It looks like free and proprietary software vendors agree on quite a few things. Earlier this week Guitarix, free effects processor, and Pianoteq, piano modeling software, were updated to feature LV2 versions.

Pianoteq as an LV2 instrument is quite major news. So far proprietary vendors have been cautiosly approaching the LV2 topic. The trend seems to be starting with VST and then seeing how things evolve.

The LV2 port is based on the work of Filipe Coelho who took care of JUCE-LV2 compatibility a few years ago. We recently spoke to Julien Pommier of Pianoteq who mentioned the upcoming LV2 version of the plugin. Regarding VST on Linux he said:

I don't believe VST has any chance from taking over on Linux, the license of the official VST2 SDK is incompatible with GPL software, this will prevent it from being a popular plugin format on Linux. The future is certainly LV2 plugins.

Pianoteq 4.5 also features an improved physical model of the hammer/string interaction which benefits the newly released U4 Upright Piano (the first upright piano in the collection) and the D4, K1, YC5 and Blüthner Model 1 grand pianos. The team has also worked on refining timbre variation.

A new fancy feature in this version is configurable simulation of a worn out piano. The further you go from "mint" condition, the more detuned is the sound. And just for fun developers added a visual hint:

Pianoteq is also available as standalone application and a VST plug-in, for both 32bit and 64bit versions of Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

For Guitarix this is actually the second release featuring LV2 plug-ins, however the amount of changes is enormous. Hermann Meyer merged all amp models, cabinets and tonestacks into one plug-in called GxAmplifier-X and ported the rest of the stomboxes from the standalone version of Guitarix.

The LV2 port doesn't mean that standalone Guitarix is going away. If you prefer to run it via inserts in your DAW of choice, it's still part of the bundle.