OB-Xd-GREC: A Truly Free Software Synth for Windows and Linux

[rfawcett]

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share a quick Demo of my fork of OB-Xd called OB-Xd-GREC.



Please note that OB-Xd-GREC fully meets the Free Software Foundation’s definition of "Free Software."

I am working on providing compiled Linux and Windows releases for both the stand-alone and VST3 versions on the OB-Xd-GREC GitHub page. I’ll announce when those binaries and VSTs are available.

[Nug Wrangler]

Cool, thanks

[nitedwella]

Great to see it! I always thought that a third party taking over OB-Xd and turning it into a closed source project was shoddy at best. Good to see the spirit of the original making a comeback

[RunBeerRun]

thanks sarah

[paramita123]

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share a quick Demo of my fork of OB-Xd called OB-Xd-GREC.

Hi, nice demo, I am just curious, you say in the video this is what you were able to "build last night" did it only take you one night of coding to put this together ?!
Well enjoy the process, nice demo of Jump !

[eb23]

Did not expect an Atari ST port, but here we are... ^.^;

[Paul Eye]

Have you considered doing CLAP builds too? That would definitely fit the "libre" mindset

[mcbpete]

Hi, nice demo, I am just curious, you say in the video this is what you were able to "build last night" did it only take you one night of coding to put this together ?!
Well enjoy the process, nice demo of Jump !

I'm presuming it was just building from the source. Not sure which tree though:

https://github.com/2DaT/Obxd or
https://github.com/reales/OB-Xd or
https://github.com/studiorack/obxd or something else again

[Examigan]

Did not expect an Atari ST port, but here we are... ^.^;

I thought it was more like a C64.

[surreal]

Cool, will be looking out for your vst port

[audiojunkie]

Thank you for supporting Linux!!!

[rfawcett]

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share a quick Demo of my fork of OB-Xd called OB-Xd-GREC.

Hi, nice demo, I am just curious, you say in the video this is what you were able to "build last night" did it only take you one night of coding to put this together ?!
Well enjoy the process, nice demo of Jump !

Thanks for the compliment on the demo.

By "build last night" I meant that I was able to build my fork of OB-xD from source the previous night. The reason why this was a big deal to me is the fact that this was my first build of anything within Microsoft Windows (I am a Linux User first, I have built thousands of things from source in Debian GNU/Linux, but I have never built anything from source in Windows until OB-xD).

My apologies for the misunderstanding. My excitement in the video is that I succeeded in building my fork of OB-xD in Windows. Originally, when I forked this project, I had the sole intention of only making this available to Linux Users as I was primarily doing music creation in Linux. However, because of my "lust to experiment and hack on my own machine", I ended up breaking JACK within Linux such that when I would start Ardour (a DAW within Linux) everything would crash (JACK and Ardour). Clearly I ended up installing some type of library or dependency while working on some other project on my machine such that it permanently halted all music productivity within Linux. I could wipe my machine clean and reinstall or just install another SSD with Debian Linux on it and use it only for music production (meaning I wouldn't experiment), but I thought it would be wiser to have an install of Windows on a separate ssd. As a result, I now dual boot between Linux and Windows 11. My install of Windows 11 is going to be used for Music Production (hence I will not be doing any 'stupid' experiments in Windows like I do in my Linux Builds).

Also, when installing Windows 11, I had it in the back of my mind that I was going to take a crack at building OB-xD-GREC from source on windows and make it available to a bigger population outside of Linux. I am honestly glad that I did.

[rfawcett]

Have you considered doing CLAP builds too? That would definitely fit the "libre" mindset

Coming from the Linux world of things, I am unfamiliar with CLAP. Just looked into it and I am definitely intrigued by CLAP.

However, my priorities at this point is to first get a working stand alone build and VST3 for both Linux and Windows users. While GREC is able to built from source for both Windows and Linux at the present moment, building from source is not something that the average user can do. Secondly, I need to get some good presets built for the users (I bought an arturia minilab to help quickly dial in settings for new presets). Thirdly, I am going to have to midi map out my new arturia minilab just like I did my Roland Juno DS (that will be added into the build as well).

But, I do want to advise that since CLAP is a standard that is supported in Reaper (which is my DAW of choice in Windows), I cannot resist the urge to attempt to get it to work in Windows. So "hopefully" I can get it to work once I have met previous priorities.

Hopefully on the Linux front, Ardour will work on adding support for CLAP. When they do, I will of course attempt to get it to work in Linux.

[rfawcett]

Hi, nice demo, I am just curious, you say in the video this is what you were able to "build last night" did it only take you one night of coding to put this together ?!
Well enjoy the process, nice demo of Jump !

I'm presuming it was just building from the source. Not sure which tree though:

https://github.com/2DaT/Obxd or
https://github.com/reales/OB-Xd or
https://github.com/studiorack/obxd or something else again

Definitely building it from source on windows.

The source was obtained from my fork which can be found here.

https://github.com/rfawcett160/OB-Xd-GREC

My source was forked from reales/OB-xD. So basically, my build is exact to OB-xD version 2.10 (prior to DiscoDSP closing the source).

Now, the purpose of my fork is to preserve the work that had been done up to 2.10 (which was the last GPLd version) and to make it more accessible (with compiled builds and VST3s) such that anyone can easily load the instrument into their DAW. At present, the source code can be compiled for both Windows and Linux. But, it is not lost on me that building from source is not something that the average person can do.

The end goal of my project is to provide everyone (right now for Linux and Windows) a COMPLETELY FREE SYNTH PLUGIN that is both Gratis (free in cost) and Libre (freedom to do what you want [software freedom]). My fork of OB-xD WILL NOT restrict the user to just personal use. If you want to use the builds to make commercial music, then you are absolutely free to do so WITHOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS FROM ME.

The only thing that I ask is if you become rich and famous from using my synth plugin, consider donating $5-$10 so that I can buy a coffee or a beer.

[baconpaul]

If you need a hand setting up ci,Mac builds or clap lemme know.

My step one advice would be move from projucer to cmake. It will make automated builds about 1000 times easier. Also in surge land we have loads of open source tools to make building synths in GitHub easy. Surge discord best place to reach me or tag me on GitHub