[PD] how to get plugin~ to work on windows with LADSPA plugins?

[Jamie Bullock]

> I'm trying to use LADSPA plugins with PD on windows... I've got the most
> recent pd-extended package installed, Pd version 0.38.4-extended-RC8.
>
> I figure I need to tell it the path to the ladspa dlls (I'm using ones
> that came with Audacity for now), and give it the correct parameters. I
> copied a plugin (sc4.dll) to the pd bin folder and the extras folder, as I
> expect pd/plugin~ looks in those places..

I'm afraid it's not as simple as that. [plugin~] doesn't know anything
about Pd's search path. It uses the environment variable LADSPA_PATH to
search for the DLL. Depending on how portable getenv() is, you might just
be able to set the LADPSA_PATH on windows to the directory that contains
your plugins, and then use the external exactly as you describe below.

> E.g. would "plugin~ sc4 sc4.dll" be the correct thing to type to get it to
> load the sc4 compressor plugin?
>

If that doesn't work, you should try giving the absolute path to the dll,
e.g.

[plugin~ sc4 c:\my\plugin\path\sc4.dll]

I'm not exactly sure of the path spec that dlopen() expects on Windows, so
you might need to experiment with e.g using forward slashes:

c:/my/plugin/path ??

> Is it possible to use LADSPA plugins on windows? If so, I'd really
> appreciate someone telling me how... if I get this working maybe I'll
> update the pure-data.info wiki with the details..

It's definitely possible as evindenced by Audacity's LADSPA support. It's
just a case of getting plugin~ to find and load the plugins.

Jamie

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