How important is VST3 support for you as a customer

[koolkeys]

I am wondering if the VST 3.5 Note Expression feature will be opened up for other hosts to implement? Though I may be going back to Cubase soon, I wonder if it will only be a benefit in Cubase, or if it will be opened up. If it's just in Cubase, it will be harder for 3.5 to catch on because no other hosts will have a reason to upgrade. Note Expression is the biggest addition, and LOOKS FANTASTIC. Better than anything added in VST3, and also something you can't do at all in 2.4.

Hopefully Steinberg keeps that feature available on BOTH the plug-in and the host side.

Brent

[Nielzie]

Very interesting and informative thread this has become. Thank you

[jdieks]

Well, it looks like I can't afford not to do VST3.5 - that's what happens when your most influential customers insist on having it

What is so special in VST 3.5?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO29J7UViUw

check it out from about 9:10... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

[Compyfox]

As of this moment, it's not important to me. The only thing I kind of miss is the native sidechaining in VST3 technology. At least with Steinberg's own host. Here only VST3 plugins works sidechainable right out of the box. Other hosts could do this way before, and with third party lower than VST3.

I really hope developers adapt. Though this is only possible if people finally understand the quirks of VST3. Then again, i have a feeling that VST4 is on front doors in 2012. It's Steinberg after all.

And I get the feeling, that VST2.3 and VST2.4 won't be supported in hosts in 2012 anymore as well. Pity, they're still working, and they're just as good. Sidechaining is not a must, IMO. We could live with it for years - and only discart it due to VST Expression v2 (like it happened back in the day without reason as Steinberg announced VST2.3)? Looks like a lame excuse to me.

[kelldammit]

What is so special in VST 3.5?

Note expressions. Desired by classical/film composers.

.
note expressions look pretty cool. if this part of the spec isn't open to other hosts, steinberg just gains more leverage to sell their own instruments if most 3rd parties decline to develop for it.
but if they open it to other hosts, they actually stand a chance of their standard being adopted...i'd LOVE to see something like this in reaper or studio one.
i wonder how this works with midi exports?

k

[Aleksey Vaneev]

What is so special in VST 3.5?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO29J7UViUw
check it out from about 9:10... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

This feature was first available in trackers - in numerical form. Quite a messy feature to work with. (I have quite a lot of background in that - released hi-quality tracker module renderer RenderXM long ago).

[Tronam]

What is so special in VST 3.5?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO29J7UViUw
check it out from about 9:10... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

This feature was first available in trackers - in numerical form. Quite a messy feature to work with. (I have quite a lot of background in that - released hi-quality tracker module renderer RenderXM long ago).

Indeed it was! I was doing this in Protracker on the Amiga back in '91, not to mention slicing up loops and retriggering the samples a la Recycle long before it was a twinkle in Propellerheads' eye.

But, as the saying goes, what's old is new again.

[jdieks]

What is so special in VST 3.5?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO29J7UViUw
check it out from about 9:10... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

This feature was first available in trackers - in numerical form. Quite a messy feature to work with. (I have quite a lot of background in that - released hi-quality tracker module renderer RenderXM long ago).

O.k.. but that's the same logic as saying we don't need new cars, because they had good ones in the 1980s.

And those LED screens still do ntsc/pal... who needs them

[Tronam]

Exactly. The point is that we continue repackaging the same basic ideas over and over again, yet keep proclaiming them as "new".

[LXNDR1]

Exactly. The point is that we continue repackaging the same basic ideas over and over again, yet keep proclaiming them as "new".

now THIS what's called 'progress'

[jdieks]

Exactly. The point is that we continue repackaging the same basic ideas over and over again, yet keep proclaiming them as "new".

now THIS what's called 'progress'

I was beeing a little bit sarcastic though

[mitt]

... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

Seconded. Especially after latest Note Expression addition in Cubase 6.
Hope U-he and Camel Audio will adopt it too.

[AdmiralQuality]

... IMHO it could be great and I really hope companies like NI will adopt it.

Seconded. Especially after latest Note Expression addition in Cubase 6.
Hope U-he and Camel Audio will adopt it too.

40 years of synthesizer performance technique "fixed" (i.e. thrown away) by Stein-aha's infinite wisdom. Poly-aftertouch was already "note expression" (though granted, in one dimension only). Still, if I have one hand on the (music) keyboard making notes and (poly) pressure, one moving between the modwheel and pitchbend, two expression pedals going (I'm sitting on a bench in this thought experiment ) and a breath controller in my mouth -- that's 5 controller streams, but INHERENTLY, only the key pressure can be polyphonic. So you only NEED one channel/dimension of polyphonic control!

Questions re: Note Expression:

(1) What if you need to edit MORE than one note's expression envelope(s)? Like say you want to draw a new Pitch Bend curve on all notes in a chord (or even just several of the notes)? Can I select several notes at once and edit all their envelopes together at once? (If so, what if the envelopes are already different?) Can you copy and paste note expression envelopes from one note to another? (If so, what if the destination note is longer than the source note? What happens to the short end? Does it just jump at that point to whatever that note's expression envelope was previously?) Sounds like quite a mess just to edit a simple (classic style) pitch bend event.

(1.a) Shouldn't it be the instrument's decision as to what notes bend (or whatever effect) based on the controller input? There's no reason the host needs to be informed of this. Say I implement a feature that even some 80s synths had (ESQ-1 comes to mind) where only held notes pitch bend and ones in release stage (and/or held with sustain pedal) stay at their current pitch? Will the host reflect this in the editor? (No.)

(1.b) Speaking of sustain pedal, does anyone at Steinberg actually know what one is? Will undamped (sustained) notes display in the note editor at their (finger) played length, or at their (foot) sustained length? I bet hardly anybody at SB even has a (music) keyboard by their desk, much less a damper or expression pedal -- certainly nobody who actually writes the code. The can of worms of how to deal with these note and controller logic issues belongs in the instrument developer's realm, not the host's. The host shouldn't be interpreting what the notes are, just passing along uncorrupted controller info ("...the third C# key just went down, the pitch wheel just moved to position 113, the damper pedal just went up, etc...") This was invented in 1983, is called MIDI, and you can kiss this well understood paradigm goodbye and get ready for a whole new (untested, unvalidated, unadopted) can of worms in your G6 SB hosts.

(1.c) Are they now doing the note logic FOR us? If so, we'll only be as strong as the weakest link in the chain (i.e. Steinberg) and EVERY instrument will suck equally in their handling of note logic. Is there any such thing as polyphonic and monophonic instruments anymore (certainly the ability to communicate this to the host would help inform it of how to assign note expression envelopes) but how will the host KNOW? What good is editing the note expression of a note that, while held, can't be heard either due to unison/monophonic mode, or the instrument being out of voices?

(2) What instrument/controller do I purchase in order to perform these multiple envelopes per note in real time? Is it Eigenharp time? Or have we thrown performability completely away in favor of mouse-editing? (And there'll be a LOT of it, given the ambiguities I described above.) This really isn't about musicians anymore, is it?

Urs, I think you're out of your mind if you think any of this is a good idea. Have you been drinking the SB Koolaid? You will soon be staring into the abyss; you're going to find a lot of customers hitting YOU up for fixes to functionality that's now been ripped from our capable hands, and placed in those of the Philistine host developers (all three of them!).

[Urs]

Urs, I think you're out of your mind if you think any of this is a good idea. Have you been drinking the SB Koolaid? You will soon be staring into the abyss; you're going to find a lot of customers hitting YOU up for fixes to functionality that's now been ripped from our capable hands, and placed in those of the Philistine host developers (all three of them!).

Dunno. If it's easy to implement for me then I'll do it. If I have to rewrite my engine then not.

[AdmiralQuality]

Urs, I think you're out of your mind if you think any of this is a good idea. Have you been drinking the SB Koolaid? You will soon be staring into the abyss; you're going to find a lot of customers hitting YOU up for fixes to functionality that's now been ripped from our capable hands, and placed in those of the Philistine host developers (all three of them!).

Dunno. If it's easy to implement for me then I'll do it. If I have to rewrite my engine then not.

Well, good to hear that you're not indoctrinated in advance of seeing this fiasco crash and burn, which is surely will.

And as you say, if I'm wrong and by some chance it does actually work and they've managed to solve the myriad issues this paradigm raises, then I'll jump on board too. But I'm not holding my breath and, as a developer of products meant to emulate classic instruments and effects, I didn't feel the old way was broken. The only thing "broken" about MIDI was the bandwidth (which inside the computer is free to far exceed the bandwidth of the old fashioned DIN cable -- though granted some drivers limit this so as not to clog the MIDI IN/OUT connectors -- but within the host itself it can easily be sample accurate for as many instruments as you could imagine), and the ambiguity of how to handle overlapping occurrences of the same note (which we've all been handling just fine since the 80s).

If some film scorer wants to bend or modulate or sweep "cutoff" of his violin section, then he should track each violin's part mono(or duo)phonically, individually on its own track. Voila! Problem solved. This editing controllers for notes within a single instrument is a BAD IDEA. Look at MIDI guitar... works great spread across 6 channels in MONO mode, another solution that's been working since the 80s.

Be very afraid...