How important is VST3 support for you as a customer

[dreamkeeper]

And you'd be willing to pay for this? Yeah, thought so...

We'll offer it as a free update... it's something that we as developers have to deal with... processor changes, os changes, api changes. It's a hassle. I can see why some will charge for that, but I'll file it under "customer support".

Are you sure you won't have to put something else on the backburner to free the resources for that support? Btw: how's Uhbik X going?

Well VST3 support is coded by my 2nd dev. He's got nothing to do with Uhbik-X.

Good to know. So X will be ready soon, I take it...

We've put *everything* on hold because of the quality of spam filters nowadays and the threat of server blacklists. But that's a whole different story

Sorry, you lost me there...

[zvenx]

I wasn't in secret....lol
no problem.

those aren't possible in Nuendo or Cubase with vst2.4 and that isn't going to change for me.


not so much in Kontakt,
but technically Machine can respond to 128 midi channels in one instance.

in a sense it is a threat......not that it I expect it to have much weight, but basically I am saying if you want my business, you need to look at vst3 down your future plan.


rsp

which other forum are we on that you know my first name?
I digress.

Oops, sorry for "outing" then . NS - though I don't post much there.

For me there are two things that vst3 offer me in Nuendo and Cubase that are crucial for me. sidechaining ...

... which is possible with VST2...

... and multiple ports.

the only vst software that I use that I will gain from multiple ports are Kontakt and Maschine.......

Not sure what's crucial with having more than 16 channels in 1 instance, but you certainly know your own needs better than me.

For sidechaining the main ones are my compressors and eq's and filters and to a much lesser extent some spatial effects......I mostly use UAD, PSP and Soundtoys and DMGAudio.....

so if NI and UAD dont' ever go VST3 it will some point be a trouble to my workflow....currently sidechaining is.... but DMG has already made my EQ of choice and I am hoping compassion will be my compressor of choice then the others won't matter as much. And I seriously doubt NI or Soundtoys won't...

Only time will tell, but right now I'd prefer the greater freedom of choice, not having to look at the VST version number.

I do think it would be unrealistic to expect developers, especially the smaller ones to have to port with no way of getting back that investment...I expect if they do for them to charge me for it...

Sounds reasonable.

what I have a serious problem with is some developers basically saying if you use Nuendo or Cubase, tough, we never making VST3.....it is their right to do so, yes, but they can guarantee I will not support those who I already don't and will seriously question supporting those who I currently support.

Of course it's your choice (and right) to support only what you want and need. But often such sentences come off as some sort of "threat" - not saying it's intended as such. What I advocate is looking a bit further and try to consider the long term effects - at the end of the day we all want to live, right?

[zvenx]

what happens when there is vst4 which does have features that can't be done in vst2.4 and is a build on 3.5? yes right now this is hypothetical but it is what is most likely to happen.
rsp

[Urs]

Good to know. So X will be ready soon, I take it...

We've put *everything* on hold because of the quality of spam filters nowadays and the threat of server blacklists. But that's a whole different story

Sorry, you lost me there...

Just sayin' VST3 is nothing that takes away from *my* development time

[aciddose]

the problem is that users are ill informed about such things, so when a company like stienberg decides to market some legal maneuver with severe consequences to developers to the end-user without involving the developer, and lies to the end-user about "features" that make this distinct from other systems, that creates a significant problem.

not only that, but they attempt to cover up their own failures, blaming them on a "format" which forms a straw-man for them to attack in front of the end-user. the end-user buys this easily - cubase is their hero, a knight in shining armor who defeated the "evil" vst.

the result is twofold, both negative for the developer and the end user:

1) the developer must enter into contracts with yamaha or stienberg which grant no advantage to the developer - these won't hold in court, but nobody would want to go up against them to prove that. the developer is forced to spend time writing code that otherwise wouldn't need to be written. the developer must drop features that previously existed in their products in order to become compatible with a new more limited format.

2) the end user becomes "locked-in" to a specific product (cubase) because they have large investments that only inter-operate correctly with that single product. specifications could be changed at any moment which might ruin investments, both for developers and their customers. end-users are forced to pay extra for a "feature" they are lied to about and which is over-valued. end-users are convinced that alternative solutions do not exist, leading to even more vender lock-in.

they have been so successful in their fud campaign that even urs believes parts of it.

[zvenx]

wow.... aciddose I get you are not a proponent of vst3.5 but to go with:

they have been so successful in their fud campaign that even urs believes parts of it.

is downright out of order, extremely arrogant and opinionated beyond belief imho....

I no longer argue if technically it is a step forward or backward. I think I did with you, based on what I was told and you told me I was wrong and I am not a developer to argue that point... what I do know is I use Nuendo/Cubase not only because I have a sizeable invesment in it, but also for my workflow it is the best out there. I am no SB fanboy, if you were on their forums you will know that, but for me it is the best there is for my work flow circa 2011... so I either swtich DAWS or dump some plugins or don't use them.... the latter will always happen with me.
rsp

[dreamkeeper]

[about sidechain:]
those aren't possible in Nuendo or Cubase with vst2.4 and that isn't going to change for me.

Yes, I know. And that'd be one of the reasons for me to be mad at Steinberg, if I'd own Cubendo that is. In modular hosts it's been possible for years, Reaper does it, and Sonar since version 7 IIRC. Granted, the sleepiness of some DAW companies regarding free plug-in routing (including Cakewalk) has led to the mess we now have, with different proprietary approaches of some plug-in vendors to work around the limitations of the hosts. But the possibility for sidechaining has always been there with VST2.4 - just not used, even by the fathers of VST themselves.

but technically Machine can respond to 128 midi channels in one instance.

Not familiar with Maschine, so yeah, maybe I'm missing a good reason for having this option.

[whyterabbyt]

they have been so successful in their fud campaign that even urs believes parts of it.

I'm not sure you're the best person to comment on why Urs has a rationale for supporting another platform. Aren't you still basically working on the same in one format as you were six or seven years ago, for one single format; you're not selling plugins as a business, nor are you even supporting multiple platforms in the first place. Your understanding of how this might pertain to someone's actual business decisions in this arena smacks of being pretty much purely academic, not practical.

[Urs]

they have been so successful in their fud campaign that even urs believes parts of it.

Well... I outlined my points before. It's undisputable even for you that these speak pro VST3.

For the record, I had harsh words when Steinberg presented VST3 to developers on Winter NAMM 2008 (or 2009?), because it was plain marketing lingo and generally a quite stupid setting. However, they did a really nice developer meet during the Musikmeese in the same year which was to the point, convincing and nice. I guess there's a reason though as to why I get into those meetings, while others, well, don't

[aciddose]

there are certainly some improvements in vst3 - but nothing they couldn't have easily added on vst2, and renamed it vst3.

so why such a major format change? they could have used the existing version flag, if set to "3000" or greater the plugin would claim to support new features like no pointers held by the gui thread.

mine also is entirely separate, i did this so i could dynamically load the guis as "skins", and it works great. i currently communicate with vendor-specific calls, but i could easily use the chunk passing system in vst3. (i've only briefly seen it two years ago, i hope they use a chunk passing system...)

that isn't the issue - it's a good feature to enforce. the problem is that they have made such major and unneeded changes to the code which only seem to bring vst3 more in line with rtas. that can't be defended and it's difficult to even understand why they would do such a thing intentionally without creating conspiracy theories.

i don't feel that it's very unlikely to be true at all - it seems extremely likely that the goal was to take more control over the format.

every single "feature" is actually like this. it's in some ways good, but also it seems to be designed to force things on developers to give stienberg an advantage.

for so many years cubase was the "lame" implementation which couldn't do side-chain, couldn't do routing of midi, was difficult to use for anything more complicated than the most basic situations. now suddenly they've managed to make a lot of people believe (mostly cubase users though) that cubase is now the only host implementing these "features".

that is something that i have a hard time with. i should probably simply not care, and just release my plugins as vst2, au and so on only. the problem is when people start to repeat the marketing FUD and actually start to believe it - when suddenly "vst2" becomes something bad or worse-off when in reality it's either equal or even better than vst3.

the sad thing is that cubase still can't do any of those things correctly, it can only kludge some of the most common requested features to just barely make them work in very strict conditions. that's what a lot of users want, they don't want to learn to use something, they just want it to operate as a magic genie box. that's great as long as your genie isn't drunken and stupid.

here:

"ok, i want to route my mic into a mono channel on my vocoder, and i want to route a synthesizer signal into another channel."

genie's answer: SYDE CHANE!!!!!!!!!!

"yes but it isn't a side-chain, it's a modulator. also i don't just want to use one, i want to actually use one signal to modulate the lower half of the bands, and another to modulate the upper half."

genie's answer: wot?

[zvenx]

I forgot one of the things vst3 offers us Cubendo users I believe.... vsti's to have audio inputs so I can router a bus to a sampler and sample from within Nuendo......could this be done in the vst 2.4 spec?
rsp

[DrGonzo]

I am going to put myself in the corner of the vst3 haters for the (non technical) reason that every damn vst3 plug sorts itself into a category set by the developer. Now this would only be a slight annoyance if all plugs in the world were vst3 - but since we're not there - and we will never get there, this led me to have double folders of absolutely everything. One folder were I collected my favorite compressors - one folder with the vst3 compressors etc and so on forever and ever.

In my studio, where I have an übermensch order to avoid f-cking around in folders and shit every time I need something - that just simply pissed me off. It ended with me disabling each and every vst3 plugin I could spot. Phew - back to order again. Actually - it didn't end with that. It ended with me leaving Cubase.

/C

[zvenx]

lol. I am with you on that one....although in Cubendo you can disable your vst2 plugins from showing up in the list individually, but yeah I love to be able to control my own categoriation of plugins ( I always use by developer) and vst3 does its own thing.
rsp

[aciddose]

I forgot one of the things vst3 offers us Cubendo users I believe.... vsti's to have audio inputs so I can router a bus to a sampler and sample from within Nuendo......could this be done in the vst 2.4 spec?
rsp

that can be done in the vst 2.0 spec.

every vst, instrument or otherwise always has inputs, even midi plugins. you can have any number of inputs, with any name, and type of groupings and anything can be connected to anything else.

[zvenx]

ok.........out of curiosity which daws support it?
rsp