Swam on Zynthian

Software
1

This is SWAM’s response to my email about SWAM product compatibility on the Zynthian… Now the Zynthian genes take over :wink: :wink: :wink:

Hello Lanfranco,

thank you for contacting us.

Yes, we support ARM architectures.
Here you can find Audio Modeling products compatibility:
Audio modeling Support - Do SWAM instruments run on Silicon / M1 architecture?

Also I suggest this Getting Started with SWAM video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4EFAaU45Q

We are available for any further assistance you may need.

Best Regards,
Eleonora

2

I think the question was wrong, or ambiguous. The answer is that SWAM is available for Apple hardware and Apple MacOS. For it to run on Zynthian it needs to be available on Linux aarch64. (Actually arm32 but that will soon be obsolescent so, if they were to produce a version for arm on Linux then aarch64 is a more sustainable solution.)

We cannot use the Apple version.

3

Hi Riban… I had guessed that it was like this, from the video that talks about M1… I write them again in Italian since they are Italian… but I had talked about Zynthian and I had put the Zynthian link

4

Also we need a LV2 plugin and not VST (or do we have a hidden VST plugin adapter?)…

5

I wish it were possible… immediately inside Arturia’s MiniMoog… but it’s not possible…

6

There isn’t, but even if there were it would be a minefield of linux / mac / windows / intel / arm compatability. Throwing any random vst of the internet would be likey to be an instant faliure.

The compatibility matrix of doom:

          MacOS
           ,'.   
Linux    ,'   `.   Windows
         \     /
          \___/  
    Intel       Arm







                                                     ⬟RISC-V
1 Like
7

We can sometimes integrate standalone apps like pianoteq, set free, etc. It does not necessarily have to be a plugin.

8

What a pain in the ass all these systems… let’s format everything and leave only Mac and Linux… :rofl:

9

Such a thing does exist, thanks to the one and only falkTX:

10

:ok_hand: :ok_hand:

11

Yes, it is possible to run some VST on Linux but as mentioned above, there are many considerations:

  • Hardware platform - Zynthian runs on arm processors
  • OS - Zynthian uses a 32-bit Debian based Linux
  • VST version - some plugins use VST V2 or V3
  • VST compatibility - some plugins are only available for some hardware / OS, e.g. x64
  • Overhead of wrappers - Ildaeil is a wrapper for a wrapper - it can present as a LV2 whilst hosting an instance of a plugin host that in turn hosts the VST plugin
  • Licensing - VST is a proprietary format that may require further licencing (which may have associated costs) - this differs based on the version of VST

We can have a play with this (and other methods) to see whether some VST may run in Zynthian and what impact it has on performance but even if we get this working, there will be some (many / most?) VST that will not run on Zynthian - or at least not with acceptable performance.

Anything's possible - nothing's easy!

3 Likes
12

I compiled Ildaeil and it works but as suspected, it does eat a lot of CPU. I loaded a few VST that are already installed on Zynthian but did not test further. Obvs Swam is a paid application and I don’t have that to test but it almost certainly would not work anyway. We need arm-32 files and pretty much every VST available for arm-32 is also available as LV2 so not worth the effort to host as VST.

1 Like