Virtual instruments and libretro?

Bounty Discussion
#1

I would like to discuss this thoroughly before I go ahead with a bounty. What do you all think about composing in RetroArch with virtual instruments? How should this be approached? There are a couple of standards like VST, DSSI and LV2. Would supporting one of these make sense, or would it be better to make something new?

I’m thinking that with existing standards there is a bit too much disparity in how each instrument is controlled. Ideally there should be no need for each instrument to have its own GUI, rather the user should be able to just select a bank and a preset in a standardized fashion. On the other hand, the amount of existing VST instruments is absolutely massive.

#2

Hmm, I don’t know much about this topic. Is there an existing program that does what you need that would make a good target for libretro-ization?

#3

There are a lot of instruments available. Some of them, like Dexed and Munt, are open source and could be ported. They would also need a host (I’m thinking a DAW libretro core) to be really useful, but this can be made later. There are currently no decent DAWs that are open source as far as I know.

#4

Using game controller to interact with sounds is cool :wink:

It seems there is an PS controller to MIDI.

Thank you Hifana !

#5

Yeah, a future DAW should definitely be controlled with the Retropad. This makes existing DAWs unsuitable for porting.