Steinberg Discontinuing VST2 Support in its products

[jamcat]

I find it odd that so many people who don’t even use Cubase are so incensed by Steinberg’s decision to stop supporting VST2 plugins in Cubase. IT DOESN’T AFFECT YOU.

Maybe Steinberg’s decision to drop VST2 versions of their plugins might affect you. But that’s only if you’re on an old DAW that doesn’t support VST3 plugins. At that point, whose fault is that? (Hint: Not Steinberg’s.)

If you really want to find someone to blame for the slow adoption of VST3, you might want to start by looking at Ableton. They are the real reason so many developers went to long. A lot of developers looked at as a financial decision: Why invest development resources (time and money) into supporting VST3 when everyone supports VST2, but not everyone (mainly Ableton) doesn’t support VST3?

It took Steinberg ending the issuance of new VST2 licenses as of October 2018 to force Ableton to finally support VST3, since users wouldn’t be able to run plugins from new developers (and they’d have to change their name to Unableton.)

Steinberg is really only to blame for playing softball for so long.

So it was really Ableton that was holding up VST3 adoption, which they did just to trip up a competitor. Same reason why everyone wants to create their own format to rule over.

And that brings us to CLAP. Maybe Bitwig will support it, and the KVR cult can have a jizzfest playing with their u-he plugins in Bitwig. But outside of that, who is going to invest the development resources (time and money) into supporting CLAP in their host? Certainly not Ableton.

So then Bitwig and u-he and Tone2 will have to drop VST support completely to try to force the industry to adopt CLAP in an “us or them” move (that’s why I asked if they are going to.) But that’s a power play that only Steinberg or Apple can afford to make. So in the end, the CLAP ends up becoming yet another proprietary plugin format, and VST3 remains the one and only universal format.

[S0lo]

Are there any plugins devs that still refuses to do VST3 even on new plugins?
One is Admiral Quality but they havent been active for several years. Are there anyone else?

It's not much of a stubborn refusal as much as it's like: "How much benefit do I get and improvement my plugin gets vs. how much effort and pain do I have to go through".

I suspect that I'd need at least 3 to 4 month of hard work to port to VST3. If anything, I'd rather spend that time doing a MAC version which is a much more requested thing. Or if not, add more interesting and fun features instead of a boring format port.

[MirkoVanHauten]

...

Yeah, no.

[whyterabbyt]

If you really want to find someone to blame for the slow adoption of VST3, you might want to start by looking at Ableton.

blame? they deserve a round of f**king applause.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

I find it odd that so many people who don’t even use Cubase are so incensed by Steinberg’s decision to stop supporting VST2 plugins in Cubase. IT DOESN’T AFFECT YOU.

We'll see about that.

So in the end, the CLAP ends up becoming yet another proprietary plugin format (...)

I'm not convinced you know what "proprietary" means.

[jamcat]

When only one host supports a plugin format, it is for all intents and purposes proprietary, regardless of whether or not it is actually closed.

I consider Studio One’s Mix Engine FX to be proprietary for that reason, even though there is a single 3rd party plugin for it (Softube Tape).

[whyterabbyt]

I'm not convinced you know what "proprietary" means.

you were right!

[vurt]

I'm not convinced you know what "proprietary" means.

you were right!

or unethical if he thinks selling second hand plugins is unethical

wonder if he knows what the welsh for carrot is?

[jamcat]

That got me thinking, vurt. Maybe developers should sell their VST2 SDK licenses to others, and we’ll see where that goes. CJEU would probably declare it legal.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

That got me thinking, vurt. Maybe developers should sell their VST2 SDK licenses to others, and we’ll see where that goes. CJEU would probably declare it legal.

I'd like to see that happen.

I'd also like to see one of the DAW vendors take Steinberg to court over its attempts to revoke VST2 licenses. However, I don't think those big enough to be able to afford it would ever take the risk.

[zvenx]

As someone who has Icarus and Electra on my essential instruments short list on both mac and pc in Cubendo I sincerely hope they do become vst3s for mac too.

rsp

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Hey zvenx. You didn't reply to my other post, but I thought you might take up my challenge anyway, so just in case, I dug into the VST3 SDK documentation.

I hereby rescind my challenge.

I've worked with some awful APIs, and I thought to myself: "How bad can it really be?" Well, this answers my question, to the extent that I now have a minimum asking price before I'll ever touch VST3 again. I mean, I once learned COBOL just to write a program as a joke, but this is on another level.

The CLAP developers deserve a round of applause. All the third-party VST3 devs deserve a round of expensive scotch. Steinberg's programmers deserve... How do I put this? Maybe someone can find them a priest. It could work, I think. There's a chance.

[jamcat]

I dug into the VST3 SDK documentation.

I hereby rescind my challenge.

I've worked with some awful APIs, and I thought to myself: "How bad can it really be?" Well, this answers my question, to the extent that I now have a minimum asking price before I'll ever touch VST3 again. I mean, I once learned COBOL just to write a program as a joke, but this is on another level.

Give us some details.
What about the SDK exactly are you having trouble with?
Can you give an example?

[zvenx]

Cause I am not a programmer. I use to in grad school developing tools for my geophysics thesis, many decades ago. So no I didn't accept your challenge since the chance of me ever developing a plugin is close to zero.
Rsp

[jamcat]

If you really want to find someone to blame for the slow adoption of VST3, you might want to start by looking at Ableton.

blame? they deserve a round of f**king applause.

How many developers/plugins ceased while Ableton was playing chicken with Steinberg? Plugins which otherwise would have been ported to VST3 at the time if it weren't for Ableton, but now never will be?

What is there to applaud in unnecessary casualties? Plugins you use may very well be among the body count. Yay?