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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
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<h2>Why use DSSI?</h2>
<div class="toc3">1. <a href="#toc1">Synth authors</a></div>
<div class="toc3">2. <a href="#toc2">Effects plugin authors</a></div>
<div class="toc3">3. <a href="#toc3">Host authors</a></div>
<p>DSSI is an API for writing audio plugins with custom user interfaces.
Although designed for synthesis plugins, it can also be used for
effects. This document suggests a few reasons why you might want to
consider using DSSI when writing synths or other plugins, or to
consider adding DSSI support to a host application.
</p>
<div class="oddcontent"><a name="toc1"></a><h3>1. Synth authors</h3>
<p>If you're thinking of writing a synth, here are some reasons you might
want to make it a DSSI plugin.
</p><ul>
<li>Flexibility
<br/><br/> DSSI plugins can accept MIDI and audio input, can have any number
of controls and audio outputs, can support unlimited string-based
configuration values as well as the numeric control ports, and can
provide their own user interface using any GUI toolkit.
<br/><br/> Using DSSI does not limit your synth to being used as a plugin in
sequencers that support DSSI, because the DSSI distribution also
includes a complete, efficient JACK and ALSA-sequencer based host
application. This host will run a particular plugin automatically
if invoked through a symbolic link -- so you can install your
plugin in such a way as to be immediately operable as a standalone
program as well, outwardly indistinguishable from any other
JACK-based synth.
<br/><br/></li><li>Structure
<br/><br/> DSSI separates the plugin and user interface, using standard Open
Sound Control (OSC) messages to communicate between them. This
ensures that the plugin's controls are consistently externally
available, provides a guarantee of automatability, and encourages
clean plugin structure.
<br/><br/> DSSI uses a parsed MIDI event structure to pass MIDI events to the
plugin. This removes the responsibility of parsing MIDI in the
plugin, a common source of problems in VST instruments.
<br/><br/></li><li>Accessibility and control
<br/><br/> A DSSI plugin can have any number of different user interfaces,
which can be added at any time. It's also possible to use the same
user interface code for more than one different plugin. DSSI user
interfaces don't have to be graphical -- every DSSI plugin is
naturally controllable, so can be used directly from external OSC
control surfaces and other non-graphical interfaces.
<br/><br/> DSSI also gives you a simple framework for basic requirements like
mapping control ports onto MIDI controllers, so as to support MIDI
controllers and MIDI automation as well as OSC and plugin port
controls.
<br/><br/></li><li>Simplicity
<br/><br/> Writing the plugin is easy -- the only hard part is that
troublesome synthesis...
<br/><br/> Plugins can very easily be written incrementally, creating and
testing the synthesis engine first before adding any advanced
features or user interface. (Indeed there's absolutely no
requirement to write a user interface at all.) DSSI is based on
LADSPA, and the simplest DSSI synth plugins are just like LADSPA
plugins with a single extra function to accept incoming note
events.
<br/><br/> Source code to a number of plugins is available to serve as
examples or bases for new efforts. The DSSI distribution itself
contains several plugins, including the simplest-possible
monophonic synth, a straightforward polyphonic synth, and
monotimbral samplers. Also available are several softsynths
(Xsynth-DSSI, hexter, Sineshaper, WhySynth), a FluidSynth wrapper
(FluidSynth-DSSI), a DSSI-to-VST bridge (dssi-vst), an X-Y
controller GUI (xy-controller-dssi), a libconvolve wrapper
(dssi_convolve), and an oscilloscope (ll-scope) which
demonstrates shared memory use between plugin and UI. Most of
these plugins include GUIs, with Qt and GTK examples available.
<br/><br/></li><li>Clear host-neutral specification
<br/><br/> DSSI has a written specification and an open, complete reference
host. It was designed and tested independently of implementation
in any existing host.
<br/><br/> One of DSSI's designers is an author of a sequencer that is also a
DSSI host, but none of the other people behind DSSI even use that
host, and DSSI was largely designed and tested in its own test
framework before being implemented in it. We're confident there
are no hidden dependencies on any particular host.
<br/><br/> The DSSI specifications also aim to reduce the amount of possible
host dependency by specifying things like multithreading
requirements, that usually go assumed in other APIs and end up
causing portability problems.
</ul>
</div><div class="evencontent"><a name="toc2"></a><h3>2. Effects plugin authors</h3>
<p>DSSI plugins do not have to be synths. DSSI is based on LADSPA 1.1,
and is compatible with it. This makes for some interesting
possibilities.
</p><ul>
<li>Dual LADSPA and DSSI plugins
<br/><br/> A single loadable object file can provide both LADSPA and DSSI
plugins through the separate LADSPA and DSSI discovery mechanisms.
You can exploit this to make the same or related plugin code
available via both APIs, for example to provide an effects plugin
that supports true presets when queried via DSSI but uses an
additional control input to mimic presets if queried via LADSPA
(which does not support presets explicitly).
<br/><br/></li><li>Custom GUIs for LADSPA plugins
<br/><br/> The DSSI user interface standard consists of a set of guidelines
for OSC message passing and user interface invocation. Nothing
about it is necessarily specific to DSSI plugins, although the
standard does assume that the plugin has at least the structure of
a LADSPA plugin. You can take advantage of this to provide custom
GUIs for standard LADSPA plugins. This is actually very easy to
do, and the resulting GUIs will work already in any host that
supports both DSSI and LADSPA.
</ul>
</div><div class="oddcontent"><a name="toc3"></a><h3>3. Host authors</h3>
<p>Here are some good reasons to consider adding DSSI support to your
sequencer or other plugin host application.
</p><ul>
<li>Appropriateness for plugin authors
<br/><br/> Any plugin API needs to have more plugins than hosts. The most
important criterion for a host author is whether or not the API is
a good one for writing plugins. DSSI is, for all the reasons given
above.
<br/><br/></li><li>Documented API and specification
<br/><br/> DSSI is certainly more complex to implement for hosts than for
plugins, and it's also more complex than some other synth APIs, but
it's easier to get it right because almost everything is
documented. Contrast this with something like VST: a VST host can
be a simpler thing than a DSSI host, but writing a VST host
involves so much guesswork that it's hard to be sure whether any
given plugin will actually run in it.
<br/><br/></li><li>Standard technology
<br/><br/> DSSI's plugin interface is based on LADSPA and ALSA sequencer
events, so any host that supports LADSPA, ALSA, and any form of
synthesis will have most of the basics in place already. The GUI
part is more unusual, but all it really consists of is an external
control interface for plugins using the industry standard OSC --
which is a pretty good thing to have anyway.
<br/><br/></li><li>Best chance as a workable standard
<br/><br/> The options for plugin synth support in a Free Software MIDI
application are limited, and DSSI is the only one we know of that
even has a written specification. While there aren't very many
DSSI plugins available at the time of writing -- hardly surprising,
as it's still a new API -- DSSI is now supported by more hosts
than any of the alternatives.
<br/><br/></li><li>Free VST support
<br/><br/> The dssi-vst bridge plugin gives any DSSI host free support for
Windows VST instruments and effects.
<br/><br/></li><li>Free LADSPA GUI support
<br/><br/> Because DSSI is compatible with LADSPA, any DSSI implementation in
an existing LADSPA host will get free support for custom LADSPA
GUIs written to the DSSI GUI specification. (See the "Effects
plugin authors" section above.)
</ul>
<p></p>
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