VST3: Is it worth porting to?

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Hi all,

I just did a quick test of one of my plugins (VintageVerb), and it turns out that the Juce framework makes it VERY easy to create a VST3 port. Yay Juce!

However, I haven't TESTED this port in anything.

My question, to those of you fighting in the plugin trenches: Is it worth releasing VST3 plugins at this point in time?

I have to admit that this thread in u-he's forum gives me pause: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=398532

At some point, Steinberg will probably pull the plug on VST 2.4 support in Cubase, Nuendo and Wavelab. They may plug the VST 2.4 support back in after the inevitable outcry, but it is obvious that they consider VST 2.4 to be an obsolete technology. For the time being, I don't know of any VST3 host that doesn't also host VST 2.4.

I'm not really concerned about the elegance/inelegance of the VST3 SDK, as I have a Juce wrapper to handle that. What I DO worry about is whether a VST 2.4 plugin can be ported forward to VST3, and just work out of the gate, versus a lot of customization for the idiosyncrasies of each VST3 host.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter.

Sean Costello

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I thought the same, until we began testing ;)

The main problems we faced were strange issues related to Steinberg products only (Wavelab for the most part). We had better things to do and Steinberg simply didn't answer any of our mails, so we thought it would be better to keep it simple and focus the important things first.

I'll give it another run sooner or later... ...but I'm not particularly motivated right now, let's see if Steinberg really tries to make a hard cut. I think they are reasonable enough to not mess with their volatile target audience.
Fabien from Tokyo Dawn Records

Check out my audio processors over at the Tokyo Dawn Labs!

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As an end user, using Studio One (which supports VST3 out of the box) I always use the VST 2.4 or less versions of plugs. They're at least equally as stable, usually more so, and offer mostly identical feature sets. So why use VST3 considering it's at best, equally stable, and more often than not, less stable? Easier side chaining alone only benefits me with some plugin types.

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i'm not sure i'd call ticking a box in introjucer porting :-) . I'd say if your customers want it it's worth it. Expect some quirks. Supporting another format is never 100% trivial! Since you use a bespoke preset system that's one less thing to worry about. I don't know if the JUCE VST3 client support is very mature and tested... but I'm sure Jules will fix it if you find any framework problems.

There is provision in the VST3 sdk to migrate a project using a VST2 version (see FAQs), but i don't know if this is supported by the JUCE wrapper at this stage.

edit - one nice thing is that osx 32bit VST2s use carbon guis in steinberg hosts and VST3 will use Cocoa, which means Juce doesn't need to stick a cocoa window on the top

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Don't support VST3 and let this rotten format die.

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Big Tick wrote:Don't support VST3 and let this rotten format die.
1+
A no-go is the fact that you are forced to install them in a specific folder. Also the benefit that you have no CPU load if the plugin isn't in use is nothing VST3 specific.
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Big Tick wrote:Don't support VST3 and let this rotten format die.
:tu:

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Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:As an end user... Easier side chaining alone only benefits me with some plugin types.
Also as an end user, this ^ and multi-channel support (though rare) are just about the only useful things for me. I don't miss VST3 at all with Valhalla plugins because sidechaining isn't relevant.

IMO someone should make a VST2.4 to VST3 wrapper to remap sidechain-able VST2.4 plugins to VST3 I/O + sidechain. Might be useful if "they" ever ditch 2.4 altogether. It could also do multichannel... ;)

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We started to support VST3 for our new plugins 2 years ago and it has been a very hard task to make it work with JUCE framework.
Another good things in VST3 is the way parameter are managed (and the possibility to add/remove them easily) but since we still have to support VST2, AudioUnit and AAX we can not take benefit of it.
Now we just have one more format to support...

Until Steinberg do not stop VST2 support I don't think it is worth the extra work.

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Kevin [Arturia] wrote:We started to support VST3 for our new plugins 2 years ago and it has been a very hard task to make it work with JUCE framework.
Another good things in VST3 is the way parameter are managed (and the possibility to add/remove them easily) but since we still have to support VST2, AudioUnit and AAX we can not take benefit of it.
Now we just have one more format to support...

Until Steinberg do not stop VST2 support I don't think it is worth the extra work.
Had you been wise enough to reserve some unused parameter space in earlier versions of your product, that wouldn't be an issue.

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