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.)
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
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
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.
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.
I can’t find the discussion about my MIDI controller for SWAM anymore, so I’m posting a photo of the V2 controller here. It has 16 controllers: 8 for the wind instruments, 6 for the strings, one for volume, and one for the effects mix. It also has a jack socket for connecting a pedal (ex volume) that controls expression. The onboard LED stays solid if no controls are touched, but flashes when any settings are changed. I’m thinking about the V3 version with encoders instead of potentiometers..
For fun and to study 3D design, I’m modifying my MIDI/USB controller. I’ve added a second, larger OLED display where I’ll always have the 16 controls in view, while the smaller one will only show the Expression pedal’s value. Later, I’ll replace the potentiometers with encoders. When I install the encoders, the controller will read the position of the controls on the VST and show them to me on the display.
Here’s the first step… inserting the display that shows the controls and on the small display it only shows the Expression pedal… The next step will be to replace the potentiometers with encoders…
Pity that at the moment I don’t use, and prospectively I’m not planning to do so any time soon, the Audio Modeling software products.
Even though the string section looks rather promising, I just wonder if it would respond automatically to live playing on a common Midi keyboard, because it seems to rely on a substantial set of CC and related physical controls to operate, instead of taking advantage of a dedicated multi-dimensional keyboard, a-la Osmose or Seaboard.
I use it to (for the wind instruments) add growls or modify the vibrato… or at least to modify the many controls that SWAM has without taking my hand off the black and white keys (yes, I still use the old black and white keys ). Now I’m assembling this controller with encoders instead of potentiometers… it works perfectly with potentiometers too, but I like to study… I’m getting help from the AI for the sketch. In the second version, I’ll use a Teensy 4.0 instead of the Arduino Pro Micro. The Teensy has more pins and three i2c ports to connect the two OLED displays, each to a different port. Having two displays in parallel with different addresses slowed down the Pro Micro a lot.
I know, but über-expensive… Going from the YouTube content, it is simply stunning for improvising on recreations of acoustic instruments (I, for me, would go straight for Equator’s string and brass ensembles).
To me, the price of the SWAM instruments seems to be more prohibitive than the price of the Seaboard alone. But maybe it just somehow still seems more acceptable to pay a lot of money for a physical product than to pay a similar (or even larger) amount for pure software to me, even though I am kind of software developer myself and I know how much effort it costs…
). Now I’m assembling this controller with encoders instead of potentiometers… it works perfectly with potentiometers too, but I like to study… I’m getting help from the AI for the sketch. In the second version, I’ll use a Teensy 4.0 instead of the Arduino Pro Micro. The Teensy has more pins and three i2c ports to connect the two OLED displays, each to a different port. Having two displays in parallel with different addresses slowed down the Pro Micro a lot.
