Roland Cloud - big change

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

It looks to me that Zenology is VST3 only, am I seeing this correct?

Finally VST2 is very limited in comparison. I wish more companies adopt VST3 and ditch VST2 altogether.

You seem very upbeat about Roland. What's it like working for them?

That sounds way more like a member of the Steinberg family. Or a board member.

[Atlatnesiti]

Add to it Apple and Ableton and Reason...
Grow up guys, I know that coronavirus is affecting your judgment, but give me a break please, we’re on the same boat.
I’m injecting a little bit of positivity in these trying times and getting smashed for it...
Common....

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Add to it Apple and Ableton and Reason...
Grow up guys, I know that coronavirus is affecting your judgment, but give me a break please, we’re on the same boat.
I’m injecting a little bit of positivity in these trying times and getting smashed for it...
Common....

I think you missed the humor. VST3 hardly offers any benefit over VST2, and has been less stable. But Steinberg keeps trying to push it. Ask developers, and they'll tell you it's not better. It's a completely different format, that has little to do with VST2, but Steiny keeps pushing it and area trying to phase out VST2.

So when a user on a forum says it's great, it sounds like exactly like what Steinberg wants people thinking. Hence me ribbing you about it. Really was meant as humor not an insult.

[Iva]

By my tests, VST3 plugins sometimes lighter on CPU and are easier to sidechain which is a good thing. Some developers are just lazy. Cheers.

[SLiC]

Roland Zenbeats 1.2 adds Bluetooth MIDI integration for mobile devices and Zenbeats MultiVerb, a brand-new effect featuring multiple halls, rooms, and plate reverb effects, which bring dimension and depth to a track.

Here’s what’s new in Zenbeats 1.2:

Bluetooth MIDI Support
Zenbeats MultiVerb with classic halls, room and plate reverb effects (requires platform unlock)
MIDI Effect Routing: Added option to record the output of MIDI effects to the track
Touch Navigation improvements: Can now scroll around your project and editors with natural gestures
New Plugin Compatibility Options to help with external plugins that do not conform to device sample rate or buffer size
Plugin Browser: Added Filters to display plugins by developer and plugin type
Roland Cloud integration allows paid Roland Cloud members and Roland Account holders to use instruments–including ZENOLOGY–with no purchase required.
Three new sound packs for Ultimate owners: Tone Ringer’s electric pianos, atmospheric sounds in Ambient Dreamscaper 2, and Indie Drums’ new rock drum kits.
Plug & Play functionality for Android with Roland A-88MKII MIDI Keyboard Controller.
A new fader style for Mixer, gesture scrolling, Drum Machine optimizations, and plug-in browser organization.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I messaged support via an email thread from a year ago and asked if there was yet any way to transfer Roland plugouts to their could equivalents and they actually replied pretty quickly saying that details were being finalized, so that's promising.

[zvenx]

Add to it Apple and Ableton and Reason...
Grow up guys, I know that coronavirus is affecting your judgment, but give me a break please, we’re on the same boat.
I’m injecting a little bit of positivity in these trying times and getting smashed for it...
Common....

I think you missed the humor. VST3 hardly offers any benefit over VST2, and has been less stable. But Steinberg keeps trying to push it. Ask developers, and they'll tell you it's not better. It's a completely different format, that has little to do with VST2, but Steiny keeps pushing it and area trying to phase out VST2.

So when a user on a forum says it's great, it sounds like exactly like what Steinberg wants people thinking. Hence me ribbing you about it. Really was meant as humor not an insult.

So you really honestly think SB is pushing it not because it is better but so they could make lives of developers more difficult or some other conspiracy theory why they are pushing it which is not for technological advantage?
Really?

I do accept that it is a completely different format which indeed is why a lot of developers don't want to develop for it. And whilst indeed I have seen some of these being able to be done with workarounds in the vst 2 format, you think only an insignificant amount of these are exclusive to vst3?

https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/te ... /vst3.html
rsp

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Add to it Apple and Ableton and Reason...
Grow up guys, I know that coronavirus is affecting your judgment, but give me a break please, we’re on the same boat.
I’m injecting a little bit of positivity in these trying times and getting smashed for it...
Common....

I think you missed the humor. VST3 hardly offers any benefit over VST2, and has been less stable. But Steinberg keeps trying to push it. Ask developers, and they'll tell you it's not better. It's a completely different format, that has little to do with VST2, but Steiny keeps pushing it and area trying to phase out VST2.

So when a user on a forum says it's great, it sounds like exactly like what Steinberg wants people thinking. Hence me ribbing you about it. Really was meant as humor not an insult.

So you really honestly think SB is pushing it not cause it is better just so they could make lives of developers more difficult or some other conspiracy theory why they are pushing it which is not for technological advantage?
Really?

I do agree that it is a completely different format which indeed is why a lot of developers don't want to develop on it. And whilst indeed I have seen some of these being able to be done with workarounds in the vst 2 format, you think only an insignificant amount of these are exclusive to vst3?

https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/te ... /vst3.html
rsp

From what I've heard from developers I trust on the topic:

1. Most of the "new VST3 features" were things that were already possible in VST2. Things like, suspending processing when no audio is present and easy sidechaining, for example, which all non-Steinberg hosts already do pretty damn well with VST2 plugins.

2. Steinberg didn't build native MIDI Learn capabilities into VST3 plugins until just recently. They must have wrongly assumed when VST3 was developed, that MIDI Learn was antiquated and everything would be done via the host. Developers who did bother to, had to build their own MIDI Learn workarounds into VST3, others simply didn't until it was added natively which only happened in the last few months.

3. I'm no developer, but the VST3 spec, I'm told, is poorly documented. This is probably the biggest issue for developers.

4. The Juce Framework a lot of developers use, is only recently at the point where it's playing nicely with VST3. The reason it took so long to get there probably has to do with #3.

5. Speaking of which, VST3 are notoriously buggy compared to their VST2 counterparts. This probably relates again to #3 and #4 above. It's gotten better, but you're still likely to find a lot of VST3 specific bugs in release notes.

6. And as mentioned, I think it was Andy from Cytomic who just recently said, "VST3 is as close to VST2 as AU is to VST2." It's a different format, not an upgrade. Just because they called it VST3 doesn't just magically make it better than VST2, when it's a different animal entirely.

7. While I wouldn't use the word "conspiracy," maybe that is what happened. Let me ask you this: why did Steinberg never do what every other host did and expose inputs 3+4 as sidechain inputs for VST2 plugins? They could've done that a decade ago. Every other host allows for easy VST2 sidechaining. In Steinberg hosts, you have to use the Quad-Bus workaround that sucks. Then they come out with VST3 with "easy sidechaining" as the big, big selling point. Why did Steinberg recently prevent developers who weren't already licensed to from creating new VST2 plugins? If you want to get into the VST game today, Steinberg will only license you to produce VST3 plugins, not VST2. They didn't need to stop. VST2 still works absolutely fine and is preferred by many developers. So why are they doing that? Seems like they're trying to push VST3 adoption for whatever reason, and trying to kill off the perfectly good VST2 format. I'm not saying they're evil, or can't do what they want with their standards, but there's a lot of reason why it's not in consumers or developers interests to kill of VST2 in favor of VST3.

So that's where I'm coming from on this. I feel like my opinion is reasonably informed. If I'm wrong about anything, I'm sure folks will chime in.

[zvenx]

Ok, let me start at 6 and 7. I was part of that thread with Andy.

As i have been saying over and over for years here, vst2 sidechaining was not an intended behaviour but a work around, a hack of vst2. That is exactly why Cubendo didn't go along with the hack as they had plans to change this via vst3 years ago, for which vst3 specs included officially.

They are not stopping old developers from creating vst2, they just pulled the vst2 out of their current available vst(3) sdks..... I agree to further indicate vst2 is dead, come push developers onto the vst3 wagon.

Put it this way, if vst2 wasn't pulled, how less likely would those developers dragging their feet take to come on board? Windows XP still works fine for some people too. At some point the developer has to force the hand.

as to 5. I have one Developer to mention.... Waves (11 years ago)..... Waves has been on board vst3 from jump street and I am not aware of any their plugins being more buggy on vst3 than vst2, are you?

rsp

[fuzzlightyear]

Exactly. The individual Roland plugins are still overpriced

This is simply a business strategy used by companies that aren't really interested in selling perpetual licenses anymore, they are hyper-focused on incremental monthly/yearly payments over time.

The only way to pull off such a birdbrained tactic against your existing customer base and potential buyers is to uphold an inflated purchase price that gives off the impression of high value to their products.

This software will never degrade over time and the price will remain fixed in order to uphold their current illusion of value. This is how you keep your renters renting and your buyers renting.

RED FLAG ALERT
You can see this business model in action with Slate and the varies other copycats.

[zvenx]

Ok, let me start at 6 and 7. I was part of that thread with Andy.

As i have been saying over and over for years here, vst2 sidechaining was not an intended behaviour but a work around, a hack of vst2. That is exactly why Cubendo didn't go along with the hack as they had plans to change this via vst3 years ago, for which vst3 specs included officially.

They are not stopping old developers from creating vst2, they just pulled the vst2 out of their current available vst(3) sdks..... I agree to further indicate vst2 is dead, come push developers onto the vst3 wagon.

Put it this way, if vst2 wasn't pulled, how less likely would those developers dragging their feet take to come on board? Windows XP still works fine for some people too. At some point the developer has to force the hand.

as to 5. I have one Developer to mention.... Waves..... Waves has been on board vst3 from jump street and I am not aware of any their plugins being more buggy on vst3 than vst2, are you?

rsp

I can though give you a logical reason why some developers would be dragging their feet.

-More work/development time/cost, no way to charge more for this additional work for a vst3 version. And since all hosts that allow VST3 can host VST2 why do it?

Also I am not aware that Steinberg charges a licensing fee for vst3 or vst2, so it isn't like they will be earning more money forcing developers to go from vst2 to vst3.

rsp

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Ok, let me start at 6 and 7. I was part of that thread with Andy.

As i have been saying over and over for years here, vst2 sidechaining was not an intended behaviour but a work around, a hack of vst2. That is exactly why Cubendo didn't go along with the hack as they had plans to change this via vst3 years ago, for which vst3 specs included officially.

Yes. And as everyone else has been saying, Steinberg chose not to add an official sidechaining implementation to VST2. VST2 stopped at version 2.4. Lots of stuff was added along the way. Sidechaining could've been made offician and added to VST2.5. Or Steinberg hosts could've just done what every other host did, and accepted the perfectly functional workaround that everyone agreed to and implemented easy sidechaining in Cubendo.

Surely either of those things would've been less work than creating an entirely new format from the ground up!

They are not stopping old developers from creating vst2, they just pulled the vst2 out of their current available vst(3) sdks..... I agree to further indicate vst2 is dead, come push developers onto the vst3 wagon.

I'm not disputing that. That's exactly what I said.

Put it this way, if vst2 wasn't pulled, how less likely would those developers dragging their feet take to come on board? Windows XP still works fine for some people too. At some point the developer has to force the hand.

What Steinberg has done a piss poor job of (IMO) is demonstrating the value proposition of VST3. 99.9% of plugins work perfectly well with VST2, if we just accept the sidechain workaround that every other DAW implemented as standard, as being acceptable. Everything else they tout for VST3, could pretty much be done in VST2, except VST2 is better documented and more stable. So why force VST3 upon developers?

Do you want my honest opinion as to "why" I think they're doing it? It's not really nefarious. It's not about greed. It's about sunk costs. I think at some point, leadership at Steinberg made a decision to back VST3 as an "upgrade" to VST2. And that cost them a lot of time and money. They built a new spec from the ground up, with marginal improvements, did a poor job documenting it, may have had some bugs, left out a few features, and then spent more time and money implementing it in their own DAWs. And they've continued to spend money improving it along the way and adding things like MIDI Learn. Probably millions of dollars in development costs all-in.

When it came time to roll it out, the developer community saw it for what it was: not the big upgrade everyone hoped for, but instead a brand new format with all new problems, a poorly documented SDK, and something missing the decade plus of refinements VST2 had underwent by that point. So adoption was way slower than Steinberg wanted. It's probably way below their internal projections (I'm sure conversations happened like "within 5 years of releasing VST3 we expect 80% of developers to have transitioned beyond VST2").

Now, Steinberg is trying to push adoption of VST3 to make up for the sunk costs and support their prior decision. They're not going to admit, "hey, we screwed the pooch with that VST3 decision and the millions we spent, we're killing it and encouraging everyone stick with VST2 because it works." Of course that's not going to happen. So instead, what I think they're doing is trying to make it harder and harder to develop VST2 in the hopes that everyone eventually transitions over to VST3. It's not evil. It's not about making money. It's just about supporting a prior, expensive, decision. It's political more than anything else.

[zvenx]

Ok, let me start at 6 and 7. I was part of that thread with Andy.

As i have been saying over and over for years here, vst2 sidechaining was not an intended behaviour but a work around, a hack of vst2. That is exactly why Cubendo didn't go along with the hack as they had plans to change this via vst3 years ago, for which vst3 specs included officially.

Yes. And as everyone else has been saying, Steinberg chose not to add an official sidechaining implementation to VST2. VST2 stopped at version 2.4. Lots of stuff was added along the way. Sidechaining could've been made offician and added to VST2.5. Or Steinberg hosts could've just done what every other host did, and accepted the perfectly functional workaround that everyone agreed to and implemented easy sidechaining in Cubendo.

Surely either of those things would've been less work than creating an entirely new format from the ground up!

They are not stopping old developers from creating vst2, they just pulled the vst2 out of their current available vst(3) sdks..... I agree to further indicate vst2 is dead, come push developers onto the vst3 wagon.

I'm not disputing that. That's exactly what I said.

Put it this way, if vst2 wasn't pulled, how less likely would those developers dragging their feet take to come on board? Windows XP still works fine for some people too. At some point the developer has to force the hand.

What Steinberg has done a piss poor job of (IMO) is demonstrating the value proposition of VST3. 99.9% of plugins work perfectly well with VST2, if we just accept the sidechain workaround that every other DAW implemented as standard, as being acceptable. Everything else they tout for VST3, could pretty much be done in VST2, except VST2 is better documented and more stable. So why force VST3 upon developers?

Do you want my honest opinion as to "why" I think they're doing it? It's not really nefarious. It's not about greed. It's about sunk costs. I think at some point, leadership at Steinberg made a decision to back VST3 as an "upgrade" to VST2. And that cost them a lot of time and money. They built a new spec from the ground up, with marginal improvements, did a poor job documenting it, may have had some bugs, left out a few features, and then spent more time and money implementing it in their own DAWs. And they've continued to spend money improving it along the way and adding things like MIDI Learn. Probably millions of dollars in development costs all-in.

When it came time to roll it out, the developer community saw it for what it was: not the big upgrade everyone hoped for, but instead a brand new format with all new problems, a poorly documented SDK, and something missing the decade plus of refinements VST2 had underwent by that point. So adoption was way slower than Steinberg wanted. It's probably way below their internal projections (I'm sure conversations happened like "within 5 years of releasing VST3 we expect 80% of developers to have transitioned beyond VST2").

Now, Steinberg is trying to push adoption of VST3 to make up for the sunk costs and support their prior decision. They're not going to admit, "hey, we screwed the pooch with that VST3 decision and the millions we spent, we're killing it and encouraging everyone stick with VST2 because it works." Of course that's not going to happen. So instead, what I think they're doing is trying to make it harder and harder to develop VST2 in the hopes that everyone eventually transitions over to VST3. It's not evil. It's not about making money. It's just about supporting a prior, expensive, decision. It's political more than anything else.

To me that is like saying Apple should include Jailbreaking in their official ios.
We will agree to disagree. I fully understand SB's position on it and VST3 was not created solely to add sidechaining which I know you must know.

The list I sent with vst3 improvents included other stuff than side chaining and processing cpu savings when there was no audio... Like for instance the dynamic i/o s in audio and the i/o improvement in midi (think more than 16 midi channels for maschine or kontakt), or Audio inputs for VST instruments so you you can process Audio in your vsti's without needing a separate plugin (zebrify, serum fx etc) to do so?

But how are they recouping these sunk costs? There is afaik no license fee for use of vst3. Or are you saying they are just doing it for their ego?

Also you may want to take a look at this.

https://www.musicradar.com/news/what-is ... -producers

https://blog.andertons.co.uk/learn/what ... nstruments

Vst3 will allow the new features in Midi 2 I don't believe vst2 would.
rsp

[thenumber23]

Roland Cloud Manager keeps telling me there's an update to EXZ001 Stage Piano 1, but the UI always shows it at 1.0.0. Has anyone else seen that?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

The list I sent with vst3 improvents included other stuff than side chaining and processing cpu savings when there was no audio... Like for instance the dynamic i/o s in audio and the i/o improvement in midi?

We've been getting along just fine with VST2 without that stuff, or with workarounds in place for years. Wouldn't it have been easier to add that to VST2 than build a new format from the ground up? Neither of us know, but maybe.

But how are they recouping these sunk costs? There is afaik no license fee for use of vst3.

Note: I never said "recoup." I never even meant to imply it. I don't think this is about money they're going to make, I think this is about money they spent, and them not wanting it to go to waste. If Steinberg spent millions of their own money developing and implementing VST3 with the intention of widespread adoption, and no one ultimately used it, that's the same as digging a whole in the yard, putting all your cash in it, and lighting it on fire. All that money gone for no reason. So even if they're not cashing back in on VST3, the money they spent in the past could be the motivating factor behind why they're pushing adoption. Hence the whole sunk cost fallacy thing.

It's just my guess, but working in the corporate world, that sounds EXACTLY like something a large company would do.

Also you may want to take a look at this.

https://www.musicradar.com/news/what-is ... -producers

https://blog.andertons.co.uk/learn/what ... nstruments

Vst3 will allow the new features in Midi 2 I don't believe vst2 would.
rsp

That's an assumption. VST3 will likely need updating for MIDI 2.0. It certainly predates MIDI 2.0 by several years. So if VST3 will need updates, then why couldn't VST2 have also been updated? We could both make the exact same assumption, or I could argue "an update is an update" so VST3 vs VST2, both would require changes so no benefit.