Does anyone actually know how to use the inbuilt plug-ins?

[Generic_mexican_user]

HI. I'm not exactly new to LMMS and i know how to use a couple of the default plug-ins, but i have always been stumped by a couple of them that i just can't seem to figure out.

• Calf Analyzer LADSPA: It would seem like it is supposed to be some kind of visual analyzer, but i can't seem to find the display.

• Aliasing: If the Wikipedia definition of aliasing has anything to do with this plug-in, it would mean it smooths out the sound. But to what end?

• impulse converter: so apparently it's supposed to let you choose the reverb of a certain space (gross simplification but you get what i mean). How do i load it in?

• Declipper: Is it me or does it not do that?

• Calf Envelope Filter LADSPA: It seems just flat out broken, since it just doesn't make any noise.

• Vocoder: It seems to have trouble playing the low end of anything. I have fiddled with the band levels, but it doesn't cut it when it has something like a drum kick in the modulator.

Most of these plug-ins have some sort of free vst workaround, but i am still curious about how to use the defaults properly.

Thanks

[Monospace]

All LADSPA tools' GUI cannot be used in Windows. The LADSPA analysis tool primarily comprises of a spectrum analyzer and vectorscope, though, both of which LMMS offers a powerful version, at least by 1.3.
I'm pretty sure anti-aliasing means making smooth, and so aliasing means making it more rough and chunky. But I'm not quite sure.
Impulse Convolver has some inbuilt modes. Again, see above: GUI cannot be used.
Declipper works. Clipping means when a signal crosses the threshold of 0 dBfs. A side effect of clipping is distortion. Declipper does the declipping just fine. Still keeps the distortion, though, but there's no clipping.
Are you talking about the C* Autowah resonant envelope filter? It seems to work for me.
I don't use the vocoder, and I don't have a voice strong enough to record and test the vocoder against.

[Mampfwurm]

• Aliasing: If the Wikipedia definition of aliasing has anything to do with this plug-in, it would mean it smooths out the sound. But to what end?

I'm pretty sure anti-aliasing means making smooth, and so aliasing means making it more rough and chunky. But I'm not quite sure.

Aliasing is not a process, but a phenomenon, that occurs on digital technology, that doesn't have the unspecific quality of analog signals. The common assocation here is with computer graphics, which are a great example. Since a screens resolution is not infinite or unspecific graphics will be converted into its grid of pixels. Unfortunately, depending on the amount; resolution, this may look unpleasent with visible steps on diagonal lines for example. Anti-Aliasing is a system to combat this effect, it calculates a way to smooth the egdes out.

(The picture is confusing, everyone always mixes up the terms, so just ignore the words there)

Similarly digital audio is basically a list of data points in sequence - the more per unit of time you have "resolution", the smoother the waveforms will look. So I would assume that in this case anti-aliasing means an algorithm that calculates likely additional data points so it might be able to patch up some low quality, sharp sounding audio. But I've never heard of audio anti-aliasing either.

[Monospace]

Similarly digital audio is basically a list of data points in sequence - the more per unit of time you have "resolution", the smoother the waveforms will look. So I would assume that in this case anti-aliasing means an algorithm that calculates likely additional data points so it might be able to patch up some low quality, sharp sounding audio. But I've never heard of audio anti-aliasing either.

Makes sense. The thing's called "Aliasing" though, not "Anti-aliasing".

[Mampfwurm]

Similarly digital audio is basically a list of data points in sequence - the more per unit of time you have "resolution", the smoother the waveforms will look. So I would assume that in this case anti-aliasing means an algorithm that calculates likely additional data points so it might be able to patch up some low quality, sharp sounding audio. But I've never heard of audio anti-aliasing either.

Makes sense. The thing's called "Aliasing" though, not "Anti-aliasing".

Maybe it decreases the quality then? I certainly know there are some cool plugins like Bitcrusher that have similar purposes. Or maybe someone confused the terminology again. Actually I found some kind of documentation for LADSPA (http://www.plugin.org.uk/ladspa-swh/docs/ladspa-swh.pdf) and now I know it does something called "nyquist frequency modulation".

Yeah, I'm just as clueless, but based on what I could find it does have something to do with sample rate. I did however discover the "nyquist rate", which, according to Wikipedia "specifies a sampling rate (...) equal to twice the highest frequency (bandwidth) of a given function or signal. With an equal or higher sampling rate, the resulting discrete-time sequence is said to be free of the distortion known as aliasing." So I guess I was kind of on the right track in terms of it increasing sound quality in the way I described - kind of. Also even wikipedia calls the phenomenon aliasing, so the process against it would be called anti-aliasing. So maybe there is little typo in LADSPA. I can't really say I noticed anything notable, if anything at all, trying the plugin myself, certainly no decreasing of audio quality.

I guess we can all safely ignore LADSPAs "Aliasing" for the time being.

[Mampfwurm]

So that discussion about aliasing and anti-aliasing might have been quite fun if you're technically minded like me, I do however realize it doesn't really do anything to answer your questions. So I'm just going to compile what I know about these plugins, which might help or it might not, but it's my best attempt either way.

• Calf Analyzer LADSPA: It would seem like it is supposed to be some kind of visual analyzer, but i can't seem to find the display.

Like Monospace mentioned it's probably just broken. I can't even seem to find it despite using 1.2.2, which I believe to be the newest version.

• Aliasing: If the Wikipedia definition of aliasing has anything to do with this plug-in, it would mean it smooths out the sound. But to what end?

As explained, increasing quality of recordings with low sample rate. But it doesn't really seem to do anyhting somehow and I could imagine many people living a life without ever needing it.

• impulse converter: so apparently it's supposed to let you choose the reverb of a certain space (gross simplification but you get what i mean). How do i load it in?

You load it in just like any other plugin, but it seems to take quite a while to do so. When I first tried it out, I thought it was just flat out broken, but it takes 20 seconds at least. I don't know why, but it can be used. As for how to use it... I have no idea, sorry.

• Declipper: Is it me or does it not do that?

The documentation says it's supposed to remove clicks and pops from recordings - I guess it's kind of like the noise reduction of audacity, but decides what to remove automatically? I can't imagine the results sounding very pretty anyways, so it's probably also something that's not all that useful.

• Calf Envelope Filter LADSPA: It seems just flat out broken, since it just doesn't make any noise.

Couldn't find this one either. Also has little use in most cases since almost all LMMS instruments have one included in the "Envelopes, LFO and filters" tab instruments menu.

• Vocoder: It seems to have trouble playing the low end of anything. I have fiddled with the band levels, but it doesn't cut it when it has something like a drum kick in the modulator.

Same experience here. I guess you really need to know what you're doing to use it. If someone would say "Man, I really love to use Vocoders for my music!", I guess you could respond "Yeah, you can do that in LMMS as well, isn't that great?" and he could do whatever it is, he was doing in LMMS as well - but other than that I can't see someone making use of it.

Most of these plug-ins have some sort of free vst workaround, but i am still curious about how to use the defaults properly.

I guess some of them just don't, period, and others aren't all that useful in the first place, outside of some very specific situations. So the VST workarounds sound like the better choice.

[musgusrain]

Thank you for the LADSPA documentation in PDF. It was useful to me.