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> Carla Plugin Host v2.4.0 is here
On 2021-08-20 by falkTX

Hello everyone, this is the announcement of the 2.4.0 version of the Carla Plugin Host.
If you do not know, Carla is a fully-featured cross-platform audio plugin host, which can also run as a plugin.

This release was initially meant to be 2.3.3 but there are some small new features so treating it as bugfix would be misleading.
Semantically-speaking, new stuff means new version, so 2.4 it is.
I was going to wait a bit more until a release, but it is Ubuntu feature freeze time, so got to go with what is available now in order to make it.
Anyway, let's go through the (small) release highlights.

audiofile

Option to use classic skin by default

Who doesn't like a little bit of nostalgia?
Reminiscent of its v1.x days, the "classic" rack skin can now be made into the default.
So now you can be on latest Carla with all the new stuff, but still feel retro. :D

The dry/wet and volume controls are only accessible through the built-in plugin edit dialog,
but in return the whole rack takes less screen space.


lv2-gtk-windows

LV2 Gtk UIs on any system

After some changes on how Carla handles its Gtk UI bridges, it is now possible to build and use them on any system.
Behind the scenes instead of directly linking against Gtk libraries, the Carla Gtk UI bridge will open the Gtk library/DLL to find the needed symbols in order to get a working Gtk setup.
This doesn't change the behaviour on Linux, but allows to use Gtk-based UIs on systems like Windows and macOS.
Its usefulness is a bit questionable, my main reason to change this was to be able to adapt to new Gtk versions more easily, but it has nice side effects.

Currently there are no LV2 plugins released on macOS or Windows that make use of such a UI, but could change soon via PawPaw.
I have been doing some tests and at least amsynth and Invada are possible to get working with their full UIs.
Later on I will see if and how it could be possible to package such plugins with their UIs.


Full changelog

  • Add option to use classic skin by default
  • Add support for lv2 ui gtk bridges on any system
  • Set display scale factor for carla-bridge-*/carla-single standalone usage (on macOS and X11 systems)
  • Fix Linux VST3 plugin GUIs crash on close
  • Fix build under msys2 (will not force static binaries)
  • Fix keyboard focus for bridges on macOS (2nd attempt)
  • Fix canvas icon in settings to be high-dpi compatible
  • Fix wrong scale factor of plugin GUIs under macOS

Downloads

To download Carla binaries or source code, jump on over to the KXStudio downloads section.
If you're using the KXStudio repositories, you can simply install "carla".
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! Jump on over to the Carla's Github project page for those.

Notes for users

This was already the case for v2.2 and v2.3 but it is worth reiterating:
When using JACK2, the canvas - plugin integrations requires at least JACK2 v1.9.13.
This is because Carla relies on JACK meta-data in order to store information about each plugin/client, and meta-data was only added to JACK2 in version 1.9.13.
Alternatively, you can use JACK1 instead of JACK2, which has meta-data support since a long time.
Note that the "extras" KXStudio repository (which provides an updated JACK2) supports both Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.
The UbuntuStudio backports PPA also provides updated JACK2 packages.

There are no official Linux binary builds for v2.4 at this point.
Carla v2.4 is provided in the KXStudio repositories and in many official Linux distribution repositories too anyway.

 

As always, if you appreciate the kind of work I do, please consider a donation.
Thank you in advance for your support, and stay safe out there!

> Carla 2.3.2 has been released
On 2021-08-08 by falkTX

This is a bugfix for Carla version v2.3 series, mostly fixing a few regressions with the previous release.

Changelog

  • Add 32x32 icon
  • Do not show --gdb in usage/help when not installed system-wide
  • Fix default SF2 search path
  • Fix keyboard focus for bridges on macOS
  • Fix X11-UIs related regressions in v2.3.1

Downloads

To download Carla binaries or source code, jump on over to the KXStudio downloads section.
If you're using the KXStudio repositories, you can simply install "carla".
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! Jump on over to the Carla's Github project page for those.

 

As always, if you appreciate the kind of work I do, please consider a donation.
Thank you in advance for your support, and stay safe out there!

> KXStudio Monthly Report (July 2021)
On 2021-07-31 by falkTX

Hello all, another monthly report about the KXStudio project is here.
First, in case you missed it, Carla v2.3.1 and JACK2 v1.9.19 have been released.
A few issues were reported against this latest Carla release (regressions) so expect a v2.3.2 very soon.
Due to travis-ci.org shutting down (and the replacement travis-ci.com being absolutely terrible) the binaries for these releases were not automated.
Which brings me to this month's first topic.

Automated builds & artifacts

Since travis became unusable, and manually doing builds everytime is a bit of a pain, I began looking for alternatives.
GitHub Actions seems to be what most developers have run to, but I am not really happy putting yet more stuff into GitHub.
While there are some alternatives, even self-hosting, in the end being pragmatic I threw the towel and just let GitHub handle it.
For projects that already have a presence on GitHub, the integration just makes sense.

One of the issues with travis was the lack of daily/latest build binaries.
While it was possible to setup, it usually required creating a tag or release to upload the binaries into.
GitHub Actions can have "artifacts" associated with any build, with no special setup required from contributors.
This was the main thing that pushed me to just stick with GitHub for this.
If someone external to a project submits a pull-request, there will be automated builds with the proposed changes ready for testing.
The fact that builds start immediately (instead of sometimes having to wait several hours like in other services) is super nice to see.

But are there any benefits to users, you may ask.
Well, take for the example JACK, for which I already added automated builds.
If you open the JACK2 GitHub Actions page, there will be macOS and Windows installers for each build going forwards.
When there comes a time where a change requires testing, there is no longer a need to build things manually.

Automated builds via GitHub Actions (and the resulting artifacts) also fit nicely for DPF.
I was able to create a "workflow" file (that is, a file that describes what to build and how) for DPF-based plugins, where it builds and publishes linux-armhf, linux-arm64, linux-x64, macOS (universal), win32 and win64 binaries, all in a single file.
So you can basically take this file, place it in your own repository, and directly have all those linux, macOS and windows builds right away.
I already have this setup for pretty all of DPF-based plugins under the DISTRHO GitHub organization.
As an experiment, I added the same support to dragonfly-reverb project.
So now if you go to its GitHub Actions page and click on the latest commit, you will be able to download and install/use the build artifacts.

This is extremely valuable, as not everyone has a macOS or Windows machine in order to do builds for those.
Or maybe the other way around, someone on macOS or Windows without a Linux machine, etc etc.
I also think of the situation of people wanting to try out a change in the code but don't have the developer tools needed to build the project themselves.
While maybe not a big issue for DPF/Plugin projects (as they tend to be small in size), for things like Carla where build dependencies are a lot more involved, almost no one will have everything needed to make binaries alike the official ones.
With these automated builds, you can basically create a pull request and just enjoy the build - which will follow the same exact conventions as official builds.

Now, this is not in place for Carla just yet, but it is in progress.
Currently DPF (plus the plugins made with them under DISTRHO) and JACK2 have automated builds via GitHub Actions.
More will follow soon.

Packaging

There are no updates regarding packages in the KXStudio repositories at this time.
Even though some packaged plugins are out-of-date, yes..

Thinking of packages, I might just do a whole month focused on them soon.
There has been quite some nice releases of open-source audio plugins lately that would be great to have packaged, but lack of proper time for them is a problem.
As the last details on DPF new release are being resolved, packaging might be the next thing to focus on.

Special attention is needed on JUCE things though, because the LV2 wrapper is still somewhat of a pain for external developers to integrate properly.
(If only JUCE devs made the LV2 wrapper official! errr...)

Anyway, this packaging thing is not so much of news but more of wishes.
Before new JUCE-based plugins get packaged, I want to sort out the LV2 wrapper mess, make it as easy as possible for developers to have official LV2 variants.
Only me building LV2 versions (for the KXStudio repositories) is not something I want to push for anymore, rather it would be best for everyone to have said LV2 versions.

 

That is all for now.
If you appreciate the kind of work I do, please consider a donation.
Thank you in advance for your support, and stay safe out there!

> Carla 2.3.1 has been released
On 2021-07-16 by falkTX

This is a bugfix for Carla version v2.3 series, fixing many bug reports and stuff I found along the way.

Carla is an audio plugin host, with support for many audio drivers and plugin formats.
It has some nice features like automation of parameters via MIDI CC (and send output back as MIDI too) and full OSC control.

Changelog

  • Add NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription and NSMicrophoneUsageDescription in macOS builds
  • Allow canvas eyecandy for Qt >= 5.12
  • Alternative approach to deal with JACK postponed events (improves PipeWire usage)
  • Implement parameter groups for VST2 plugins
  • Ignore hosts calling Carla-VST effOpen twice (don't print errors)
  • Listen to Windows and X11 plugin UI resize events (without extensions)
  • Make some macOS dialogs modal
  • Remove favorite plugins from list when they fail to load
  • Update JUCE plugin code to new APIs, hook into VST2 for feature parity with native implementation
  • Use new tick_double for JACK transport
  • Use posix_spawn to launch macOS bridges
  • Fix available decimal points on a few dialogs being incorrect
  • Fix bridged plugin UIs appearing behind main carla window on macOS
  • Fix canvas auto-refreshing on exit, potentially leading to crash
  • Fix canvas split/join action
  • Fix carla-vst-wine symbol visibility
  • Fix default rack "skin" for a few plugins
  • Fix initial size for LV2 UIs with no UI resize extension (all OSes)
  • Fix loading state of Windows/macOS VST2 plugins without chunk
  • Fix macOS binaries not being debug/symbol stripped
  • Fix midi-pattern plugin having double notes on transport reposition
  • Fix race condition (and potential crash) around postponed RT events
  • Fix Qt >= 5.10 version checks
  • Fix unused JACK latency callbacks (removed)
  • Fix X11 UIs not having keyboard focus

Downloads

To download Carla binaries or source code, jump on over to the KXStudio downloads section.
If you're using the KXStudio repositories, you can simply install "carla".
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! Jump on over to the Carla's Github project page for those.

Notes for users

This was already the case for v2.2 and v2.3 but it is worth reiterating:
When using JACK2, the canvas - plugin integrations requires at least JACK2 v1.9.13.
This is because Carla relies on JACK meta-data in order to store information about each plugin/client, and meta-data was only added to JACK2 in version 1.9.13.
Alternatively, you can use JACK1 instead of JACK2, which has meta-data support since a long time.
Note that the "extras" KXStudio repository (which provides an updated JACK2) supports both Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.
The UbuntuStudio backports PPA also provides updated JACK2 packages.

There are no official Linux binary builds for v2.3.1 at this point.
Carla v2.3.1 is provided in the KXStudio repositories and in many official Linux distribution repositories too anyway.

> Changes in the extra KXStudio repositories regarding JACK2
On 2021-07-05 by falkTX

This is a small notice to everyone using JACK2 with the extra KXStudio repositories. (those for Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04)

A change in the JACK2 code has made it so a restart of the server is required after the update.
The technical reason for this is an internal ABI change due to forced-alignment in a few struct/classes.
This change is required for some ARM platforms where non-aligned access results in a bus error.

If you use jackdbus (likely with KXStudio stuff), you will need to actually kill it. (or use the usual cadence-session-start -s command)
If that does not work, good old restart is your friend. :)

This small update brings JACK2 v1.9.19 early, as a way to get a little more testing before official release.
That said release is planned for July 15.

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