Old 09-11-2018, 07:46 AM   #1
mschnell
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Default Programming for ARA2

Now that VST(3) plugins that feature ARA2 access can be tested with Reaper, and supposedly soon with other DAWs, as well, it might make sense to set up community projects that make use of ARA2 to access DAW data such as sample-media and the tempo envelope..

Rather obvious projects would be a wave editor (writing sample files) and a decent tempo mapping tool (exporting a tempo envelope).

Is there a chance that an experienced VST programmer is inclined to do a template to show how a VST with ARA2 can be crafted ?

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-Michael
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Old 09-11-2018, 07:58 AM   #2
Xenakios
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
(writing sample files)
ARA is read-only, no facilities for replacing audio data in the host's audio files. You don't even get to know the file names. Maybe some kind of editor could be implemented nevertheless, though. Reaper extension plugins however might be able to more easily do something like that.

At the moment I am not too excited to start working on a demonstration ARA plugin because JUCE doesn't have support for ARA unless the recent additions to JUCE make it possible, I'd have to check I guess. (AFAIK IPlug has no support, either.)

There's also the problem that the ARA SDK materials are proprietary, anybody wanting to build a project using it would have to apply for the ARA SDK from Celemony first.
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Old 09-11-2018, 01:26 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenakios View Post
ARA is read-only,
OK, I am still quite uneducated with this.

This of course perfectly supports the "non-destructive" paradigm.

I suppose an ARA plugin can modify a sample stream on the fly during playback (as any VST can) but it is able to show the complete waveform for editing right from the start by reading it independently of any playback operation of the DAW.

So a "wave editor" plugin would save modifications to the original wave in some (additional) file and take care of applying them during playback.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenakios View Post
There's also the problem that the ARA SDK materials are proprietary, anybody wanting to build a project using it would have to apply for the ARA SDK from Celemony first.
Is (or was) this not true for Steinberg VST, as well ?

-Michael
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Old 09-11-2018, 01:35 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
Is (or was) this not true for Steinberg VST, as well ?
Steinberg provides direct download links for the SDK, Celemony does not, you have to contact the company and explain what you are going to do.
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Old 09-11-2018, 09:34 PM   #5
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Finding something for download will be always possible, these days , but of course you need to adhere to legal terms.

AFAIK - at least in Europe - it's not possible to "patent" a mere API description.

Did anybody try to have them support any non commercial / community project ?

-Michael
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Old 09-11-2018, 09:43 PM   #6
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Here's a sample editor just using Reaper's API, so actually no need for ARA in this case I think.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=175701
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Old 09-11-2018, 11:31 PM   #7
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Nothing is really necessary

It just seems to be nice to place such a plugin in a track's FX chain (at the top) and immediately see the Media wave form, and do editing in a non-destructive way, saving the modifications in additional files.

-Michael
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Old 09-12-2018, 04:21 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
AFAIK - at least in Europe - it's not possible to "patent" a mere API description.
BTW.:

Wine is not illegal, even though Microsoft supposedly did not explicitly approve to using the Windows API specs to create a fake Windows environment.

Executables on Linux are not prone to the stickiness of GPL, even though they "are based on GPLed work": they can't run without Linux in place. But they explicitly only use the API spec. (They may use LGPLed header files, but even this is not strictly necessary.)

-Michael

Last edited by mschnell; 09-12-2018 at 11:55 PM.
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Old 09-12-2018, 09:39 AM   #9
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REAPER developers have written several times that ReaAPI is capable for implementing ARA tasks. That was also the reason why they have not implemented ARA(1) early.

The problem is that ReaAPI works inside REAPER only. Originally ARA was also developed in close work with Presonus, but then adopted by several other DAWs, becoming a "standard".

But ARA is rather "heavy" framework. If someone wants develop multi-DAW plug-in with direct random access, that is a reasonable way to go. For REAPER only projects, I do not think there are any advantages (and in case someone spot them, I guess Justin will add related functionality to ReaAPI...).
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Old 09-12-2018, 12:57 PM   #10
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I totally agree and I think it would have been great if ReaAPI would have become an industrial standard for these things. But I suppose we need to accept that ARA(2) is here to stay, and people will want to write media access (etc) enabled VSTs that can be used in many DAWs.

-Michael
(Reaper Rules, but not ubiquitously enough, yet)

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Old 09-15-2018, 02:21 AM   #11
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I think plugin developers are going to do ARA enabled plugins, even without proper examples and tutorials, if there is something in it for them. (Read : if they think they are going to generate more money by doing it...)
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