Steinberg are going to kill off your VST2 plugins.

[Compyfox]

But again... if you code in VST3 anyway, and you can simply hit one button and it drops VST2.x - where is the extra ammount of work in that case? Other than bughunting (which is a different issue of course).


I do understand the developers point of view. Again, I'm beta testing for several companies. One of them even said "funk it, I move to MAC - coding is faster, I have a new build system and testing is way simpler".

So if you're coding for VST2/VST3, AU, RTAS/AAX you probably are on the most recent SDKs already!


So why is it a bad thing that Steinberg drops the VST2.x SDK in favour for the VST3.5 SDK - which includes VST2?

Things remain the same, no? Unless host developers say "we drop VST2".

[Krzysztof Oktalski]

No, it is an incredible amount of work and testing. It asks most developers to completely re-think and re-work their whole build system. This is (much) more than just changing the doctype in a html.

What is practically changing for you? You don't have to do anything at all, just carry on as per usual. If you're still building everything individually, maybe it's time to re-think and re-work your whole build system anyway? In practice, it asks absolutely nothing from developers - you can still build everything individually and you don't have to shift SDK's at all - just keep on doing what you're doing!

The problem I see is that Steinberg practically never gave any kind of support on 2.0 anyway. Why trust them? For their market "power"? lol

Any time we've sent a developer support request into Steinberg they've dealt with it in a timely manner. This hasn't always been the case for other platforms. I don't understand where the concept of trust comes in for you...you could always drop VST support completely and try to fulfil the title of this thread!

Enough of the wildstyle doom-mongering - let's get back to work!

[FabienTDR]

But that's my point. I don't think that most dev already included vst3 into their build chain. It's not that easy. You have to think multi-platform. One new format means at least 4 build configurations: win/mac, 32/64 and maybe even mono/stereo which results in 8 new binaries you have to configure, build (on separate OS's) and of course test. Porting a dozen old projects to a new format can easily grow to a year of work (for the typical part-time dsp dev).

You cannot "simply hit one button". At least not with full featured plug-ins (UI/copy protection)

Of course, you can "simply hit one button" after you spent 2 weeks of hard work configuring and testing everything properly! Previous vst2 projects will most probably need a serious, time-consuming rewrite, there is no doubt about that! Including additional testing of the otherwise perfectly working old vst2 build chains.

Things such as unit testing only solve very basic things, they don't help with anything related to the host's runtime behaviour: Arguably the nr one source of problems.

I personally don't care anyway. Just want to point out that it's not that easy. Steinberg is not my friend, I already lost to much time of my life messing with the turd they called a "standard". I'm waiting for JUCE to implement vst3 support properly.

[DaveGamble]

Hello, I'm Dave and I'm a programmer.

I also read the linked article, and it was clear to me that it was essentially non-news.
Steinberg haven't developed the VST2 SDK for years, and this is just a formal statement to confirm what's going on.
The only thing one might take umbridge with is that they're going to stop hosting the VST2 SDK.
This is also non-news, since we will just upload it to GitHub, and you'll download it from there.

It is, however, a gentle nudge from Steinberg to encourage people to start using the VST3 SDK for development of new frameworks.

To summarise, the statement says:
- your VST2 plugins will continue to work forever
- Steinberg concludes that the VST2 format is now final, and won't be changing it, so things won't break in future
- Steinberg are encouraging you to use VST3 for anything new
- you'll need to download the VST2 SDK from somewhere else if you somehow lose all copies.

Enjoy!

Dave.

[whyterabbyt]

This is also non-news, since we will just upload it to GitHub, and you'll download it from there.

That would contravene the license, though.

2. The Licensee has no permission to sell, licence, give-away and/or distribute the VST PlugIn Interface technology or parts of it in anyway, on any medium, including the Internet, to any other person, including sub-licensors of the Licensee or companies where the Licensee has any involvement. This includes re-working this specification, or reverse-engineering any products based upon this specification.

[Compyfox]

You have to think multi-platform. One new format means at least 4 build configurations: win/mac, 32/64 and maybe even mono/stereo which results in 8 new binaries you have to configure, build (on separate OS's) and of course test.

Er... as the trend is currently going, 32bit will be dropped in the forseeable future (if not 128bit will take it's place with Win9/Win10 or OSX 11, should they go for it).

Also, the "mono/stereo" thing is something that Logic has as main issue (it can't use stereo plugins on a mono channel and vice versa - at least up until Logic 9!).

So one one side, we talk about 32bit as "old standard" , and on the other side we have a host that is inflexible in terms of channel usage (mono/stereo).


But this is not a fault by the SDK, this is a fault by the provided host and the user base that still insists on (say) 32bit. Which opens an own can of worms - literally.

[DaveGamble]

This is also non-news, since we will just upload it to GitHub, and you'll download it from there.

That would contravene the license, though.

2. The Licensee has no permission to sell, licence, give-away and/or distribute the VST PlugIn Interface technology or parts of it in anyway, on any medium, including the Internet, to any other person, including sub-licensors of the Licensee or companies where the Licensee has any involvement. This includes re-working this specification, or reverse-engineering any products based upon this specification.

Oh, you're quite right, but if they're washing their hands of the SDK, then they're unlikely to be too upset.
One way or another, that part will be worked around.
A decent slice of the VST2.4 SDK is included in the VST3 SDK as well.

Dave.

[tony tony chopper]

Er... as the trend is currently going, 32bit will be dropped in the forseeable future (if not 128bit will take it's place with Win9/Win10 or OSX 11, should they go for it).

if you wanna take the bet, I predict that Windows will support 32bit until at least 2030.


(but sadly, as pointless as 128bit can be, some marketing assholes will probably manage to sell it as "accelerating the internets")

[mabian]

Er... as the trend is currently going, 32bit will be dropped in the forseeable future (if not 128bit will take it's place with Win9/Win10 or OSX 11, should they go for it).

if you wanna take the bet, I predict that Windows will support 32bit until at least 2030.


(but sadly, as pointless as 128bit can be, some marketing assholes will probably manage to sell it as "accelerating the internets")

- Mario

[trimph1]

Er... as the trend is currently going, 32bit will be dropped in the forseeable future (if not 128bit will take it's place with Win9/Win10 or OSX 11, should they go for it).

if you wanna take the bet, I predict that Windows will support 32bit until at least 2030.


(but sadly, as pointless as 128bit can be, some marketing assholes will probably manage to sell it as "accelerating the internets")

Having been in marketing I don't' think this is too far off. Farking nutters ...