The Lyceum page for the format says "Use of external VSTs is not allowed". But it seems like the program also supports its own infrastructure of plugins that aren't VSTs, and tennisers's original proposal for the format included "I think if there were a format, it should allow all the additional machines (instruments and effects) that can be downloaded from within the program, as the stuff that comes packaged with it by default is a bit too limited."

So is the format just using the machines that are immediately available from a fresh Buzz installation, or is there some subset of external machines available?

ah i see... i don't think there is a problem with the type of thing you're bringing up. what should be disallowed is like - you can't use something like Vital. or Serum. or situations where some completely external third party VST is involved that may or may not cost money. if i understand what you're describing correctly this is akin to the VCV format including "the entirety of possible free modules downloadable within the VCV ecosystem"?

Well, when you open Buzz there's a tab to the right which says "More Machines", containing a button which you can click to download a whole bunch of plugins. I believe tennisers's original proposal was that all of these should be allowed.

Additionally, on the main buzz website there's a link labeled "Machines"

which also goes to a giant list of individually downloadable plugins. It looks like these two lists are mostly the same? But some of the plugins have slightly different names, and I'm having trouble finding a couple from one list on the other, so I can't say for sure that they are the same.

It is in theory possible to obtain other machines from elsewhere. But it seems like only allowing machines from one of these two lists would permit the vast majority of anything anyone wanted to do with Buzz on the site and would be a simple enough rule to follow.

i agree that sounds like a reasonable scope for this format, thanks for bringing it up!

feel free to add this information to the lyceum as well 🙏

Okay, I've updated the page. I hope people will feel free to change this if the current rule on third-party machines causes problems; I don't want to unilaterally define a format I've never tried before.

Also, here are some things I'm not sure about regarding Buzztrax on Linux:
- can it export files that Buzz can open?
- can it import files that Buzz exports?
- can it run any third-party machine that Buzz can?

If any Linux users try out Buzztrax and answer these questions, I hope they will edit the article accordingly.

i can't open (or even import) Jeskola Buzz entries on Buzztrax - is that correct both are compatible each other? :O
(.bzt files are not likely to be the same as .bmx)