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For someone who has no background on audio plugins, but have a surface level understanding of DAWs, what would be a good starting point to learn?

yots 4y ago
While not perfect, I really liked Will Pirkle’s book[1]. It describes the popular ABIs and has great intro to DSP. I would say the downsides are that the description of various interfaces takes up too many pages and that the book uses his own framework ASPiK for cross-compatability, but it’s easy enough to convert to a more popular framework like JUCE if needed. [1] https://www.routledge.com/Designing-Audio-Effect-Plugins-in-C-For-AAX-AU-and-VST3-with-DSP-Theory/Pirkle/p/book/9781138591936 https://www.routledge.com/Designing-Audio-Effect-Plugins-in-...
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
What do you want to learn? How plugins do DSP? The basics of most plugin APIs? How plugin APIs differ from each other? How the host(s) see plugin APIs? What the difference is for user between the different APIs? How do people actually create audio plugins?
- jeanlucas 4y ago
  Not the original person that asked, but my questions are more elemental, google-level maybe (I'm googling it now): What even are audio plugins? How people use it? What are some examples?
  - sebdufbeau 4y ago
    Caution: This explanation might not use 100% accurate terminology, but should get the point across. Most modern music is made via software named DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), which is kind of like an IDE but where music is made. These allow you to play with audio (ex: import audio files, arrange them across a timeline, record sound from external sources like a microphone). This is great if you already have all the audio files you need (eg: you're a live band and recorded a song in a studio), but sometimes you want to create new audio without having access to a recording studio. Audio plugins allow you to create new sounds. You've got two main types of plugins: ones that generate sound (eg: instruments, like a synth) and ones that modify sounds (takes an input sound, modifies it and then outputs it again, like an equalizer/EQ). Audio plugins are external (or bundled) software that you can use inside a DAW, you can download a lot of them for free but they can also get quite expensive (eg: thousands of dollars). The most popular format for these plugins for a long time (and still today) was VST, but Clap aims to be a new standard to compete with VST.
    - jeanlucas 4y ago
      Thank you very much, this is a great intro to the topic!
    - pixelatedindex 4y ago
      This was pretty helpful in understanding the landscape, so thank you.
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  - Joeboy 4y ago
    From a user point of view, kind of like effects pedals[0], but inside your computer, and not necessarily guitar-oriented. From the computer's point of view, a host program (probably a DAW) feeds an audio stream to a plugin, eg. 512 samples at a time, the plugin does whatever and sends back 512 samples, which the DAW may optionally route to another plugin and so on. Plugins are routed by software, instead of the 1/4" jack cables used by most hardware effects pedals. Modern audio production often uses a lot of these effects / plugins, like dozens or hundreds across a multi-track project, then a bunch more once the tracks are mixed together. Each plugin can either affect the sound very subtly, or make it completely unrecognizable, or something in the middle. Contains some omissions and half-truths, but that's kind of the gist of it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nj1d-P9-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nj1d-P9-I

yots 4y ago

While not perfect, I really liked Will Pirkle’s book[1]. It describes the popular ABIs and has great intro to DSP. I would say the downsides are that the description of various interfaces takes up too many pages and that the book uses his own framework ASPiK for cross-compatability, but it’s easy enough to convert to a more popular framework like JUCE if needed. [1] https://www.routledge.com/Designing-Audio-Effect-Plugins-in-C-For-AAX-AU-and-VST3-with-DSP-Theory/Pirkle/p/book/9781138591936 https://www.routledge.com/Designing-Audio-Effect-Plugins-in-...

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

What do you want to learn? How plugins do DSP? The basics of most plugin APIs? How plugin APIs differ from each other? How the host(s) see plugin APIs? What the difference is for user between the different APIs? How do people actually create audio plugins?

jeanlucas 4y ago
Not the original person that asked, but my questions are more elemental, google-level maybe (I'm googling it now): What even are audio plugins? How people use it? What are some examples?
- sebdufbeau 4y ago
  Caution: This explanation might not use 100% accurate terminology, but should get the point across. Most modern music is made via software named DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), which is kind of like an IDE but where music is made. These allow you to play with audio (ex: import audio files, arrange them across a timeline, record sound from external sources like a microphone). This is great if you already have all the audio files you need (eg: you're a live band and recorded a song in a studio), but sometimes you want to create new audio without having access to a recording studio. Audio plugins allow you to create new sounds. You've got two main types of plugins: ones that generate sound (eg: instruments, like a synth) and ones that modify sounds (takes an input sound, modifies it and then outputs it again, like an equalizer/EQ). Audio plugins are external (or bundled) software that you can use inside a DAW, you can download a lot of them for free but they can also get quite expensive (eg: thousands of dollars). The most popular format for these plugins for a long time (and still today) was VST, but Clap aims to be a new standard to compete with VST.
  - jeanlucas 4y ago
    Thank you very much, this is a great intro to the topic!
  - pixelatedindex 4y ago
    This was pretty helpful in understanding the landscape, so thank you.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Joeboy 4y ago
  From a user point of view, kind of like effects pedals[0], but inside your computer, and not necessarily guitar-oriented. From the computer's point of view, a host program (probably a DAW) feeds an audio stream to a plugin, eg. 512 samples at a time, the plugin does whatever and sends back 512 samples, which the DAW may optionally route to another plugin and so on. Plugins are routed by software, instead of the 1/4" jack cables used by most hardware effects pedals. Modern audio production often uses a lot of these effects / plugins, like dozens or hundreds across a multi-track project, then a bunch more once the tracks are mixed together. Each plugin can either affect the sound very subtly, or make it completely unrecognizable, or something in the middle. Contains some omissions and half-truths, but that's kind of the gist of it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nj1d-P9-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nj1d-P9-I