Jamba Sample - Simple Gain plugin

The goal of this project is to serve as documentation for the Jamba framework. It shows some of the most important features of the framework. The code is heavily documented to explain the various concepts and features. The end result for this project is a plugin similar to the again example plugin provided with the VST SDK.

If you just want to build the project then skip to Configuration.

If you want to create your own plugin, check Quick Starting Guide.

This is what the plugin looks like:

Concepts

Jamba is a set of helpers (classes, concepts, build files, etc...) built on top of the VST SDK to provide a lightweight framework to build a VST3 plugin.

Parameters

VST parameters are what the host DAW deal with (for example a knob is usually tied to a VST parameter). Both the GUI and the RT (Real Time) are "sharing" those parameters. As a result Jamba makes them front and center: you define them in one place and use them in the GUI and RT. Check the file JSGainPlugin.h

Note: the Jamba framework introduces a new kind of parameters that go beyond VST parameters (which are limited to a double value in the range [0.0, 1.0]).

| ID   | TITLE      | TYP | OW | TRS | SHA | DEF.N | DEF.S          | STP | FLG   | SHORT  | PRE | UID | UNS |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1000 | Bypass     | vst | rt |     |     | 0.000 | Off            | 1   | 65537 | Bypass | 4   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2010 | Left Gain  | vst | rt |     |     | 0.700 | +0.00dB        | 0   | 1     | GainL  | 2   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2011 | Right Gain | vst | rt |     |     | 0.700 | +0.00dB        | 0   | 1     | GainR  | 2   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2012 | Link       | vst | ui |     |     | 1.000 | On             | 1   | 1     | Link   | 4   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2020 | Reset Max  | vst | rt |     |     | 0.000 | Off            | 1   | 1     | Reset  | 4   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2000 | VuPPM      | vst | rt | x   |     | 0.000 | 0.0000         | 0   | 1     | VuPPM  | 4   | 0   |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 3000 | Stats      | jmb | rt | x   | x   |       | -oo            |     |       |        |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2030 | Input Text | jmb | ui |     |     |       | Hello from GUI |     |       |        |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 3010 | UIMessage  | jmb | ui | x   | x   |       |                |     |       |        |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This table (generated by the plugin) shows the parameters used by the plugin.

State

Jamba helps you deal with the state. From the parameters that you declare, you then define a RTState subclass (for the Real Time / processing code) and a GUIState subclass (for the GUI). Jamba then deals with the details of reading/writing the state in a thread safe fashion. Check the file JSGainPlugin.h

This is what the JSGainRTState will read/save:

Version=1
| ID   | TITLE      |
---------------------
| 1000 | Bypass     |
---------------------
| 2010 | Left Gain  |
---------------------
| 2011 | Right Gain |
---------------------
| 2020 | Reset Max  |
---------------------

This is what the JSGainGUIState will read/save:

Version=1
| ID   | TITLE      |
---------------------
| 2012 | Link       |
---------------------
| 2030 | Input Text |
---------------------

RT Processor

The Real Time (RT) processing code is where the main logic of the plugin resides. The DAW repeatedly calls the process method (actually processInputs32Bits or processInputs64Bits in Jamba) to process a batch of samples. This is usually called a "frame". The processor uses the RTState class. You simply need to inherit from RTProcessor. Check the file JSGainProcessor.h

GUI Controller

The entry point of the GUI is the GUI controller. Jamba takes care of most of the details of the implementation for you: you simply need to inherit from GUIController. The controller uses the GUIState class (and makes it available to all the views). Check the file JSGainController.h.

Views

Each item in the UI is represented by a view (ex: a label, a knob, a slider, etc...). Jamba makes it very easy to create custom views which can implement complex behavior since they get access to the state. Check the 3 views provided as examples: JSGainStatsView.h, JSGainSendMessageView.h and LinkedSliderView.h.

Testing

Jamba also helps in providing an out of the box solution for (unit) testing using google test. Check test-JSGain.cpp (and CMakeLists.txt).

UI Editor

Once the plugin is running, you can right click on the background and select "Open UIDescription Editor" in order to enter the UI editor (only available in Debug build) that comes built-in with the VST3 SDK.

Configuration

The VST SDK will be automatically downloaded during the configure phase. This project requires C++17 and CMake 3.12+. See Jamba Requirements for more details.

Build this project

The following steps describes how to build the plugin:

1. Invoke the configure.py python script to configure the project
2. Run the jamba.sh (resp. jamba.bat) command line to build, test validate...

macOS:

• For simplicity, I am creating the build at the root of the source tree, but can obviously be outside the source tree entirely by running the script from anywhere

    > ./configure.py -h
    usage: configure.py [-h] [-n] [-f] [-r] [--vst3 VST3_SDK_ROOT] [-G GENERATOR] [-B BUILD_DIR] [-- <cmake_options>]
    
    positional arguments:
    cmake_options         Any options for cmake
    
    optional arguments:
    -h, --help            show this help message and exit
    -n, --dry-run         Dry run (prints what it is going to do)
    -f, --force           Force a regeneration (delete and recreate build
    folder)
    --vst3 VST3_SDK_ROOT  Path to the VST3 SDK (optional)
    -r, --release         Use CMake Release build type (for single-config
    generators)
    -G GENERATOR, --generator GENERATOR
    CMake generator (optional)
    -B BUILD_DIR, --build-dir BUILD_DIR
    Build folder (defaults to ./build)
    
    Notes
    ---vst3 defaults to /Users/Shared/Steinberg/VST_SDK.<JAMBA_VST3SDK_VERSION>
    
    -G defaults to "Xcode" on macOS and "Visual Studio 16 2019" for Windows10
    run 'cmake --help' to get the list of generators supported
    
    For single-config generators, Debug is used by default and can be changed with -r for Release
    For multi-config generators, -r is ignored
    
    To provide extra options to CMake you do it this way
    python3 configure.py -- -Wdev
    
    Examples
    # Specify an explicit path to the VST3 sdk and uses default generator
    python3 configure.py ---vst3 /opt/local/VST_SDK.3.7.0
    
    # Use default paths and uses another generator
    python3 configure.py -G "CodeBlocks - Unix Makefiles"
    
    # Use defaults
    python3 configure.py
  

  • In order to build, test, validate, etc... simply use the jamba.sh script like this:

    >   ./jamba.sh -h
      usage: jamba.sh [-hnvbdr] <command> [<command> ...] [-- [native-options]]
    
      positional arguments:
      command        See "Commands" section
    
      optional arguments:
      -h, --help     show this help message and exit
      -n, --dry-run  Dry run (prints what it is going to do)
      -v, --verbose  Verbose build
      -b, --banner   Display a banner before every command
      -d, --debug    use Debug build config
      -r, --release  use Release build config
    
      Commands [Debug]
      ---- Main commands ----
      clean     : clean all builds
      build     : build the plugin
      test      : run the tests for the plugin
      validate  : run the validator for the vst3 plugin
      edit      : run the editor (full editing available in Debug config only)
      info      : run the module info tool (display json info about the plugin)
      inspect   : run the inspector (inspects ALL installed plugins)
      install   : build and install all the plugins (vst3/audio unit)
      uninstall : delete the installed plugins (vst3/audio unit)
      archive   : create an archive containing the plugins
    
      ---- VST3 commands ----
      install-vst3   : install the vst3 plugin only
      uninstall-vst3 : uninstall the vst3 plugin only
    
      ---- Audio Unit commands ----
      build-au     : builds the Audio Unit only
      install-au   : install the Audio Unit only
      uninstall-au : uninstall the Audio Unit only
    
      ---- CMake target ----
      <command>   : Any unknown <command> is treated as a cmake target
    
      --- Native options ----
      Pass remaining options to the native tool (ex: -- -j 8 for parallel build)
    

Note: You can load the project directly in CLion (since CLion does not support the Xcode cmake generator, you can still work on the plugin but in order to build and install the Audio Unit wrapper you will need to use the command line).

Windows

For windows, follow the same steps for macOS with the following changes:

• In order to invoke configure.py you need to use python configure.py
• The script is called jamba.bat (instead of jamba.sh)

Release Notes

2024-12-09 - v2.1.2

• use latest version of Jamba (v7.1.4)

2024-12-02 - v2.1.1

• use latest version of Jamba (v7.1.3)

2024-11-29 - v2.1.0

• use latest version of Jamba (v7.1.2)

2023-05-25 - v2.0.0

• use latest version of Jamba (v7.0.0) / removed support for VST2

2022-06-02 - v1.2.9

• use latest version of Jamba (v6.0.1) to fix gtest crash on Apple M1

2022-05-30 - v1.2.8

• use latest version of Jamba (v6.0.0)

2021-01-02 - v1.2.7

• use latest version of Jamba (v5.1.2)
• added support for Apple Silicon

2020-08-26 - v1.2.6

• use latest version of Jamba (v5.0.0)
• use configure.py instead of shell scripts

2020-04-26 - v1.2.5

• use latest version of Jamba (v4.4.0)
• changed sliders to respond only when the handle is dragged
• use simplified factory creation (in JSGainVST3.cpp)

2020-03-31 - v1.2.4

• use latest version of Jamba (v4.3.0)

2020-02-10 - v1.2.3

• use latest version of Jamba (v4.1.0)

2019-10-26 - v1.2.2

• use latest version of Jamba (v4.0.0) / C++17
• automatically downloads the VST SDK during config
• use new concepts (like TextButtonView)
• different name/uuid for debug plugin

2019-05-20 - v1.2.1

• updated README
• use latest version of Jamba (v3.2.1)

2019-01-03 - v1.2.0

• use latest version of Jamba (v3.0.0)

2018-10-06 - v1.1.0

• use latest version of Jamba (v2.1.0)
• Generate Audio Unit (wrapper) plugin
• Upgraded to cmake 3.12
• Consolidated dev scripts into a single jamba.sh (resp jamba.bat) script
• Uses Xcode as the cmake generator on macOS

2018-08-28 - v1.0.1

• changed build-prod.bat to use scripts

2018-08-25 - v1.0.0

• first public release / free / open source

Misc

This project uses loguru for logging.

Licensing

GPL version 3