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A few questions and observations on QTractor 0.4.7
Hi,
Firstly ...wow! The progress in Qtractor is amazing and the new stuff coming with JACK session/Qjackctl as well is very exciting. Thanks and kudos for your work...
I develop AV Linux which is based on Debian Squeeze and have noticed a few issues with LV2 plugins that probably stem from some of the gtk related changes you have made (and warned us about) so this isn't really unexpected or a bug report but I wanted to share what I've found in case other users have problems. AV Linux 4.1 comes with a full collection of LV2 Plugins including linuxDSP Demos, Calf 0.0.19 from GIT, Invada, and the LV2 Ports of Steve Harris and mda plugins. In my own experience with Qtractor up to and including 0.4.7 I have found that Calf from GIT, linuxsampler and mda LV2 plugins will freeze Qtractor and kill JACK (jackd 0.118svn) when you try adding an LV2 Plugin to an arrangement. Removing these offending plugins completely fixes this issue and both QTractor and the remaining LV2 will work fine with their GUI's.
Another issue I am encountering is with Qtractor 0.4.7 and JACK Session, I have built jackd 0.120.1 from svn and successfully compiled Qtractor and Qjackctl with Jack Session Support, I can start JACK and run it properly with other apps however when I launch Qtractor it complains that JACK is not running even if it actually is, if I install a different build of Qtractor without JACK Session support it will launch with no issue. Any ideas??
Re: Qtractor 0.4.7 and JACK Session
you need current qtractor svn trunk if you're running jackd >= 0.120 (jack1 svn trunk, attotw).
there's a slight change on jackd behavior with regard to client initialization sequence that will make earlier qtractor releases including 0.4.7 to shutdown prematurely its jack client startup, which as been fixed recently on svn trunk only.
cheers
Re: Qtractor 0.4.7 and some LV2 plugins
in what or when circumstances are the freezings happening? is it actually on selection, insertion, activation or opening their lv2 gui editors? are those freezes pretty much reproducible or are them occurring rather randomly?
i've tried some of the calf-git and linuxsampler plugins but i have noticed none of that kind of problematic behavior--does it only happen with some calf plugin in particular or is it with anyone you try?
afaics, calf lv2 plugins use the lv2 external_ui extension so the suspicion on the new gtk linkage are not at stake there; however, assuming you're building from svn trunk, you can try with that variable out of the equation by simply remaking with
./configure --disable-lv2-gtk-uicheers
Hi, If I opened a new
Hi,
If I opened a new arrangement and added an Audio track as soon as I clicked "Add" on the Plugin dialog the cursor would spin indefinitely and I would have to forcibly quit Qtractor and further to that JACK would be rendered unusable until a reboot. As for the Calf issues obviously there are changes in git all the time and I built the package I'm using about a month ago, to be honest I haven't tried calf "stable". The Calf plugins have very pretty faces but I suspect the code is still quite ugly with CPU hungry operation and denormal problems...in all fairness the are still very alpha and people have been expecting too much from them for a long time already!
I will try an svn Qtractor build with jack svn for the jack session issue, thanks for the tip!
**EDIT**
To update: Qtractor 0.4.7.9SVN1701 works properly with JACK Session...Thanks! I will have to experiment further with Calf and the configuration of gtk-ui support.
Success! Well Sort Of...
OK,
Building Qtractor 0.4.7.9SVN1701 with disabled lv2-gui gives me working GUI's with calf and linuxdsp plugins and calf no longer causes the hanging freeze up. Invada of course still rely on a lv2-gtk-ui and therefore don't display with guis (Can't have everything!) and as mentioned before JACK session is working! Yay!!
Thanks Rui...you rock!
Re: Success! Well Sort Of...
Yes, the lack of a proper GUI for the Invada plugins is the (small) price you pay for no linking in all that LV2 GTK UI stuff into Qtractor :( As said, that stuff brings way more trouble than it will ever solve. Seriously, I consider taking the regression path or at least leaving it disabled as default. As all it seems from your report, YMMV ;)
Cheers
Re: Qtractor 0.4.7 and some LV2 plugins
well, fyi
just built the whole collection of MDA LV2 plugins from the source (http://svn.drobilla.net/lad/trunk/mda-lv2), installed under
/usr/local/lv2/mda.lv2and got no issues with full-fledged qtractor (ie. default--enable-lv2-gtk-ui) aka 0.4.7.13+ attotw.the same can be said for current calf plugins (http://repo.or.cz/r/calf.git) ...
there must be something else... certainly YMMV, a lot :S
seeya
QTractor 4.7.+ and Calf LV2 plugins
Dear Rui,
as you reported, I can confirm that building them from git, I do not get issues anymore with their gui in qtractor as I had when using calf v0.0.19 lv2 plugins from certain ppa repos (I posted these in this forum). They work fine and sound good, too - it definitely was not a calf nor a qtractor, but I guess a building problem.
Michael
LV2 Calf Compiling and QTractor
Hi there,
just for your information:
I am using Xubuntu 10.04.2 LTS with the latest snapshot of QTractor (qtractor-0.4.8.25svn1853). When compiling the calf plugin suite from the latest svn, I have to use the "original" versions of slv2core (v3.0.2), libslv2-9, libslv2-dev, slv2-jack and slv2-doc (all v0.6.6).
During an installation of another piece of software from frasten's ppa, the system updated these versions to slv2core (v4.0.0), libslv2-9, libslv2-dev, slv2-jack and slv2-doc (all v0.6.7). Using these libraries for compilation of calf LV2, the Qt4-GUI in QTractor does not work very well; with the "original" version everything is fine. The LV2-GUI is always functional.
Updating qt4 from the "original" v4.6.2 to v4.7.0 did not solve this problem.
Rui, thank you for your great work!
Michael
Re: LV2 Calf Compiling and QTractor
what you really mean with the Qt4-GUI in Qtractor does not work very well ? is it just the lv2 gui that is bad or is it whole qtractor gui ? what are exactly the symptoms ?
cya
LV2 Calf Compiling and QTractor
Dear Rui,
I am no native english speaker, so I additionally try to describe with screenshots.
This gui I call the qt4-gui:
this one I call lv2-gui:
1.) "original" lv2 versions
When I compile calf with the "original" versions of lv2 and open these plugins within Qtractor, the lv2-gui corresponds to the changes I make within the qt4-gui.
In this example you see the calf reverb, the qt4-gui is set to "room size = 5" which is correctly set in the corresponding lv2-gui to "Experimental":
When I set the qt4-gui to "room size = 0", the lv2-gui jumps correctly to "small":
Inserting and activating a plugin in a track, immediately effects the playing file - that's what I expect to happen.
Inserting and activating the (self compiled) LV2 Convolution Reverb works fine.
2.) "updated" lv2 versions
When I compile calf with the "newer" versions of lv2, the following happens:
In the qt4-gui I can only choose between "room size = 0" and "room size = 1", sizes from 2 - 6 are disabled/greyed out, the lv2-gui corresponds only to these two steps.
Inserting and activating a plugin in a track, immediately the continuously playing file is muted without touching the mute button. When I deactivate the plugin, the file sounds again - that's not what I expect to happen.
Inserting and activating the (self compiled) LV2 Convolution Reverb crashes Qtractor immediately.
Using the calf plugins "stand alone" is working fine, no matter if compiled with the "original" or "updated" lv2 versions.
I hope I described this issue clearly enough.
Regards,
Michael
Re: LV2 Calf Compiling and QTractor
thanks for explanation :) however it is now clear that the problem is in the new updated lv2core and/or libslv2--aham, my suspicions goes a lot more towards the latter and the hell of its dependencies (librdf, redland and the crap that relates to that whole crap) :(
what is the exact upgraded libslv2 version you're into trouble?
seeya
LV2 Calf Compiling and QTractor
Rui,
I also thought the lv2-libs are to blame, because updating the qt4-files did not change anything.
"what is the exact upgraded libslv2 version you're into trouble?"
It are the lv2core (v4.0.0) and slv2 libs (v0.6.7) from this ppa:
https://launchpad.net/~frasten/+archive/ppa?field.series_filter=lucid
So I went back to the old lv2-files and everything works fine again.
Greetings, Michael
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