nymph

A Nim library for writing audio and MIDI plugins conforming to the LV2 standard

Examples

Build the amp.lv2 example plugin:

nimble build_ex amp

Check the amp.lv2 plugin bundle with lv2lint:

nimble lv2lint amp

Run the lv2bm benchmark with the amp.lv2 plugin:

nimble lv2bm amp

Install the amp.lv2 example plugin:

cp -a examples/amp.lv2 ~/.lv2

Other example plugins can be found in the examples directory and can be built and tested with similar commands. Just change the example name to the basename of the plugin's LV2 bundle dir.

Currently, there are just a few other example plugins:

• miditranspose: shows how to handle receiving and sending MIDI events.
• multimodefilter: shows a multimode state-variable filter implementation ported from C++ to Nim.
• tiltfilter: shows a multimode tilt equalizer filter implementation ported from Rust to Nim.
• faustlpf: shows how to integrate DSP C code generated from a FAUST source file in Nim (in this example the FAUST code implements a simple non-resonant low-pass filter from the FAUST standard library).

How To

Note: I'll use mydsp as the base name for the new plugin in the examples below. Substitute your own plugin basename wherever you see it used below.

1. Install this library:

   nimble install https://github.com/SpotlightKid/nymph.git

2. Make a directory named mydsp.lv2 and copy examples/amp.lv2/manifest.ttl into it. Also copy examples/amp.lv2/amp.ttl to mydsp.lv2/mydsp.ttl.

3. Copy examples/amp_plugin.nim into your project as mydsp_plugin.nim.

4. Edit mydsp.lv2/manifest.ttl:

   • Change the plugin URI.
   • Change the plugin's shared library name defined via lv2:binary to libmydsp.so.
   • Change file name referenced via rdfs:seeAlso to mydsp.ttl.

5. Edit mydsp.lv2/mydsp.ttl:

   • Change the plugin URI.
   • Define audio, control and atom ports as needed.

6. Edit mydsp_plugin.nim:

   • Change the PluginUri constant at the top.
   • Change the PluginPort enum and list the ports in the order defined in mydsp.ttl.
   • Rename and update the definition of the AmpPlugin object type and define its members with the appropriate data types for the plugin ports they will be connected to. Update the type name in the instantiate, deactivate, connectPorts and run procs.
   • Update and extend the case statement in connectPort to connect ports to your plugin object instance members.
   • Implement your DSP code in the run proc.

7. Compile the plugin shared library object with:

    nim c --app:lib --noMain:on --mm:arc \
        --out:mydsp.lv2/libmydsp.so mydsp_plugin.nim
   

   See the definition of the build_ex task in the nymph.nimble file on how to create a nimble task to simplify compilation and additional compiler args you might want to use.

Dependencies

Required:

• Nim >= 2.0

Optional:

• lv2bm - For benchmarking and stress-testing plugins
• lv2lint - For checking conformity of plugin bundles

See Also

• lv2-nim - Older third-party Nim bindings for the LV2 audio plugin specification. Last update in 2021.
• offbeat - A CLAP based plugin framework in Nim