Vamp Plugins

Developing Vamp plugins and hosts

Vamp is an easy system to develop plugins for. It has a standard cross-platform SDK which includes API documentation, example plugins, ready-to-use C++ base classes, the C API header, and a test host.

Vamp plugins use a C binary interface for the greatest level of binary compatibility. However, plugins and hosts are strongly encouraged to make use of the set of C++ base classes provided in the SDK.

Alternatively, you can also now make Vamp plugins in Python using VamPy.

Developer Downloads

• Download the Vamp plugin SDK (version 2.7.1):
  
  
  • The main SDK (development headers, source code, example code):
    As a gzipped tar file or as a ZIP file.
  
  
  • Pre-compiled library and host binaries:
    Windows (32-bit Intel x86, MSVC); Windows (64-bit Intel x64, MSVC); macOS (64-bit Intel); Linux (64-bit Intel, gcc-4 ABI); and Linux (64-bit Intel, gcc-5 ABI).
  
  
  • Example plugin binaries: (unchanged since version 2.0)
    Windows (32-bit Intel x86); Windows (64-bit Intel x64); macOS (64-bit Intel); Linux (32-bit Intel); Linux (64-bit Intel).
  
  
  • Documentation bundle.
  • The code project for the Vamp API and SDK.
  
  
• Download the Vamp plugin tester, a simple command-line utility that tests your plugins for various common failure cases. It can't check whether you're getting the right results, but it can help you write better behaved and more resilient plugins.
  
  
  • Download all binary and source packages from the download page.
  • See also the project overview page.

Developer Documentation

• Read the Vamp plugin SDK Programmers Guide.
• Read a tutorial on building a new plugin: using OS/X command-line tools or using Visual C++ on Windows.
• Read a presentation about the principles of Vamp plugins for potential developers.
• Read the detailed docs about SampleType and SampleRate properties of a plugin's outputs.
• Read the API documentation online. Your plugins will normally derive from the Vamp::Plugin class.
• Read the README file for the SDK.
• Have a look at a simple example plugin: header, source file.
• Read documentation for all the SDK example plugins.
• Visit the Vamp SDK code project.

The entire SDK is published under a very permissive BSD-style license. You are encouraged to copy from it wholesale, whether developing open-source or proprietary plugin or host software.

Mailing list and forum

Vamp plugin and host development may be discussed on the vamp-devel list and the Vamp plugins forum.