Which products support LV2 today?

[ghettosynth]

Inspired by the standards thread going on right now in the DSP forum, I am interested in which commercial products support the LV2 standard today?

Specifically, which hosts and plugins support LV2 on which operating systems. I'm not only interested in Linux support, but also who is supporting the plugin format on mainstream desktop operating systems.

[chk071]

Close to none. Which also shows what a brilliant idea the establishment of another standard is.

[melomood]

I've been checking in. It does not appear to be the birth of a new standard. More like the tale of why not

[chk071]

I've been checking in. It does not appear to be the birth of a new standard. More like the tale of why not

Still a total waste of time.

[melomood]

good thing that cartoon at the end summed up the last few pages

[chk071]

Yeah. IIRC, Urs already posted that in a similar discussion some weeks/months ago, yet got heavily involved in the same kind of thinking.

Well... if they want some extra work by supporting or inventing yet another standard, so they not only have to do VST, AU, AAX or RTAS... Developers love to work, don't they?

Would be great for the customers too, especially for the many people using Cubase, because, I really can't see Steinberg supporting a new standard.

Really, it's not a very smart idea. I'm sure they'll realize that though, or just, as usual, the idea will come to nothing.

[RobinWood]

Yeah they should use their time and complain further more about VST3 instead. Or sign some of the extorting contracts Steinberg want. How dare thinking they can change something Or we wait. Steinberg eventually going down solves issues too.

[chk071]

So what will a handful of developers choosing to support or invent another format accomplish? The whole industry would have to do it, if then. Otherwise, you will have what I mentioned. Another standard, which might or might not be reasonably successful (I highly doubt that it will be successful in any way, BTW), making developers have to support another standard, not replace another. Shitty for them, shitty for customers.

It's just a very unrealistic idea.

Steinberg eventually going down solves issues too.

Well well. Are we there yet? Wishing a company which has hundreds of employees, which will all be out of their job, their downfall? How nice of you.

See that's basically the issue with all of that "revolutionary" talk. It's not well thought out.

[ghettosynth]

Ok, yes, almost none, I agree. BTW: I also want to discuss this casually from a user POV without cluttering up the dev thread, so spot on.

That said, Reaper does support LV2 on Windows and I've been able to compile LV2 plugins for Windows that work, albeit, nothing fancy, but I do think that it's valuable to support the only reasonably established open standard that we have.

[chk071]

If anything, I'd also develop for LV2, as a developer. It makes absolutely zero sense to try to establish another standard, if there is one which works.

That said, I still think it's a very bad idea. For the developers as well as the customers. Especially considering the pace of development in the music software industry. The understandably slow pace, I want to add.

It's also not like I couldn't understand the point. But, if you develop a standard, and make it proprietary, it's yours, and you can basically do what you want with it. Of course, it's also a bad idea to tie developer's hands. But, I feel like they exaggerate a bit in this case.

It's not like anyone couldn't develop a better standard, which establishes itself as THE standard. LV2 never did. Just saying.

[RobinWood]

If the standard is made by the plugin and DAW devs themself, how high is the chance of them actually implementing it? Higher than just some random dudes thinking it is time to invent something. Just a reminder that ARA started with 1 plugin dev and 1 DAW, now it's being implemented even up to closed systems like the Avid ones... Further more it's not just for fun but because another company puts pressure on necks. I would love to see devs dropping support for VST3 and Steinberg going down instead But obviously some love to bend over, some at least try to get out of it.

[chk071]

But obviously some love to bend over, some at least try to get out of it.

See that's your opinion. I'm pretty sure most don't feel like they bend over.

I'm not a programmer, but, I got a bit into scripting, Javascript and Python. And, I definitely can understand that you don't want to learn to re-invent the wheel every time. Developers who learned to write VST2, VST3, AU or AAX plugins surely have a lot of fun and joy to learn yet another plugin standard, which does it all different (and so much better, of course!) again.

Melomood mentioned the great, and always fitting cartoon about software standards. It's spot on.

I mentioned the hundreds of Linux distribution in the thread ghettosynth mentioned. Every single one of those was created with the premise to make it better than the hundreds distributions before it. One can only imagine what Linux would be like, if they all worked together on a single distribution, joined their forces, and make small concessions for the greater good. But naaaah. Doesn't fit the ideology anyway.

[mike_the_ranger]

Don't think you'll find many products supporting it. The reason is that it has just not been needed so far but that need (for it or another) is growing. The dev thread already describes why and why this could even make life easier because certain compatibility could be built into it, even in form of factory adapters. There'd be no need to "learn another format". Or if at all it would be surely easier than the VST3 code and license mess.
Also plugin formats do not exist to be better than the previous one (same for the Linux distributions), they exist to do stuff different for a group of users. Does AAX make stuff better? Probably not, but I can load native and DSP versions with it and have compatibility to my Avid hardware. Do others need that? Nope. Does AU make stuff better? No, it's basically just VST made by another OS dev. Does VST3 make anything better than VST2? Hell no, we hear this form devs every time. So when the same people are fed up they sure can use their brains to come up with something. And the companies realistically debating there aren't random nerds that like to show off but people making their money from it. If they find a solution that makes their life easier while still being able to get out products to their customters, then isn't that exactly the "One can only imagine what Linux would be like, if they all worked together on a single distribution, joined their forces, and make small concessions for the greater good" analogy for plugin formats? Nah, doesn't fit the ideology

[ghettosynth]

If the standard is made by the plugin and DAW devs themself, how high is the chance of them actually implementing it?

Certainly, if you mean "if you build it, they will come." Sure, but, I think that what the great posts from the people who have been around a long time shows, is that it's a lot harder than people think to get other people to adopt a standard.

ARA is a bit different because AFAIK, it wasn't attempting to unseat entrenched standards, but in any case, it was developed between Melodyne and Presonus and was included in Studio One.

From Wikipedia
"ARA was developed as a joint effort between Celemony Software and PreSonus, driven by the desire to increase the level of integration between Celemony's Melodyne plug-in and the DAWs using it.[2] It was first published in October 2011 and released as part of PreSonus' Studio One DAW (version 2) and Melodyne (Editor, Assistant and Essential versions 1.3).[2]"

[chk071]

Don't think you'll find many products supporting it. The reason is that it has just not been needed so far but that need (for it or another) is growing. The dev thread already describes why and why this could even make life easier because certain compatibility could be built into it, even in form of factory adapters. There'd be no need to "learn another format". Or if at all it would be surely easier than the VST3 code and license mess.
Also plugin formats do not exist to be better than the previous one (same for the Linux distributions), they exist to do stuff different for a group of users. Does AAX make stuff better? Probably not, but I can load native and DSP versions with it and have compatibility to my Avid hardware. Do others need that? Nope. Does AU make stuff better? No, it's basically just VST made by another OS dev. Does VST3 make anything better than VST2? Hell no, we hear this form devs every time. So when the same people are fed up they sure can use their brains to come up with something. And the companies realistically debating there aren't random nerds that like to show off but people making their money from it. If they find a solution that makes their life easier while still being able to get out products to their customters, then isn't that exactly the "One can only imagine what Linux would be like, if they all worked together on a single distribution, joined their forces, and make small concessions for the greater good" analogy for plugin formats? Nah, doesn't fit the ideology

What you neglect is that companies like Steinberg won't play that game. So, basically, what you'll have is a further fragmentation of the market. Apple will do its thing, Steinberg will do its thing (VST), Avid will do its thing... it' no good for the customer (or for the developers... which format should they support now? All of them?). Not to mention that u-he (for example) will shoot themselves in the foot if they stop supporting VST, because, Steinberg won't stop supporting it, just because a handful of developers switch to another format.

Seriously, the only DAW I could imagine supporting that is Reaper (and, if it's LV2, it already does). I just can't imagine how something like that works out. But, hey, let them waste their prescious time and energy, which is so abundantly available anyway (not).

The funny thing is that some of the devs discussing that now already said themselves that it always will end up in more standards which have to be supported. And yet, the idea of a new standard, the one to rule them all, doesn't seem to die out. Well, it's a nice idea, on paper. Not in the real world.