Whats your opinion on Blue Cat Script?

General JUCE discussion
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(Apologies for this seemingly non-JUCE question)

I’m looking to get into DSP, …JUCE has quite a learning curve (I am intermediate C++ - better in Python), so I am considering Blue Cat Script as a starter into DSP.

A new version of Blue Cat Script has been released this month with M1 support etc., so they are updating it.

Is it possible to produce a commercial VST3 plugin with this, and is the performance adequate, does anyone know?

BlueCat Script seems to come with an extensive DSP library (57 scripts).

I know with a commercial release of anything using JUCE you have to pay JUCE $$ for that privilege. I’m wondering if there are any hidden costs with BC.

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I guess people here are maybe biased and for the sales details of bluecat, you might have a better chance asking on the BlueCat forum:

I personally haven’t used Plug’n’Script

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@daniel Thanks for the reply…
BlueCat can make a VST3. Is there any charges from Steingberg to release a VST3 ? I think you have to sign an agreement, just wondering if there is anything in the small print about being charged to release a VST 3.

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pns lets you export your creations to different plugin formats as well as different operating systems, which is remarkable, because with juce you have to actually have a machine for each operating system you want to compile for. also pns has a lightning fast workflow when it comes to testing dsp ideas, because you can just do that in the DAW without having to start whole plugin projects, like in juce. i like to recommend pns as a testbench because of that. i also started with pns before i found out about juce and i’m pretty sure i wouldn’t be here now without pns, because i just like to learn in small steps, and with pns you can code up something functional without even remotely touching any gui code, which is cool.

here are the downsides of pns: pns has presets that show you some basic dsp concepts, but there are not as big structures in there as juce’ fft module, or all those different filter types, oversampling etc… juce definitely has a stronger focus on giving you a complete toolset. also pns uses images to draw things onto its interface and plugins made with pns typically have very similiar layouts, unless you dive deep into its gui-language kuiml, while in juce both audio- as well as gui-code is simply c++, which i personally find easier to use and it kinda puts a stronger focus on using code or vector graphics for the ui.

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This isn’t strictly true, you can crosscompile or use a VM

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And another option is to use a CI like GitHub actions that provides environments to build all target platforms.

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Thanks @Mrugalla – I downloaded the latest VST3 demo, it resizes OK. I think one VU Meter was very slightly blurry, so that may have been a raster image… but the knobs were nice and sharp - maybe they were vector. I wonder if BCS takes vector?

I might look at getting Blue Cat Script as a first step into DSP. JUCE had a learning curve since I was trying to get into the framework and improve my C++ skills at the same time.

One drawback of BCS is that the community is not big. With JUCE you’ve got a fairly good sized community of people who seem open to offering advice and help.

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If you want a DSP prototyping environment, I’d also recommend Max MSP. It’s a visual “patching” language, and it has a fairly large community.

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Btw, I gave Reaktor a try the other day and quite disappointed to discover that one can’t make functions. That is, when I duplicate a Reaktor “macro” also change it, the duplicate doesn’t get the same change (it remains a duplicate of the old macro).

Does Max MSP support proper functions? Or does anyone know of a similar environment that does?

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With Max MSP you can create a patch with any number of inputs and outputs, of audio or messages. This patch can then be “reduced” into an object which only exposes these inputs and outputs and can then used within other patches just like a function. You can then make changes inside this object and these are reflected in all used instances of the object, like you would expect of a function.

For Pd (Puee Data, similar to Max MSP, but free) there is Ofelia, which additionally allows you to use the lua scripting language, very cool for prototyping.

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@Mrugalla …just messaged you.

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This made me smile - I did years of studying and learning DSP in Reaktor Core before eventually moving/porting over to JUCE/C++, where having singular codebases which update in all projects in all places still feels mind-blowing to me :slight_smile: I still do all my initial breadboarding there to this day, but admittedly, workflow for large projects is problematic.

Any Pure Data fans here? It’s always caught my eye as a pretty fertile middle-ground between the above… wondering where it fits in this debate?

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