I am one of the developers, and the current maintainer, of vst4cs. I
have only used them on Windows. But I find them very useful and use
them all the time, especially with the Pianoteq physically modeled
piano plugin.

The messages you see are diagnostic. Turn them off with -m0 -d.

To use a VST plugin as an instrument, you need two Csound instruments:
one to send notes to the plugin, and another one, that is always on,
to receive audio from the plugin using vstaudiog and output it.

If you want to use a VST plugin as an effect rather than an
instrument, again, you would probably want to set up an "alwayson"
Csound instrument to manage the VST plugin. It would receive audio via
signal flow graph inlet opcodes, zak channels, or global arate
variables, pass that audio to the plugin, get the audio back out of
the plugin using vstaudio, and send it on to the rest of Csound via
signal flow graph outlet opcodes, zak channels, or global arate
variables.

For a better understanding, carefully re-read this manual page:
https://gogins.github.io/csound/html/indexframes.html

Send me your csd or a cut-down version of it and I will make further
suggestions.

Regards,
Mike



-----------------------------------------------------
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com


On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 6:11 PM, Josh Whiting  wrote:
> Thank you Rory, that is just what I needed.
>
> Is anyone active here using VSTs within Csound? If so can you describe your
> runtime environment for me so I might try to replicate it? The opcodes are
> there for me now, and my VST effect loads, but only shows an unresponsive
> white box for a GUI. Also, the realtime audio output is now broken up into
> chunks perforated by silence, and the Csound output is full of this sort of
> thing:
>
> VSGPlugin::GetTime().
> &vstTimeInfo 0x40877b8 sampleRate 44100.000000 samplePos 92928.000000.
> VSTPlugin::Master(AEffect 0x0000000000692DE0, opcode 23
> audioMasterGetCurrentPro
> cessLevel, index 0, value 0l, ptr 0x0000000000000000, opt 0.000000)
> VSTPlugin::Master(AEffect 0x0000000000692DE0, opcode 7 audioMasterGetTime,
> index
>  0, value 0l, ptr 0x0000000000000000, opt 0.000000)
>
> I fear I'm doing this quite wrong :). Any tips on getting a basic VST effect
> up and running would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 2:29 AM, Rory Walsh  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Josh, I don't think those opcodes are included in that installer. Maybe
>> try the one linked here:
>> https://michaelgogins.tumblr.com/CsoundVST
>>
> Csound mailing list Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND Send bugs reports to
> https://github.com/csound/csound/issues Discussions of bugs and features can
> be posted here

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
Send bugs reports to
        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

I dimly recall an issue with banks versus presets. But that may not be relevant.

First, as pathnames are always a problem in cross-platformcode, try changing

vstbankload     giVst   "C:/Users/Josh/Desktop/test.fxb"

to

vstbankload     giVst   "C:\\Users\\Josh\\Desktop\\test.fxb"

HTH,
Mike

-----------------------------------------------------
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com


On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 3:55 PM, Josh Whiting  wrote:
> Ah thank you, Mike, disabling the diagnostics actually cleared a lot up.
> (Also your installer it what I used to get the vst4cs opcodes so thank you
> very much for providing that.) I suspect the volume of messages was so much
> that it interfered with the audio computation and lost the ability to keep
> up in realtime, hence the dropouts which went away with -m0.
>
> I did find I needed to include the flag "--displays" (not use -d) in order
> for the VST effect GUI to render and be interactive. I now have it working
> at a baseline level.
>
> However, I am struggling to get fxb banks to load. I've been exporting them
> either with Ableton Live or Reaper and trying to import in Csound, but no
> matter what VST effect or bank file I use, I get:
>
> Error loading bank: @Ö∟☻
> INIT ERROR in instr 99: Problem loading bank.
>         vstbankload     giVst   "C:/Users/Josh/Desktop/test.fxb"
>           B  0.000 - note deleted.  i99 had 1 init errors
>
> I wonder if my fxb files are of a format not quite recognized by the parser?
>
> I don't really need fxb files per se if there a way to, from within Csound,
> capture the current VST parameters and save them for reuse so that, in a
> live Csound session, after tweaking a VST, I can recreate that setting,
> instead of using an external DAW to generate the .fxb files. Is that
> possible?
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 4:52 PM, Michael Gogins 
> wrote:
>>
>> I am one of the developers, and the current maintainer, of vst4cs. I
>> have only used them on Windows. But I find them very useful and use
>> them all the time, especially with the Pianoteq physically modeled
>> piano plugin.
>>
>> The messages you see are diagnostic. Turn them off with -m0 -d.
>>
>> To use a VST plugin as an instrument, you need two Csound instruments:
>> one to send notes to the plugin, and another one, that is always on,
>> to receive audio from the plugin using vstaudiog and output it.
>>
>> If you want to use a VST plugin as an effect rather than an
>> instrument, again, you would probably want to set up an "alwayson"
>> Csound instrument to manage the VST plugin. It would receive audio via
>> signal flow graph inlet opcodes, zak channels, or global arate
>> variables, pass that audio to the plugin, get the audio back out of
>> the plugin using vstaudio, and send it on to the rest of Csound via
>> signal flow graph outlet opcodes, zak channels, or global arate
>> variables.
>>
>> For a better understanding, carefully re-read this manual page:
>> https://gogins.github.io/csound/html/indexframes.html
>>
>> Send me your csd or a cut-down version of it and I will make further
>> suggestions.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Michael Gogins
>> Irreducible Productions
>> http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
>> Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 6:11 PM, Josh Whiting 
>> wrote:
>> > Thank you Rory, that is just what I needed.
>> >
>> > Is anyone active here using VSTs within Csound? If so can you describe
>> > your
>> > runtime environment for me so I might try to replicate it? The opcodes
>> > are
>> > there for me now, and my VST effect loads, but only shows an
>> > unresponsive
>> > white box for a GUI. Also, the realtime audio output is now broken up
>> > into
>> > chunks perforated by silence, and the Csound output is full of this sort
>> > of
>> > thing:
>> >
>> > VSGPlugin::GetTime().
>> > &vstTimeInfo 0x40877b8 sampleRate 44100.000000 samplePos 92928.000000.
>> > VSTPlugin::Master(AEffect 0x0000000000692DE0, opcode 23
>> > audioMasterGetCurrentPro
>> > cessLevel, index 0, value 0l, ptr 0x0000000000000000, opt 0.000000)
>> > VSTPlugin::Master(AEffect 0x0000000000692DE0, opcode 7
>> > audioMasterGetTime,
>> > index
>> >  0, value 0l, ptr 0x0000000000000000, opt 0.000000)
>> >
>> > I fear I'm doing this quite wrong :). Any tips on getting a basic VST
>> > effect
>> > up and running would be greatly appreciated.
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 2:29 AM, Rory Walsh  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi Josh, I don't think those opcodes are included in that installer.
>> >> Maybe
>> >> try the one linked here:
>> >> https://michaelgogins.tumblr.com/CsoundVST
>> >>
>> > Csound mailing list Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
>> > https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND Send bugs reports to
>> > https://github.com/csound/csound/issues Discussions of bugs and features
>> > can
>> > be posted here
>>
>> Csound mailing list
>> Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
>> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
>> Send bugs reports to
>>         https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
>> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
>
>
> Csound mailing list Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND Send bugs reports to
> https://github.com/csound/csound/issues Discussions of bugs and features can
> be posted here

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
Send bugs reports to
        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

Try putting the .fxb file in the same directory as the Csound .csd or .orc file.

Regards,
Mike

-----------------------------------------------------
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com


On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 4:28 PM, Josh Whiting  wrote:
> That was a worthy suggestion but turns out not to make a difference. The
> idea it might not be finding the file led me to try specifying a .fxb file
> that simply doesn't exist, and the same error is produced in that case. So
> perhaps it's not an issue with the .fxb file itself. I also tried taking the
> path off the opcode statement and moving the file to the csound binary
> folder (C:\Program Files\Csound_x64\bin\) from where I invoke Csound, just
> in case it was an access or path issue, no luck there.
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 1:11 PM, Michael Gogins 
> wrote:
>>
>> I dimly recall an issue with banks versus presets. But that may not be
>> relevant.
>>
>> First, as pathnames are always a problem in cross-platformcode, try
>> changing
>>
>> vstbankload     giVst   "C:/Users/Josh/Desktop/test.fxb"
>>
>> to
>>
>> vstbankload     giVst   "C:\\Users\\Josh\\Desktop\\test.fxb"
>>
>> HTH,
>> Mike
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Michael Gogins
>> Irreducible Productions
>> http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
>> Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com
>>
> Csound mailing list Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND Send bugs reports to
> https://github.com/csound/csound/issues Discussions of bugs and features can
> be posted here

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
Send bugs reports to
        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here