Urs, I have a question about CLAP and mpe. Will the clap format allow your plugins that have duophonic modes to split the voices betwen oscillators as they are split between notes? For example in Diva currently in duophonic mode, notes from different midi channels play both oscillators, but it would be nice if it still played duophonically in mpe mode, that is, play both oscillators when one note is played, and split the notes when a second note is played on a second channel. Arturia's new MS-20 does this and it allows for pitch bend of each voice, which results in really cool stuff if you have ring mod or other audio rate modulation going on between oscillators. Would love that for Diva and Bazille.

This sounds pretty interesting. It is an area of our code that we avoid to touch, because each time we do something, something else breaks.

The implementation details are not related to the plug-in API though, CLAP is of course fully compatible with MIDI 1.0, MPE and MIDI 2.0, whichever the plug-in and host choose to support.

[prokoudine]

Hello there! My write-up on CLAP, written before v1.0 was tagged on GitHub, is now out of the paywall at LWN. Enjoy! (Or not )

https://lwn.net/Articles/893048/

[Urs]

Hello there! My write-up on CLAP, written before v1.0 was tagged on GitHub, is now out of the paywall at LWN. Enjoy! (Or not )

https://lwn.net/Articles/893048/

Thank you! I read this a few weeks ago - very factual and balanced!

You might be pleased to hear that the people behind Qtractor have made up their mind:

https://github.com/free-audio/clap/discussions/92

There's also hope in regards of CLAP support built into JUCE as one of the companies who expressed interest in CLAP could mean a "tipping point", according to someone in the JUCE team. We will know more after tomorrow's announcement.

Cheers,

- U

[ThomasHelzle]

I want to wish all the best to everybody involved for the official Clap 1.0 release!
Congratulations to Alexandre that you stayed with it, to Urs, that you adapt it and in your very relaxed way become the spokesperson, Bitwig for supporting it and Alexandre in the process and baconpaul for all the work you do to help people in the open source audio community.
It's good to see all of this happen

Thank you all and best of luck!

Cheers,

Tom

[Urs]

Thank you Thomas, very appreciated!

I can not wait for tomorrow. I'm sure it's gonna be exciting!

[Tim Janik]

Hello there! My write-up on CLAP, written before v1.0 was tagged on GitHub, is now out of the paywall at LWN. Enjoy! (Or not )

https://lwn.net/Articles/893048/

Thank you for the nice article Alexandre!
That (and Urs' comments here) are what got me hooked to rework Anklang's internals for CLAP support
(Well, we had planned for LV2 support actually, but it looks like CLAP has more potential…)

[Urs]

Fab!

[ghettosynth]

Thank you Thomas, very appreciated!

I can not wait for tomorrow. I'm sure it's gonna be exciting!

Buffing up my credit card.

[Urs]

Thank you Thomas, very appreciated!

I can not wait for tomorrow. I'm sure it's gonna be exciting!

Buffing up my credit card.

Hahaha, it's not like there'll be new products... just betas, host updates and open source plug-ins.

Although, some commercial plug-ins may be close to a release, too. Maybe there's a nice surprise there tomorrow or in the following days...

[Echoes in the Attic]

Hello there! My write-up on CLAP, written before v1.0 was tagged on GitHub, is now out of the paywall at LWN. Enjoy! (Or not )

https://lwn.net/Articles/893048/

Thank you! I read this a few weeks ago - very factual and balanced!

You might be pleased to hear that the people behind Qtractor have made up their mind:

https://github.com/free-audio/clap/discussions/92

There's also hope in regards of CLAP support built into JUCE as one of the companies who expressed interest in CLAP could mean a "tipping point", according to someone in the JUCE team. We will know more after tomorrow's announcement.

Cheers,

- U

if this happens is there any chance that u-he plugins might use Juce? The reason I like Juce plugins is because they are pretty much always multi-touch on windows and it's great. (Also much more responsive to touch, without a lag).