Using module-ladspa-sink - what LADSPA plugin exactly do I need to install?

[Sergei Steshenko]

Hi Doron,

'grep -ri ladspa <whatever_path> is a powerful tool that helped me to 
find my own 'README_pulseaudio.txt
' file which says:

$cat -n 
/media/sergei/d82573ae-e81f-472b-b2e5-4a9b31777d26/music/GenericBinauralFFTWsp/README_pulseaudio.txt
     1  1) edit /etc/pulse/client.conf file to make sure
     2
     3  autospawn = no
     4  .
     5
     6  Do I really need this ? Only while debugging the plugin while it 
crashes to prevent pulseaudio from constantly crashing and restarting ?
     7
     8  2) edit /etc/pulse/default.pa file to add to its end
     9
    10
    11  .ifexists module-ladspa-sink.so
    12  .nofail
    13  load-module module-ladspa-sink sink_name=GenericBinauralFFTW 
plugin=GenericBinauralFFTW_1030 label=1030
    14  .fail
    15  .endif
    16
    17  . the 'label' field must have the same value as 
(*LongEqPlusReverbDescriptor).Label field in the LADSPA plugin code - 
pay attention to capital 'L' vs small 'l';
    18
    19  3) kill pulseaudio with
    20
    21  pulseaudio -k
    22  ;
    23
    24  4) start pulseaudio with
    25
    26  (export 
LADSPA_PATH=/mnt/althome/sergei/acoustics_work_sp/ladspa;  pulseaudio 
-vvvvv --start --log-level=4 --log-target=syslog)
    27
    28  - adjust the '/mnt/althome/sergei/acoustics_work_sp/ladspa' path 
as necessary.
sergei at wdpurple:~


Pay special attention to the possible need to adjust LADSPA_PATH 
environment variable and to how 'pulseaudio' should be started with the 
adjusted LADSPA_PATH.

Also, please find attached 
'/etc/pulse/client.conf','/etc/pulse/default.pa' files reflecting what's 
written in the above README file.

--Sergei.


On 6/9/24 11:24, Sergei Steshenko wrote:
> If you read LADSPA specification, you'll see that in a LADSPA plugin 
> there are functions that are called once per plugin lifecycle. You can 
> insert into those functions fprintf(stderr, ...) calls with diagnostic 
> messages to make sure the plugin is indeed instantiated/used.
>
> For that matter, with big enough samples buffer you can insert the 
> same kind of fprintf statements into the 'run' function.
>
> Also, LADSPA plugins should be listed in the PulseAudio configuration 
> file. I did manage to run a pretty sophisticated LADSPA plugin of my 
> own under PulseAudio several years ago; don't have PulseAudio 
> configuration file at the moment at hand right now, maybe I'll find it 
> later.
>
> --Sergei.
>
> On 09/06/2024 1:07, Doron Behar wrote:
>> Sorry for the late reply :) (I'm not used to mailing lists)
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 03, 2024 at 09:19:50PM -0700, Sean Greenslade wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jun 03, 2024 at 06:17:59PM +0300, Doron Behar wrote:
>>>> I found this program I'd like to use:
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/pulseaudio-equalizer-ladspa/equalizer
>>>>
>>>> I managed to compile and run it, but I don't hear it makes a 
>>>> difference
>>>> in the sound. Do I need to enable the `module-ladspa-sink` module? 
>>>> Link:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/Modules/#module-ladspa-sink 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What makes it difficult for me to figure this out myself, is the
>>>> [LADSPA](http://www.ladspa.org/) link, which seems to general, because
>>>> this group develop many projects, or which I'm not sure which I should
>>>> compile as a pulseaudio plugin (some of which are available in my
>>>> distribution.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for any help in advance.
>>> What distro of Linux are you running?
>>>
>>> Eyeballing the Arch package for this equalizer, it looks like it needs
>>> the swh-plugins package for the actual LADSPA plugin itself. It 
>>> might be
>>> named differently on your distro.
>> So I'm using NixOS and our `ladspaPlugins` package distributes the files
>> distributed by Arch Linux' `swh-plugins` package.
>>
>>> You shouldn't need to manually load any modules in pulse; this 
>>> equalizer
>>> script seems to do all the module loading automagically.
>> OK, sounds promising. I'm still a bit confused how it won't output any
>> error if it doesn't find these plugins at all. Perhaps I'll continue to
>> discuss this with upstream at:
>>
>> https://github.com/pulseaudio-equalizer-ladspa/equalizer/issues/58
>>
>> I will reply again to this thread if I'll learn something new after
>> discussing there.
>>
>> Thanks anyway.
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# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

## Configuration file for PulseAudio clients. See pulse-client.conf(5) for
## more information. Default values are commented out.  Use either ; or # for
## commenting.

; default-sink =
; default-source =
; default-server =
; default-dbus-server =

autospawn = no
; daemon-binary = /usr/bin/pulseaudio
; extra-arguments = --log-target=syslog

; cookie-file =

; enable-shm = yes
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB

; auto-connect-localhost = no
; auto-connect-display = no
-------------- next part --------------
#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF
#
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

# This startup script is used only if PulseAudio is started per-user
# (i.e. not in system mode)

.fail

### Automatically restore the volume of streams and devices
load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore
load-module module-card-restore

### Automatically augment property information from .desktop files
### stored in /usr/share/application
load-module module-augment-properties

### Should be after module-*-restore but before module-*-detect
load-module module-switch-on-port-available

### Use hot-plugged devices like Bluetooth or USB automatically (LP: #1702794)
.ifexists module-switch-on-connect.so
load-module module-switch-on-connect
.endif

### Load audio drivers statically
### (it's probably better to not load these drivers manually, but instead
### use module-udev-detect -- see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink

### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0
.else
### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support)
load-module module-detect
.endif

### Automatically connect sink and source if JACK server is present
.ifexists module-jackdbus-detect.so
.nofail
load-module module-jackdbus-detect channels=2
.fail
.endif

### Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
.ifexists module-bluetooth-policy.so
load-module module-bluetooth-policy
.endif

.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif

### Load several protocols
.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix

### Network access (may be configured with paprefs, so leave this commented
### here if you plan to use paprefs)
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-native-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-zeroconf-publish

### Load the RTP receiver module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-rtp-recv

### Load the RTP sender module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-null-sink sink_name=rtp format=s16be channels=2 rate=44100 sink_properties="device.description='RTP Multicast Sink'"
#load-module module-rtp-send source=rtp.monitor

### Load additional modules from GConf settings. This can be configured with the paprefs tool.
### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might conflict with manually
### loaded modules.
.ifexists module-gconf.so
.nofail
load-module module-gconf
.fail
.endif

### Automatically restore the default sink/source when changed by the user
### during runtime
### NOTE: This should be loaded as early as possible so that subsequent modules
### that look up the default sink/source get the right value
load-module module-default-device-restore

### Automatically move streams to the default sink if the sink they are
### connected to dies, similar for sources
load-module module-rescue-streams

### Make sure we always have a sink around, even if it is a null sink.
load-module module-always-sink

### Honour intended role device property
load-module module-intended-roles

### Automatically suspend sinks/sources that become idle for too long
load-module module-suspend-on-idle

### If autoexit on idle is enabled we want to make sure we only quit
### when no local session needs us anymore.
.ifexists module-console-kit.so
load-module module-console-kit
.endif
.ifexists module-systemd-login.so
load-module module-systemd-login
.endif

### Enable positioned event sounds
load-module module-position-event-sounds

### Cork music/video streams when a phone stream is active
load-module module-role-cork

### Modules to allow autoloading of filters (such as echo cancellation)
### on demand. module-filter-heuristics tries to determine what filters
### make sense, and module-filter-apply does the heavy-lifting of
### loading modules and rerouting streams.
load-module module-filter-heuristics
load-module module-filter-apply

### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input

.ifexists module-ladspa-sink.so
.nofail
load-module module-ladspa-sink sink_name=GenericBinauralFFTW plugin=GenericBinauralFFTW_1030 label=1030
.fail
.endif