Well this is a kick in the nuts: VST2 plug-ins

[S0lo]

It's not elegant, but it's possible. The filename was just an example though. I don't see much chance for an industry wide culture of wink-wink now change the filename wink-wink

Yeah . silly me

but adopting a really good standard that's not over engineered and free of baggage is the best path forward for all of us.

In many ways, I agree. with some skepticism to be honest. A few ideas:

1. The key obstacle here is to convince major DAW makers to commit to the new format from the get go. Otherwise, it'd go mild like LV2 did.
2. I think a new format better work with VSTGUI. (VSTGUI has a different more open license than VST). This would ease porting existing plugin code to. If I'm not mistaken many devs use VSTGUI.
3. It should at least "try" to make porting code from VST2 easy.

Just thinking loud here. Probably obvious talk.

[ghettosynth]

1. The key obstacle here is to convince DAW makers to commit to the new format from the get go. Otherwise, it'd go mild like LV2 did.

Did? Reaper only just recently added LV2 support. Given how slowly some things change wrt Linux projects and the relatively recent changes by Steinberg, is it too late for LV2?

[S0lo]

1. The key obstacle here is to convince DAW makers to commit to the new format from the get go. Otherwise, it'd go mild like LV2 did.

Did? Reaper only just recently added LV2 support. Given how slowly some things change wrt Linux projects and the relatively recent changes by Steinberg, is it too late for LV2?

Well lets hope the trend continues . We don't want VST because we love it. We want VST because we're stuck with it. (Edit: speaking for my self off-course , I don't claim to speak for others)

[Urs]

1. The key obstacle here is to convince major DAW makers to commit to the new format from the get go. Otherwise, it'd go mild like LV2 did.
2. I think a new format better work with VSTGUI. (VSTGUI has a different more open license than VST). This would ease porting existing plugin code to. If I'm not mistaken many devs use VSTGUI.
3. It should at least "try" to make porting code from VST2 easy.

Fully agree. I have never seen LV2 specs. From what others tell me, this isn't easily happening, i.e. there seems to be pain involved. I guess the "V2" means there's legacy baggage?

From my perspective the major hurdles to overcome are

- chicken & egg problem (no host, no plug-in commitment. No plug-ins, no host commitment)
- simplicity of code
- simplicity and reliability of licensing

In the past few days I've heard and seen a promising variety of suggestions, examples and opinions that makes me slightly more optimistic than I was last week.

Furthermore, I think this industry is far beyond where synth manufacturers were in 1982 when they founded the MIDI Manufacturers Association. An industry wide standard should be controlled by a body like that, composed from multiple players, not from a single company or a plain open source project.

After all, maybe, we all can help Steinberg to end VST2.

[Music Engineer]

Fully agree. I have never seen LV2 specs. From what others tell me, this isn't easily happening, i.e. there seems to be pain involved. I guess the "V2" means there's legacy baggage?

i also had only a superficial look at it but that made me a bit like : oh no! 513 kb in 107 files in 24 folders. many of them .ttl files - i don't even know what that is. why can't we just have a simple single .h file with less than 100kb? vst2 proves that this is totally feasible. why all this overengineering?

[Urs]

[MuTools]

Can't we ask / persuade the MMA to setup a music plugin format, just like they created MIDI?

[syntonica]

513 kb in 107 files in 24 folders

I would actual commend the Linux community for showing restraint for once.

I just installed Cmake using Homebrew on the Mac. It took over 8 fecking hours, touched Ruby, Python, Perl, Bash and felt the need to compile the latest version of Rust (which took about 95% of that 8 hours). Just for a program that parses a simple script and runs a few shell commands.

[donkey tugger]

Furthermore, I think this industry is far beyond where synth manufacturers were in 1982 when they founded the MIDI Manufacturers Association. An industry wide standard should be controlled by a body like that, composed from multiple players, not from a single company or a plain open source project.

After all, maybe, we all can help Steinberg to end VST2.

In some ways, being 'far beyond'. is probably a disadvantage; speaking with my Civil Service projects hat on, trying to get established stakeholders to move to a new standard when there are already lots of parties (often with differing and even conflicting priorities) is not easy..

Can be done (I've seen it first hand in public transport data) but you need a strong, representative governing board, a lot of consultation, and a good communications framework for a start. In public transport we do have the rather big advantage that central government will provide funding and also impetus in terms of legislation etc. If you haven't got that type of overarching 'guiding hand', then the organisational structure and governance becomes doubly important in terms of leadership.

That's my serious post for the day...

[imrae]

I don't think Steinberg is unhappy with their chosen path. Otherwise it would be quite simple for them to change it.

Still coercing developers to port plugins to the new format 15 years later, without any exciting "new" features in use. This can't have been their Plan A...

[fese]

Can't we ask / persuade the MMA to setup a music plugin format, just like they created MIDI?

Well, if you have just have a look at MIDI 2.0, how long it took them to ratify it and what it is with all the “profiles” and “property exchange” (when all people wanted was high resolution CCs and polyphonic expression), I am not sure that’s the way to go seeing how “simple and not over engineered” seems to be high on the wishlist in this thread...
I cannot image “simple” being the outcome if you bring a committee of manufacturers into play...

[MuTools]

You may be right.

Not an easy context then: If the organisation behind a new plugin format is too lightweight it may be difficult to persuade host devs and plug devs to support it. If the organisation is too heavyweight it might indeed become too complex to set it up.

[Urs]

Can't we ask / persuade the MMA to setup a music plugin format, just like they created MIDI?

If the board members who are owners of proprietary plug-in formats and/or who have ties to hardware don't see that as conflict of interest...

[lkjb]

I don't think Steinberg is unhappy with their chosen path. Otherwise it would be quite simple for them to change it.

Still coercing developers to port plugins to the new format 15 years later, without any exciting "new" features in use. This can't have been their Plan A...

They probably aren't satisfied with the VST3 transition taking so long but they started activly pushing against VST2 three years ago and the current approach of voiding existing VST2 licenses by signing new VST3 licenses doesn't show any change of mind. If Steinberg had any intention to take the conerns in this thread seriously they could easily do something.

Maybe the best approach would be to simply buy Steinberg and release VST2 in the public domain.

A big difference between MIDI and an open plugin format is that most hardware manufacturers had an interest in connecting different devices as there was not much alternative for customers. With DAWs and plugins, users are used to different formats and most commercial devs cover all common formats. So there's no real pressure from the customer side as shown by Logic and Pro Tools, each only supporting one format.

[Urs]

Logic and Pro Tools, each only supporting one format.

This is also maybe because they saw this coming.

Let's recap:

When you sign the current version of the agreement, they automatically terminate your existing agreement whenever they decide to update the agreement to something else. If you sign this, you have to sign whatever they put in front of you, or you lose your investment in the format.

Nobody is going to sign this. VST3 is frozen in its previous form. A change on Apple, and it's dead. (Oh, I can see why this point of time was chosen)