Selling VST2 after October 2018: Steinberg agreement

[tristan-]

By doing this, Steinberg is trying to force devs to switch to VST3 even some popular DAWs doesn't support it at all (Ableton Live, Renoise).

Finally something to "push" (no pun intended) Ableton as a company to a quick development cycle and start supporting what users are asking for years.

Sometimes advancements have to be pushed. Heck, there are people who are still on 32 bit systems. Windows XP! It's a good idea to move forward. Why would you want to continue releasing 32 bit VST2 plugins?
Also... If Steinberg is so problematic, why don't you all devs, rise up as a group and set a new standard?

[VariKusBrainZ]

^
Of course Steinturd arent going to force VST host developers drop VST2 support

[Xenakios]

explain to me if steinberg is forcing DAWs to apply these new standards

All current major DAW application developers have no doubt signed and received the VST2 agreement. So they are probably covered to from here to eternity and can continue supporting VST2, if they so choose. (In time, there may be other reasons why they might want to drop supporting VST2 plugins.)

However, new DAW/host application developers who have not obtained the VST2 development materials and signed and received back the VST2 agreement in time (October 2018), will not be able to "legally" use/implement VST2 anymore. Someone with the needed resources could of course decide it's worth it trying to fight over it in court with Steinberg. But that's not going to happen by some small independent developer.

[ghettosynth]

There is a lot said about this issue, can someone just explain to me if steinberg is forcing DAWs to apply these new standards or just plug-ins?

The VST2 license is no more, so, if you are developing a new DAW and you aren't a dev who already has a license, then yes, your new DAW cannot support VST2.

I can almost guarantee you that no current major DAW vendor has this issue. They all have taken care of that paperwork, probably years ago. I imagine that even if they hadn't, Steinberg would not be quite as firm as they are being with small devs who have no clout, but I don't know that.

[frizzbee]

major daw and plugin devs have their signed vst2 agreement (which they already should have since they've sold the first copy of their product, so no surprise for them) and can continue like before. yes, new devs can't provide vst2 anymore but i don't think this is a big issue. maybe it's a good thing to directly start with vst3 and learn it rather than seeing how easy vst2 was and getting upset about its growth into vst3.

[JunSev]

Ok I can understand, yeah the advances are important, I was afraid of a decision from them to kill the possibility to use VSTs completely, I hope some people look at this way: sometimes there is money invested and when we buy certain plug-ins we really want (and need) to keep those plug-ins working without the fear of a obsolete destiny and that is exactly the point. I never would buy a plug-in knowing that maybe in 10 or 20 years will be unusable, I don't want to rent or something like that, I want to keep it. and honestly is not always necessary to get rid of backward compatibility if different apps and in general VST are already working it shouldn't dissappear for nothing.

Some people maybe will not understand this, but there are synths or effects that for me are more valuable than any hardware anyone could offer to me, yes is software and is cheaper, but is what means for me, it does things that I couldn't even do in any hardware and I don't want to sound possessive, is just what I feel...

By the way thanks for clarification.

[Vertion]

This is the thread I intended to post in.

There seems to be a generalized attitude that things must progress. The top synths drive the market, and the best have already been at the top of the product rankings for years now. Technology matures and so do markets. Trying to drive the market by cutting an interface that created the current top synths is foolish and does not reboot the market. VST2 is pretty much the best and only standard other than ASIO going on for Steinberg. They don't have anything going on and it's pretty easy to see they are trying to shake a shiveling tree for fruit that is almost gone. People want to make the best music, quickly, easily, simply, and with the nicest gui. This is so true now that there is almost no money in music whatsoever than having a great marketing angle. Also, you can't punish people who don't have the money or interest to perpetually uodate their gear and simply assume they will or must. Some people just throw in the towel or move onto cheaper platforms like mobile, further drying up the customer base.

Steinberg did us one unintended favor that I can see. To break the complacency and stagnation of the developers. Possibly pushing this market as a whole to reinvent itself and breathe a second life into it. It will mean a whole new level of music production with even more ease, song generation within an entire synth, and live song generation online in parallel with others on the fly with anonymous easy collaboration (just the music). It will be innovation for this market, or stagnation into a tailspin.

[tristan-]

The top synths drive the market, and the best have already been at the top of the product rankings for years now. Technology matures and so do markets. Trying to drive the market by cutting an interface that created the current top synths is foolish and does not reboot the market.

This is a smart observation. Is there a point at all in developing new synths? (which aren't emulations of) what's the incentive if you fight your way through mature technology?

Will the Virus TI2 stay the top hardware VA in the world for additional 10 years?

Will Sylenth1, Serum, Massive - stay at the top forever? What would the future anticipate? Do we need an advancement? If so than what?

[stratum]

Will Sylenth1, Serum, Massive - stay at the top forever? What would the future anticipate? Do we need an advancement? If so than what?

Outside of what is popular and commercially viable as a product there is always something to be done for people who do it for curiosity only. For example this does not sound like the Karplus–Strong algorithm, perhaps that's why it was sampled:

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/pl ... rkish-oud/

The problem is, it's so different from a typical synth that it's hard to know even where to start.

[Vertion]

What would the future anticipate? Do we need an advancement? If so than what?

If this market wants to survive, it needs to understand it's place in the world. Music is about bringing people together to dance, sing, relax, yell, and cry. It is about coming together. The oldest place is the campfire we all sit around, singing and laughing, syncing with each other with voice and drum.

If you are going to convince people to choose between your product and food/shelter, it better count. Great music is no longer for the elite, it's available to everyone. Let the future bring everyone together.

Come together as a market to survive. Cross company lines and help each other develop better products. Make products that reflect this energy, where people can organically come together online to make music together without any learning curve. No words, just musical fingertapping and emotions. Gestures and expression.

The status quo is gearing us all up for war against each other to maximize their wealth and power, and reduce our numbers. We are the little people, it's up to us to use music and technology to bring peace and union across all borders. True fighting means loving each other in good brotherhood, fight the powers that seek to purge us and send us to war with each other. Greed will cause this market to die out within 5 to 10 years, find the passion that connects you to music, and connect to it. Unify or perish.

[stratum]

Come together as a market to survive. Cross company lines and help each other develop better products.

After about 22 years in software engineering as a day time job, I don't know who manages a team without boring paperwork and torment so I neither manage anybody nor choose to be managed, and you are saying cross company lines and develop products together . There is something wrong with that word from a software developers perspective. It's a question of capability of management to begin with, not just will.

[stratum]

[accidental double post deleted.]

[ATS]

Gosh. They'd better put some gargantuous new feature on the table when they'll stop supporting vst 2 in cubase !

I would for sure no longer use Cubase ever again if they did that.

[Vertion]

It's a question of capability of management to begin with, not just will.

I've got a new website for the synth market that can be used for market collaboration and some possible incentive structures which should remedy these issues. I would like to place it on KvR, but I don't have access to that. If there is any interest from any of the leaders here, I will have a go at coding the frontend specifically tailored to the needs of the marketplace community. I believe I can also remedy many market and development cycle issues that have hindered serious community-based development.

[stratum]

What are the needs of the marketplace community? I had thought it was about development community. Some of the best such communities have an handful of developers, about the number of the modules that their products actually contain: https://www.ffmpeg.org/consulting.html Meaning each module wasn't actually a team job.