Exposing Windows ASIO Audio drivers to JACK with WineASIO : It is possible to run some popular Windows Audio software in AVL-MXE and have it run with Windows native ASIO Audio drivers. This is accomplished using a utility called WineASIO which runs in the Microsoft Windows emulating Linux software known as ‘Wine’. AVL-MXE comes with ‘Wine-staging’ installed and a WineASIO launching utility that can be found in the ‘Wine-Staging Setup’ Dialog of the AVL-MXE Assistant. To use WineASIO you must first have the JACK Audio server running as detailed in the ‘Audio & Midi in AVL-MXE’ section. WineASIO can be used with both 32bit and 64bit Windows software applications.
Once you select the appropriate button pertaining to the Windows Audio application you want to run a Terminal window will open confirming that the WineASIO ‘.dll’ has successfully launched. The terminal window output will be very verbose with several warnings specific to Wine-Staging. The main thing to watch for is that the DLL has launched successfully so look for this line or something similar at the bottom of the Terminal: regsvr32: Successfully registered DLL 'wineasio.dll' When WineASIO is up and running you can launch your Windows program and select the WineASIO driver in the Audio setup dialog of the application. As an example we will use the standalone version of the Windows software ‘Jam Origin MIDI Guitar 2’. As you can see in the highlighted section the WineASIO driver has been selected which will route the Audio output through JACK.
Running Windows VST Plugins in Ardour/Mixbus : Steinberg’s ‘Virtual Studio Technology’ or ‘VST’ Audio plugin format is a cross-platform industry standard and there are a wealth of good quality commercial and free VST plugins available. VST’s for Windows are by far the most common and a large number of them will run on Linux with the aid of ‘Wine’ Windows emulating software and various bridging applications. As you would expect running Audio plugins that are not native to Linux presents challenges and it can not be overstated that there are no guarantees of functionality and stability, it is always preferable to run Audio plugins that were intended for the Linux platform. AVL-MXE comes with a small set of ‘oldie-but-goodie’ free 32bit Windows VST Audio plugins placed in the ‘/usr/local/lib/vst’ folder of the filesystem. With ‘wine-staging’ and ‘Yabridge’ pre-installed these plugins are ready to be hosted and used in Ardour and Mixbus32! Hosting Windows VST’s with ‘Yabridge’ : The AVL-MXE method of hosting Windows VST plugins is the use of ‘Yabridge’ VST bridge, Yabridge works by wrapping the Windows ‘.dll’ filetype and making it appear to the plugin host as a native Linux VST ‘.so’ file. Follow the instructions below for any new Windows VST’s you may add.
In AVL-MXE Windows VST's are placed in /usr/local/lib/vst and /usr/lib/vst is for native for Linux VST's only... The rationale for this is that most DAWs will look along both of those paths automatically for VST plugins of any kind and we want VST's to be available system-wide for all Users not buried in the .wine folder in the Users home folder. Yabridge creates the special ‘.so’ file in its ‘Sync’ function is which is used as a reference file to convert all your Windows VST '.dll' files to Linux-friendly '.so' files. It is the '.so' files which Yabridge will use for the Windows VST Plugins to appear in the usual list of plugins in Ardour/Mixbus. AVL-MXE comes with a little graphical utility called ‘YADbridge’ to set up and organize all your .dll files and do the conversion. YADbridge also facilitates removing dll directories, checking the status of your converted dlls and manually editing it’s configuration file manually in the rare case it becomes necessary.
Open Ardour/Mixbus and go to Edit--->Preferences--->Plugins--->VST and make sure the path to your Windows VST folder is there (this is why I use /usr/local/lib/vst because Mixbus looks there automatically). If your particular path isn't there you'll need to add it manually so Ardour/Mixbus knows where to scan.. Once that is done run a plugin scan and if all goes well those converted '.so' files should be picked up and appear as selectable in the Ardour/Mixbus plugin list. The image below shows the ‘Slick EQ’ Windows VST Plugin running with Yabridge in Ardour.
*PLEASE NOTE* The first time Wine-Staging runs on your computer it needs to configure itself and set up it’s directories in a hidden ‘.wine’ directory in your User home folder. Wine-Staging does not run it’s setup until the first time it is called to run a Windows program by the host system. If the first time Wine is initiated is during a plugin scan within a DAW it is possible the initial Wine configuration setup will occur as you are running the VST plugin scanner which ensures the renamed ‘.so’ files of the Windows VST Plugins show up in your Linux DAW. On some systems this may cause the scan to time out, fail and not completely finish. Once Wine has set up it’s initial config you should be able to run the plugin scan again in your DAW and it should be able to successfully complete.
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