Re: FYI - Cubase 4 No Longer Supports DirectX Plugins

[kritikon]

I think the real question that should be asked here is this: Whose interests does steinberg have in mind in removing DX plugin support?

Their own. That's patently obvious and not an issue. Every company that sells anything sells it for their own profit...not yours. Why is that suddenly an issue for Steinberg, but not for every other single company on the planet? Hello...Steinberg are a company selling for profit - not a charity, and never have been. Neither are Emagic, Cakewalk or any other commercial s/w company you can name me.


I just don't understand why Steinberg are held to different standards than everyone else?


And Hanafih...get a life. Your arguments (no...call that blind prejudices...) against Steinberg are getting sillier and sillier. You can name me any branded product in the whole world that has been updated, and I can tell you about some aspect of it that wasn't told in neon advertising to the consumers. They have no responsibility whatsoever to release the entire operating manual to the world as a "right" so that we all know every single change and update/omission. Emagic don't do that, Cakewalk don't do that... they all advertise the new things, exactly as Steinberg do.

Now you're grasping at straws, and it doesn't make your whining appear any more intelligent. The opposite.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

but despite his ridiculous arguments, steinberg still really sucks! amazing....

[stag]

That's your opinion

[headquest]

It's not just Jason's opinion though. I followed this link that "Bonkwell" posted:

You forgot Workaround 4 http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=868527

Talk about a contrast! Whatever you prefer in terms of the programs themselves, there's no denying that the attitude of Cakewalk as revealed in Noel's posts on that thread is far better towards customers. And customer service / developer attitude affects all users, whether or not they admit it or even realise it.

[stag]

Mister, wasn't cakewalk the developer of DXi? Are they upset because Steinberg snubed them?
Who cares? what goes up at Steinberg is not up to Cakewalk to know before the public in general , why should Steinberg give them the edge.

Oh, i didn't buy Cubase because Steinberg were nice fellas, IMO they are but that's the least one has to be, the world is full of them, i prefer good professionals with a vision and balls enough to carry their ideas forward IMHO.

[Majken]

15 pages eh? Oh I guess people will come to their senses when Vista comes around. That'll be the death of dx-plugins and Cakewalk will be quick to follow releasing a new plugin package in vst format.

/Majken

[tahome]

Mister, wasn't cakewalk the developer of DXi?

Yep.

Oh, i didn't buy Cubase because Steinberg were nice fellas, IMO they are but that's the least one has to be, the world is full of them, i prefer good professionals with a vision and balls enough to carry their ideas forward IMHO.

Agreed. They might be nice but they still do a lot of stupid things that make a lot of their users suffer (and no professional would - or should - do that).

For one, some VSTs do no longer work because Steinberg are unwilling (or too stupid) to make their VST framework backward compatible (see http://knowledgebase.steinberg.de/147_1.html for details).

As for DX, frankly, I don't think it's much of a problem. Most DX plug ins are available in VST format as well (at least the ones I am using - anyone knows of any that are not?) so who cares.

Still they could have implemented support for AU on the Mac, but that's just the silly plug in interface war again. Market share is important, but so are we (the users). If they don't understand this they will ulltimately die (they would have if Pinnacle and Yamaha hadn't bought them up back then).

--th

[stag]

Well, shouldn't Emagic implemment VST as well?! Cudos to Emagic! they were smart enough not to be dependent of other developers decisicions or lack of them.

It seems to be all around a colective throw of sucker punches at Steinberg, i imagine that at first developers migth have get discouraged and sad but by now they migth be well uncorcking some bottles, kick back and enjoy the bad mouthing parade of ney sayers... i know i would.

[tahome]

Well, shouldn't Emagic implemment VST as well?!

They had! Actually, they REMOVED VST support when they were swallowed by Apple. Go figure. That was a REAL mess, I can tell you! Still is, in some respect.

Cudos to Emagic! they were smart enough not to be dependent of other developers decisicions or lack of them.

I don't think so. AudioUnits still don't get much support, there is a ton of companies who still don't support it, and those who do are using the FXpansion wrapper because they're sick and tired of supporting yet another single platform format. That's not what I would call "smart"...

It seems to be all around a colective throw of sucker punches at Steinberg, i imagine that at first developers migth have get discouraged and sad but by now they migth be well uncorcking some bottles, kick back and enjoy the bad mouthing parade of ney sayers... i know i would.

Yeah, me too, but I guess you tend to get that attitude if you're a developer reading KvR for more than one week (90% is just complaints and product bashing). Anyway, I guess they're already used to it. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually are!

--th

[headquest]

Oh I guess people will come to their senses when Vista comes around. That'll be the death of dx-plugins and Cakewalk will be quick to follow releasing a new plugin package in vst format.

You've really not been following the plot, have you?

SONAR 6 is already fully up and running on Vista, and Cakewalk are being sponsored by Microsoft...

Experience SONAR 6 on Windows Vista - Coming 2007

Microsoft is sponsoring the Fast Forward >> SONAR 6 Tour to spread the word that SONAR 6 will be ready for Windows Vista, coming in 2007. Both Cakewalk and Microsoft have been testing SONAR with pre-release builds of Windows Vista to ensure that SONAR will run on Windows Vista when it is released. With the current builds of Windows Vista we are happy to report that SONAR is running very well. Shortly after the release of Windows Vista, Cakewalk will issue an update to SONAR to further enhance our support, allowing musicians to take advantage of the advanced functionality being offered by Windows Vista.

With a completely re-designed audio infrastructure that provides better sound quality, greater processing resources, increased performance and reliability, and an overall heightened user experience, Windows Vista sets a new standard of excellence for the audio & music creativity experience on the PC.

New prioritization of audio/video streaming for seamless, glitch-resilient playback experience.
Integrated support for SONAR's 64-bit audio engine for unprecedented sound quality and fidelity.
New UAA driver class for simpler installation of audio interfaces into the Windows environment.
64-bit editions with extended RAM access (128 GB) that enable larger and more realistic sample content, lower latencies, and a more responsive mix environment with SONAR 6
Let Windows Vista and SONAR 6 help you realize your full creative potential.

[stag]

humm, humm, interesting... Thank to Steinberg we may bypass a lot of Windows stupidware like WDM, i hope it stays that way... Core Audio II? no! thanks.

[ericj23]

alas the old direct x plus wont work in vista (without a wrapper) - and thats why cubase has dropped them

NAME ME A SINGLE COMPANY THAT WILL PRODUCE A 64 BIT COMPATIBLE DX PLUG THAT WON'T HAVE A VST VERSION

Cakewalks continued support for a dead format is hardly surprising - they came up with dxi and started speiling the same kind of nonsense that apple used for AU

better compatibility, better quality

alas none of this materialised to any great extent on either platform

they can hardly turn round and go we backed the wrong horse now can they - and the fact that steinberg has dropped dx support while sonar now (finally) has easy vst inclusion means that vst is the format of choice on a pc - well if you want to maximise your customer base with the minimum outlay in programming time

in truth i wish that cakewalk would have the honesty of people like fxpansion who will actually tell you what the bugs are in their programs and the failings/confusion between their marketing and product delivery

everything is always sunny in cakewalk land - i guess i'm just such a cynic that I don't beleive it

[headquest]

Mister, wasn't cakewalk the developer of DXi? Are they upset because Steinberg snubed them?
Who cares? what goes up at Steinberg is not up to Cakewalk to know before the public in general , why should Steinberg give them the edge.

Clearly you still didn't bother to read that thread. Cakewalk don't appear "upset" at all (they have plenty to gain from Steinberg seriously piss off its user base!) The point of the link though was nothing to do with what you suggest, but rather to show what a decent attitude towards customers looks like. As a Cubase fanboy, this may come as quite a shock to you, of course, so take a deep breath before reading it...:

I can't imagine us dropping support for DX any time in the near future since there are so many projects users have that use DX/DXi plugins.
You can be sure that we will always be compatible with earlier projects. We go to great lengths to ensure backwards and forwards compatible with our products. For example we still read .wrk files that were authored in Cakewalk Professional 1.0 And SONAR 6 files will still open in SONAR 3. Sometimes a few bugs might creep in with legacy files, but we would never intentionally break compatibility without offering some way for users to upgrade a project to a new version...

Ultimately as a host its our responsibility to do whatever it takes to support whatever most of our user base wants, not do it based on a political agenda.

Amazing stuff.

Oh, i didn't buy Cubase because Steinberg were nice fellas, IMO they are but that's the least one has to be, the world is full of them, i prefer good professionals with a vision and balls enough to carry their ideas forward IMHO.

So you're saying that Cakewalk aren't good professionals, lack vision, and don't have balls? Dude, you take fanboyism to new depths!! Considering the context of Cubase dropping DX without warning, I'm amazed that anyone would be defending them like you do. Even they have appologised, and yet you say they acted this way because of their vision and balls!

Even on the normally restrained Sound on Sound forum there are complaints about this:
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... t=1#361519

In terms of having vision and balls, it will be interesting to see whether you still feel that way throughout the potentially long wait for a Vista-ready version of Cubase. I was fairly shocked that C4 still lacks 64-bit mixing engine, let alone a proper X64 version. It took Cakewalk many months to rewrite the audio engine to accommodate upcoming computer technologies which Steinberg rather seem to be ignoring at this point. Time will tell of course...

[headquest]

alas the old direct x plus wont work in vista (without a wrapper) - and thats why cubase has dropped them

So how do you explain the fact that Sonar and all its plugs apparently run fine in Vista?

Do you know more about this than Microsoft or Cakewalk do?

Or are you just making misinformed excuses for Steinberg?

Did you notice that the lengthy courtship between Microsoft and Cakewalk seems to be moving towards engagement ring time, or at least significant sponsorship/investment?

[stag]

Headquest: Cakewho???
You seen to loose focus here. This thread is a rambling about the drop of DX support by Steinberg and people gathering info about it.
Until now i have seen a lot of explanations from coders, the people that really matter on this subject, i didn't saw one comdemn Steinberg for dropping DX, some even aplaude it, others i believe in jest, just complained about VST3 as a new whole format they will have to care and implemment... I read this as extremelly laudatory to the actual VST2.

About the quote you have transcript i have nothing to say, because the question to him, to be on topic should be what this person think about Steinberg dropping DX support,
well he could think a million things, but from a practical point it wouldn't mean much cause he don't belongs on the team that has developed VST3.
Which BTW rises another interesting question to him:"how will they manage to have full compatibility with the new specs?". Well, let me answer:"We're cool man, we good, we rock, all 4 you, etc." the same marketing wable wable that i associate with nausea.

DX is gone on C4, probably as they are now are gone too on Vista 64. What's so hard to understand from a musician\mixer point of view? probably a lot. That's why i would like to see more opinions from the tech guys in charge of developing the plugs.

Please spare me the nice fella bla bla... from were i come usually there is a lot of kissing before f**king... Steinberg forgot about foreplay, so what?