#959010 zytrax: no synthesizer plugins available, cannot produce a new track

Package:
zytrax
Source:
zytrax
Description:
Easy to use, tracker-inspired music sequencer
Submitter:
Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Date:
2020-12-10 20:12:12 UTC
Severity:
important
#959010#5
Date:
2020-04-28 02:40:00 UTC
From:
To:
I installed zytrax and tried to follow http://zytrax.org/tutorial/ -- it
says:

 > press the Insert FX label at the bottom, on the rack section. This
 > will open a menu where you can select the scanned plugins.
 >
 > The effect added should now appear on the rack. Make sure to select a
 > synth, or else no sound generation will happen.


But none of the effects appear to be "synth" effects, and it's unclear
how to get such a thing to become available.  I tried installing
zam-plugins, which put a bunch of .so files in /usr/lib/vst/, but they
weren't recognized by zytrax.

Perhaps some Recommends: lines need to be added to the package?  or if
zytrax knows how to use VST plugins, then maybe it needs to learn to
look in /usr/lib/vst/ ?

At the very least some documentation is probably necessary to make the
tool be usable.

The tutorial seems to encourage using Synister, which does not appear to
be in debian, but maybe could be if someone wants to ITP it (i can't do
it myself, alas): https://github.com/the-synister/the-source/

Thanks for maintaining zytrax in debian!

#959010#10
Date:
2020-04-29 06:03:22 UTC
From:
To:
Hi dkg,

Sorry for the oddly formatted reply, I'm somehow not getting bug reports
as email anymore, so
it's just a copy paste.

I installed zytrax and tried to follow http://zytrax.org/tutorial/ -- it
says:

  > press the Insert FX label at the bottom, on the rack section. This
  > will open a menu where you can select the scanned plugins.
  >
  > The effect added should now appear on the rack. Make sure to select a
  > synth, or else no sound generation will happen.

The tutorial says for me Settings -> Preferences, then browse path, I
tried /usr/lib64/
and then hit Scan, it found 22 effects for me:
http://bootes.ethz.ch/zytrax.png

But none of the effects appear to be "synth" effects, and it's unclear
how to get such a thing to become available.  I tried installing
zam-plugins, which put a bunch of .so files in /usr/lib/vst/, but they
weren't recognized by zytrax.

Perhaps some Recommends: lines need to be added to the package?  or if
zytrax knows how to use VST plugins, then maybe it needs to learn to
look in /usr/lib/vst/ ?

Let's figure out which plugins to recommend are useful? Can you try the
above steps,
and make an example song, with recommendations?

At the very least some documentation is probably necessary to make the
tool be usable.

The tutorial seems to encourage using Synister, which does not appear to
be in debian, but maybe could be if someone wants to ITP it (i can't do
it myself, alas): https://github.com/the-synister/the-source/

This is only for macOS/Windows, not Linux.

Thanks for maintaining zytrax in debian!

Welcome :)

#959010#15
Date:
2020-12-10 20:10:53 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Gürkan--

thanks for the followup, and sorry for the delay.

Hm, on my debian system, there is no /usr/lib64 (we use the
more-flexible multiarch filesystem layout, see
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiArch).  so i tried putting
/usr/lib instead of /usr/lib64/

And sure enough it claimed to find 22 effects (which look like the same
that you found from the png above).  But if i'm understanding it
correctly, those were the 22 that were already loaded and available --
they are all of "Type: Effect", so they aren't synthesizers.

I'm still stuck on creating a song without any synth elements.  I don't
know how to do it.  But maybe i'm just holding the tool wrong?  have you
managed to make a song on it?  what am i missing?