Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plugins on Linux - Audacity Manual

# Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plugins on Linux

From Audacity Development Manual
You can download and install plugins to add extra functionality to Audacity. Plugins can give you extra effects, or more audio generation and analysis capabilities.

Audacity on GNU/Linux supports a large number of Nyquist, LADSPA, LV2 and Vamp effects. VST effects are now supported in Audacity on Linux and can be installed as described at VST Effects. However native Linux VST effects are quite rare. Consequently, if a specific VST effect is required on Linux, it may be necessary to employ workarounds such as running Audacity for Windows in a virtual machine.

Audacity supports 64-bit effects in VST, LADSPA and Vamp format on 64-bit Linux systems (conversely, 32-bit plugins in those formats will not load into Audacity on 64-bit Linux).

| Any new plugins that you add to the various plugins folders will be automatically enabled, ready for use, the next time you launch Audacity.

| It is strongly recommended, when installing third-party plugins, that you thoroughly test the plugin on non-critical project data before using it in production use on a live project. There is information about some plugins that are known to fail or crash Audacity on this Wiki page.

## Contents

1. Installing Nyquist plugins
2. Installing LV2 plugins
3. Installing LADSPA plugins
4. Installing Vamp plugins
5. Installing VST plugins
6. How can I solve Audacity crashing after I add a plugin?

## Installing Nyquist plugins

Nyquist plugins provide most of the optional effects underneath the divider in the Effect menu. They are also used to provide some of Audacity's built-in audio generators and analysis tools. A wide range of additional Nyquist effect, generator and analysis plugins can be obtained from Download Nyquist Plugins on our Wiki.

If the plugin is downloaded as a ZIP archive, the contents of the package must be extracted. This can usually be achieved with the command:

unzip file.zip -d destination_folder

Alternatively, most Linux distributions include a GUI application for extracting ZIP archives.

Nyquist plugins provide most of the optional effects underneath the divider in the Effect menu. They are also used to provide some of Audacity's built-in audio generators and analysis tools. A wide range of additional Nyquist effect, generation and analysis plugins can be obtained from Download Nyquist Plugins on our Wiki.

The easiest and recommended way to install a new Nyquist plugin is to use the Tool Nyquist Plug-in Installer which is itself a Nyquist plugin that simplifies the installation of other Nyquist plugins.

All Nyquist plugins are plain text files that have the filename extension '.NY'. This plugin installer provides a file browser for selecting the plugin '.NY' file, and then copies the file to the correct location.

Any new Nyquist plugins that you add will be automatically enabled, ready for use, the next time you launch Audacity.

  Accessed by: Tools > Nyquist Plug-in Installer...

| The information below about manual installation of Nyquist plugins is provided for the benefit of system administrators that may have specific requirements. End users should use the method described above.

### Per user installation

It is also possible to add a new Nyquist plugin manually by adding it to the correct location that Audacity expects, it can be performed with standard user permissions.

1. If it does not already exist, create a folder called .audacity-files in your home directory. Note that the dot as the first character indicates that this will be a hidden folder, so if using a graphical file browser, enable viewing hidden files (for most graphical file browsers, this is an option in the "View" menu).
2. Add a sub-directory to .audacity-files and name it Plug-Ins. The location of this folder may be described as ~/.audacity-file/plug-ins, where "~/" means your home folder.
3. Copy or move the Nyquist plugin file (with ny or NY file name extension) into the ~/.audacity-files/plug-ins folder.
   - If the plugin includes a help file or help folder, that file should usually be copied or moved to the same location as the NY file. Check the plugin documentation for details.
4. Close and relaunch Audacity to automatically enable the new effects so they are available in the Audacity menu.

### System-wide installation

This will install the plugin for all users and requires root permissions.

1. Copy or move the Nyquist plugin file (with ny or NY file name extension) into:
   - /usr/share/audacity/plug-ins if Audacity was installed from a repository package
   - /usr/local/share/audacity/plug-ins if you compiled Audacity from source code.
   - If the plugin includes a help file or help folder, that file should usually be copied or moved to the same location as the NY file. Check the plugin documentation for details.
2. Close and relaunch Audacity to automatically enable the new effects so they are available in the Audacity menu.

Note that the effect is loaded per user, but will be available for loading to all users.

Audacity can currently load Nyquist plugins from other locations, but it is recommended to use the locations listed above. In particular, ~/.audacity-data/Plug-Ins is now deprecated as a location for Nyquist plugins, even though it is still supported.

| Some Nyquist plugins could crash while processing very long audio selections (typically an hour or more). This is due to the plugin using a large amount of memory and is a known issue in Audacity's current Nyquist implementation. Try using the plugin on shorter selections instead.

## Installing LV2 plugins

LV2 is a more advanced evolution of the LADSPA plugin architecture. LV2 effects are platform-native for Linux.

| It is generally recommended to use your system's package manager to install LV2 plugins that have been built and tested for your Linux distribution. After installing, the effects need to be enabled in the Plugin Manager. The instructions below provide hints to help experienced Linux users that may need to install plugins that are not available from their distribution's repositories.

To add a new LV2 effect, place its complete ".lv2" folder (not the files alone) at the top level of any of the following searched for locations:

- ~/.lv2 (per user installation)
- /usr/local/lib/lv2 or /usr/local/lib64/lv2 (custom system-wide installation)
- /usr/lib/lv2 or /usr/lib64/lv2 (package manager default installation)

Search paths where Audacity looks for LV2 plugins may also be specified by setting the LV2_PATH environment variable. The path listed below is legitimate.

- $HOME/.lv2:/usr/local/lib/lv2:/usr/lib/lv2 (assuming $PREFIX is /usr/local as it should be by default)

To automatically enable the new LV2 effects, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

## Installing LADSPA plugins

| LADSPA has been superseded by LV2 and most if not all LADSPA plugins are ancient and are no longer maintained.

The LADSPA plugin architecture which was originally developed on Linux. Audacity supports both LV2 and LADSPA effects on GNU/Linux. You can download and install a set of over 90 LADSPA plugins for all operating systems. You can then choose which LADSPA plugins to enable in the Plugin Manager dialog.

LADSPA plugins can be installed for all users by putting the plugins into the Audacity "Plug-Ins" folder:

- /usr/share/audacity/plug-ins if Audacity was installed from a repository package
- /usr/local/share/audacity/plug-ins if you compiled Audacity from source code.

These locations are usually set as read-only, so the plugins will need to be copied as root (for example, by issuing an appropriate root command in the terminal, or by using the terminal to open a file manager application with root permissions).

To automatically enable the new LADSPA effects, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

Audacity can also load LADSPA plugins from other system and user locations including:

- All paths specified by the LADSPA_PATH environment variable
- ~/.ladspa (plugins can be added to here with standard user permissions)
- /usr/local/lib/ladspa
- /usr/lib/ladspa
- $LIBDIR/ladspa
- ~/.audacity-data/Plug-Ins (deprecated).

Audacity installed from a repository package or compiled from source should automatically find LADSPA plugins installed in /usr/lib/ladspa. This may not be the case if you are compiling older source code. If necessary you can set an environment variable to indicate to Audacity where LADSPA plugins are installed. For Debian-based distributions this can be done by entering the following code at the command prompt (change <user> to your account username):

export LADSPA_PATH=$LADSPA_PATH:/home/<user>/.ladspa:/usr/local/lib/ladspa:/usr/lib/ladspa

If you wish this path to be set each time you boot, the LADSPA_PATH environment variable may be added to ~/.profile or this file may be created if it does not exist. An example of how to add the LADSPA_PATH environment variable:

LADSPA_PATH=$LADSPA_PATH:/home/<user>/.ladspa:/usr/local/lib/ladspa:/usr/lib/ladspa export LADSPA_PATH

For OpenSuse 64, LADSPA plugins may be found in /usr/lib64/ladspa. This path can be set by adding the following line to your /etc/environment file:

LADSPA_PATH=/usr/lib64/ladspa

LV2 and Vamp plugins cannot be placed in the Audacity "Plug-Ins" folder or your .audacity-files folder. LV2 plugins should be installed by placing the complete .lv2 folder (not the individual files in that folder) in the root of ~/.lv2, /usr/local/lib/lv2, /usr/local/lib64/lv2, /usr/lib/lv2 or /usr/lib64/lv2. Alternatively the environment variable may be set as in this example:

export LV2_PATH=$HOME/.lv2:/usr/local/lib/lv2:/usr/lib/lv2

## Installing Vamp plugins

Vamp plugins are usually for analyzing audio so will appear under Audacity's Analyze Menu. You can do interesting things like attempt to track beats, note pitches, chords or frequencies. Any Vamp pluginnwhose output is suitable for a label track should work in Audacity on GNU/Linux. To add a new Vamp analysis tool, add the plugin's DLL, DYLIB or SO file and any supplied category or RDF files to any of the Vamp search locations. To automatically enable the new Vamp plugins, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

Vamp plugins may be installed in

- ~/vamp
- ~/.vamp
- /usr/local/lib/vamp
- /usr/lib/vamp.

Alternatively the VAMP_PATH environment variable may be set to any of those specified VAMP installation directories. Vamp plugins will normally be placed in the Analyze Menu of Audacity.

## Installing VST plugins

| VST plugins made for Windows or macOS will not work on Linux without additional software such as wine. Although some VST effects are built for Linux and run natively, if an LV2 version is available then the LV2 version is usually the better option.

Audacity supports some VST effect plugins on Linux including "shell" VSTs that host multiple VST effects. Very few VST effects are available through official distribution repositories, so follow the vendor's instructions for installation.

Audacity can load VST plugins from several system and user locations including:

- All paths listed in the "VST_PATH" environment variable
- ~/.vst (plugins can be added here with standard user permissions)
- LIBDIR/vst (where LIBDIR is defined at build time)
- /usr/lib/vst
- /usr/local/lib/vst
- ~/.audacity-data/Plug-Ins (deprecated).

All the directories where you can place VST plugins are searched recursively, which means that plugins that are inside their own folder in that directory should still be found by Audacity.

To automatically enable the new VST effects, so they are available in the Audacity menu, close and relaunch Audacity.

| The list of effects in the dialog will include any detected VST instrument (VSTi) plugins (such as synths) and any real-time VST effects that are capable of changing audio data while it is being written to disk. Neither of these are yet supported and they will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the dialog.

### Why do some VST plugins not work or display incorrectly?

Audacity will by default display VST effect plugins with a full graphical interface where the plugin supplies this.

VST instruments (VSTi) (such as synths) and real-time VST effects (that change the audio data while it is being written) are not yet supported. These will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the Plugin Manager dialog. VST 3 plugins are not supported.

If any plugin displays incorrectly, you can use the Manage button in the effect's dialog then choose Options... to open the VST Effect Options for that effect. Then remove the checkmark from the "Enable graphical interface" checkbox Enable graphical interface and click OK. When you reopen the effect it will display a simpler tabular interface.

| On GNU/Linux, 32-bit systems will have 32-bit versions of Audacity which will not see 64-bit VST plugins. 64-bit systems will have 64-bit versions of Audacity which will see 64-bit VST plugins but will not see 32-bit plugins.

If you experience a problem with a specific VST effect plugin in Audacity, please contact us.

## How can I solve Audacity crashing after I add a plugin?

Please see this FAQ

If you discover a specific plugin that misbehaves in Audacity, please let us know via the Audacity forum. Please include any available Debug report that Audacity generates.

This Wiki page also has some information about Plugins that crash Audacity or fail to work properly in Audacity.

## Links

> Installing and updating Audacity on Linux