The CAPS Audio Plugin Suite

Release 0.3.0 http://quitte.de/dsp/caps.html Tim Goetze
January 11, 2006 tim@quitte.de
 

Front Matter

caps, the C* Audio Plugin Suite, is a collection of highly refined LADSPA units capable of (and intended for) realtime operation. The suite includes DSP units emulating instrument amplifiers, stomp-box classics, versatile 'virtual analogue' oscillators, fractal oscillation, reverb, equalization and others.

My favourite user's quote: “... if your amps beat your plugins, they are *very good* amps.. ;-)” – Thanks, Pete!

Most of the suite is of my own invention, while some plugins are rewrites of existing designs, included because of their excellence or interest. Inspiring code was authored by (in no particular order): Andrew Simper, Perry Cook, Gary Scavone, Steve Harris, Richard Dobson, Bram de Jong and others.

All of caps is free software and distributed in source code.

 
* What's with the C?

So what does the C in the name stand for? Honestly, I don't know.

Complete? Not yet.
C as in the programming language? The source is C++.
Crap? Heaven forbid!
Cute? Why not ...
Common? Not bad either.
C, the latin numeral for one-hundred? Some more to go, but I like the idea.

I've got it! C as in The Caps Audio Plugin Suite! A classic.

I'll be glad to hear your suggestions.

 

Download

caps is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Other licensing terms can be arranged if you wish, please feel free to contact me.

No Guarantee

While I have bred all the plugins in the suite with the greatest care, there is no guarantee that they will all retain perfect manners under all possible circumstances. Take, for example, the Lorenz plugin, which models a fractal system. How am I to guarantee its output will never go out of range, if people far more knowledgeable about this fractal than me assert its unpredictable behaviour?

This collection 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.

Download the latest release from the caps homepage.

 

Installation

Provided you run Linux, installation is simply:

$ tar xvfz caps_0.3.0.tar.gz 
$ cd caps-0.3.0 
$ make
$ su
# make install

You should now be able use the plugins from the collection in any LADSPA-aware host program, like the wonderful pd with the plugin~ external, the inimitable jack-rack, the impressive ardour, the versatile ecasound, the classic snd, and numerous other applications large and small.

You don't run Linux? Why not downgrade now?

PPC and other non-x86 users might have to edit the Makefile. Patches welcome.

In its current state, caps will not work on OSX.

Troubleshooting

With no external dependencies, compiling caps should rarely fail. If it does on your machine, please send the output of the make command so we can try and fix the problem.

Thanks to all members of the Linux audio development mailing list who helped sort out some compilation problems on more recent systems.

Bugs

If any of the plugins in the suite do not work with your host program of choice, or don't work as advertised, please send a bug report.