About CLAP

[Dewdman42]

I don't see it going that way. But time will tell

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but do people buy DAW's based on the number of plugin formats it is compatible with?

rsp

I know you're very married to Cubase, which is all good. But I've bounced between Sonar, Studio One, Cubase, and now Reaper. The latter of which being the one I'm most happy with. The DAW's capabilities are important to me and I have a LOT of plugins. If a good handful of those plugins don't have VST3 versions (current state), or those VST3 versions are buggy or missing some features (program changes for example), it would factor into the value proposition of where I spend money in the future. Absolutely. I'm not going to spend money on a DAW that just dropped support for a large number of my plugins. You can flip that around and blame the plugin developers, but I've got working tools from them that I want to keep using.

It's just one factor though. Like ARA support.

But it certainly drops the value proposition of Cubase if they're VST3 only and other DAWs support everything.

[prokoudine]

Welcome to KVR! We need all the help we can get

My point is, all my questionable jokes aside, Robin has some quite intricate knowledge how both VST3 and LV2 work. He wrote a huge chunk of the host code for VST3 support in Ardour including support for some of its extensions and he wrote a crapload of LV2 plugins and some LV2 extensions. He's also quite familiar with the recent revision of the CLAP SDK. So I'm not sure why you would want him in this little adventure, it's not like he's going to be surprised by anything

Now, I've met a few people who tried writing LV2 plugins (audio-only) and ended up using JUCE + VST3 because the experience was that much better even on Linux. And I absolutely get it that some cool open source toys today are "VST first, LV2 maybe". I think it's indicative that the ecosystem has some problems to solve. I'm just not sure what the solution is, because a huge part of the problem is the chicken-egg (daw-plugin) feedback loop.

Some vendors like Pianoteq and Loomer had faith in LV2 early on, but most customers using LV2 versions they have now are likely Ardour/Mixbus users, which is not a lot (I'm saying this with some regret, as an avid Ardour user). Likewise, commercial DAW devs will probably find it difficult to support another API if there aren't many popular plugins available. I'm happy we have LV2 plugins like Odin2, Vital, Surge XT (semi-officially, I know). Those are spectacular pieces of software, but they are a drop in the ocean (again, saying it with some regret). _And_ they are not LV2-exclusive.

My personal impression so far is that U-He and Bitwig (and Reaper, to an extent) backing CLAP this early probably means far more than those several technical improvements that CLAP appears to have over VST3 and LV2 (I don't think I'm qualified to be a good judge of the technical side of things though).

So far, it's been pretty much impossible to get commercial plugin vendors to rebuild their JUCE-based software as native Linux VSTs, let alone make LV2s — even when you are clearly in a "shut up and take my money" mood. So just like you I'm interested to see how this will play out.

[zvenx]

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but do people buy DAW's based on the number of plugin formats it is compatible with?

rsp

I know you're very married to Cubase, which is all good. But I've bounced between Sonar, Studio One, Cubase, and now Reaper. The latter of which being the one I'm most happy with. The DAW's capabilities are important to me and I have a LOT of plugins. If a good handful of those plugins don't have VST3 versions (current state), or those VST3 versions are buggy or missing some features (program changes for example), it would factor into the value proposition of where I spend money in the future. Absolutely. I'm not going to spend money on a DAW that just dropped support for a large number of my plugins. You can flip that around and blame the plugin developers, but I've got working tools from them that I want to keep using.
.....

Oh I understand that..... I meant not between the vst variants, but au and aax for instance.


That is if a Daw supports AU and VST 2/3 vs a DAW that only supports VST2/3 does that really determine which DAW is used for a notable amount of users?

Truthfully, the vst2 dropping may be a bridge too far for me and Cubendo.. We shall see which plugins I rely on still are not on vst3.

But yes at least till then I am married Cubendo...Workflow for me is the most important thing (features and how they are implemented) followed next by stability.

rsp

[machinesworking]

...the value proposition for Cubendo and other one-platform DAWs drops against competing DAWs.

I don't see Logic or Pro Tools suffering much from being one plug in format DAWs. VST3 will probably eventually be supported by Cubendo only, but there are wrappers for AU and AAX to support VST in Logic and PT, so at some point a CLAP/VST3 wrapper becomes a thing.
Plus I think it was mentioned already, although I would like CLAP to be the exclusive format, it's likely to be the default development format, since VST3, AU and AAX, don't work for that and VST2 is being kicked to the curb.

[Dewdman42]

@zvenx Don't forget you can still run BlueCatAudio Patchworks.vst3, and sub-host VST2 plugins from inside that. I think the couple of VST2 plugins you lose; you can find a way to use Cuberico.

[zvenx]

Thanks... have never used bluecataudio, but I used 32 lives for awhile to get around using some of the 32 bit plugins I still wanted to use (hypersonic for instance). In the end it wasn't worth it and I stopped using them.
Maybe bluecataudio patchworks is much easier..

Anyway two years is awhile away (I say now )...

rsp

[EvilDragon]

BlueCat stuff is really good IMO.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I don't see Logic or Pro Tools suffering much from being one plug in format DAWs.

But you don't see all the factors that go into why people chose particular DAWs in the first place. You're not polling Reaper or Ableton users to ask them why NOT Logic right? You just see that Logic is popular among Mac users. And it is. And Pro Tools is popular in studios. And it is. There are lots of reasons for that.

But I haven't bought a Logic license yet even though I'm a new Mac user. I probably will eventually, but I'm no rush. And AU seems more popular among Mac plugins than VST3 is on Mac and PC in my experience. I install AU on my Mac at least just in case (gotta love how Logic updates are free - so that's a positive factor). I also see Pro Tools users regularly asking for AAX versions of this or that plugin on a regular basis. Doesn't make me want to switch to PT at all. Wouldn't even consider it.

So it's a factor. It's not the only factor. But it's one of many. [I feel like I keep repeating that.] There's a lot of competition in the DAW market and supporting fewer plugin formats doesn't make me want to a buy a DAW more.

[Dewdman42]

My guess is that you have few plugins that aren't available as VST3 already and maybe a couple of them will make the leap to VST3 also. The bigger problem I see has more to do with opening old projects with VST2 plugins in them, not sure how that is going to play out? Does Cubase automatically look for VST3 versions of plugins in an existing project when it was configured with VST2 plugins?

But anyway, Using BlueCatAudio will work more reliably then 32lives because its not out of process, but its also a bit cumbersome to have to open up the BlueCatAudio plugin, in order order to then open up the sub-hosted plugin inside it. Kind of annoying, but if there if there is some VST2 you can't live without...you can do that..

VST2 Midi plugins, however, may be subject to VST3 design flaws in some cases, there is no way around that...if the midi has to pass through the VST3 api barrier, including any wrappers or sub-hosters, then there are use cases where it will be problematic.

[Dewdman42]

BlueCat stuff is really good IMO.

definitely

[EvilDragon]

Does Cubase automatically look for VST3 versions of plugins in an existing project when it was configured with VST2 plugins?

Yes, if plugin developer used the same plugin ID for VST3 that was used for VST2. Which is not always the case. At any rate this is up to the plugin dev, so Steiny washed their hands.

[zvenx]

My guess is that you have few plugins that aren't available as VST3 already and maybe a couple of them will make the leap to VST3 also. The bigger problem I see has more to do with opening old projects with VST2 plugins in them, not sure how that is going to play out? Does Cubase automatically look for VST3 versions of plugins in an existing project when it was configured with VST2 plugins?

But anyway, Using BlueCatAudio will work more reliably then 32lives because its not out of process, but its also a bit cumbersome to have to open up the BlueCatAudio plugin, in order order to then open up the sub-hosted plugin inside it. Kind of annoying, but if there if there is some VST2 you can't live without...you can do that..

VST2 Midi plugins, however, may be subject to VST3 design flaws in some cases, there is no way around that...if the midi has to pass through the VST3 api barrier, including any wrappers or sub-hosters, then there are use cases where it will be problematic.

Yes that is indeed a potential issue.. I keep older versions installed (like on my mac I have Cubase 9 to well...the can't say version , I only removed Cubase 8 two weeks ago when I realised I didn't need to use it for the last two or so years). and on PC I have Nuendo 6.5 up to.... )....just to open old projects.. Of course there will come a time (especially on mac) when an OS no longer allows me to run Cubase 9 for instance... at that time probably would bounce them to audio on nuendo on pc..


It depends how the vst3 is coded.. the proper (official) way is to use the same vst id for both, so if it sees a vst3 it will use it and default to the vst 2 if that is not available, most plugins will open projects fine that way (kontakt vst3 being a recent contrary example I found out recently).

Maybe now is a good time to look at what plugins I need that aren't vst3 yet.. I know for sure UAD and SoundToys and NI...I know two of the three are actively working on doing vst3 of their current repertoire.

rsp

[zvenx]

Apart from the UAD, Soundtoys and NI ones I mentioned, they are Korg and Fxpansion instruments that I still use..
yikes
rsp

[dawhead]

If I'd be a DAW developer, my first thought would be: "Finally!!!"

As a DAW developer, and of one that supports VST3, VST2, LADSPA, LV2 and AU (and will likely end up with CLAP support if it takes off), I can say:

Given the chance to say "We no longer support plugins", I would jump at that in an instant. However, that's not on the table (and for the record, this is the same position as several lead devs of other major DAWs have told me)

However, dropping just VST2 support? We'd have no reason to do that for many, many years. And if we did, because we're open source and GPL'ed, someone would just put it back