Cubase 12 dropping VST 2 support (For Apple Silicon)

[Dewdman42]

No, you'd be looking at VST. VST isn't done, it's not ending at 3.5. There's going to be a VST4... and they can just look at CLAP for instance and include those features and there will be no reason for CLAP.

Yes there will. CLAP will gain traction even if it had less features than VST3. its not the features that are driving it. Its the licensing problems and SDK complexity, neither of which are likely to be resolved by VST4.

[Dewdman42]

We've all gotten used to thinking of VST as if it is some kind of industry standard, but the truth is that its a proprietary format that just happened to get a lot of traction because Steinberg made their SDK freely available. At the time it was less complicated then DX. But Steinberg has not shown since then any inclination to treat it properly as an industry standard that hey are responsible for. For them, it is their proprietary format and they want as many people as possible to make third party plugins for it. They could CARE LESS about third party plugin hosting from other developers. VST should be thought of in the same light as AAX. Its just a proprietary format that plugin developers will want to distribute in order to appeal to cubase users, along with the AAX plugins they want to sell to protools users.

AU is slightly different because while it is made by a company, Apple, it is also an OS level service provided and supported by Apple, with the intention to support all application and plugin developers in the best way they can. Apple actively develops CoreAudio for all users and developers to support making the Mac platform as good as possible. Its not meant by them to be a proprietary format mainly for LogicPro while other hosts "don't matter". They are taking a much more central agnostic role in supporting the entire platform.

People have often confused VST to be analogous to AU....because so many hosts embraced it that for a long time, effectively it was. But Steinberg has really shown in recent years, that VST is nothing but their own proprietary format that they will do as they wish with for their own purposes. Which is totally fine. But the rest of the industry needs to stop feeding from that nursemaid and develop a more neutral agnostic plugin format....at least on windows...and if it hits both Mac and windows..then perhaps even better....

[Dewdman42]

Yes there will. CLAP will gain traction even if it had less features than VST3. its not the features that are driving it. Its the licensing problems and SDK complexity, neither of which are likely to be resolved by VST4.

No it wont.

yea ok, well, its pointless to pretend either one of us has a crystal ball. We shall see.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

it's unlikely that bigger DAW companies, are going to want to depend on and integrate open source into their program.

They already do, chief

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Explain? and which?

I’ll let you repeat what I just did, so you can see for yourself.

On my laptop (my main one, at least) I have copies of Logic, Ableton, and Bitwig. Dunno if those meet your definition of “major” but you can try this with most software anyway. I found the “About” screen for each of these and clicked on whatever buttons said something like “Acknowledgements” or “Third Party License Information.” Logic opened a giant PDF listing a bunch of stuff, including the ubiquitous libpng. Ableton gave me an even more gigantic PDF that helpfully lists the URLs of the GitHub repos for all the stuff they use (starting on page 31 in my copy). Bitwig puts it all in a table with clickable hyperlinks to both the libraries and whatever licenses they use. If these companies can get along with all these projects they’ll have no problem whatsoever with CLAP.

[rasmusklump]

I would like to to know whose sock puppet just registered here to flood this thread.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Anyways, how is Logic and Abelton open source? did I miss a memo?

Oh buddy... The memo you missed is the one explaining the basic differences between open source software and proprietary software, how that interacts with copyright law, and also how software is made in the first place. I don't think I'm at the right level of sobriety right now to lay it all out for you so I'll let someone else handle that.

[kritikon]

The only one out of those I would consider 'big' is Logic. You get to be considered big when a corporation sees enough value in the product to invest in it... as Steinberg is to Yamaha, ProTools is to AVID, and Logic is to Apple. And or also when said products have cross pollinated across a range of products and markets - for example, Abelton, Bitwig, Reaper... Do not have a range of post-production consoles, or live mixers in which their software is integrated. Companies like Yamaha, AVID, Apple, can literally move mountains. That is 'big'.

Anyways, how is Logic and Abelton open source? did I miss a memo? they integrated this CLAP?

You're way off track mate. You really need to do even a very quick search for h/w. Some of the music retailers in NZ and Aus, and it follows that they follow other bigger markets are choc full of Ableton-ready consoles, controllers, mixing gizmos. I've seen some that sell almost exclusively for Ableton. Form what I've seen there's a wider choice here for Ableton h/w than there is for Cubase/Yamaha. Don't think I've seen any for Logic - I always considered Logic mainly a US market as it seemed to be losing traction even many years ago when I was in the UK. You seriously are spouting off the top of your proverbial or you're working for one of them. Go search Ableton h/w. I don't even use Ableton - I'm Cubase through and through. But tell you what - Ableton is streaks ahead in the market here for that kind of thing...

Ableton Push2
Akai sell gear here specifically with Ableton and sold with Ableton. Y'know the MPC kinda things.
TouchAble Pro

Those were first line search here. The market is flooded with them. Stop making shit up please, as it's starting to sound like corporate market spiel.

[kritikon]

Fine have it your way. You are so very wrong and blind. I'm not going to continue arguing pointlessly. Bye now.

[antic604]

On my laptop (my main one, at least) I have copies of Logic, Ableton, and Bitwig. Dunno if those meet your definition of “major”...

The only one out of those I would consider 'big' is Logic. You get to be considered big when a corporation sees enough value in the product to invest in it... as Steinberg is to Yamaha, ProTools is to AVID, and Logic is to Apple.

I'd rather Ableton continued being independent and focused on developing software for music-makers, than sell itself to "corporation" to appear big in your eyes

https://www.billboard.com/pro/ableton-f ... interview/

They seem to be doing great as a small, niche start-up

[antic604]

Yeah right, and how's that development cycle going

I didn't made that thread you quoted and I don't agree with it. Since 2017 when I started with Live 9.7 theyve been doing pretty great I'd say. v10 and v11 were huge for me. Although even now I don't care about VST3, because they don't do anything that VST2 can't and in my 500+ collection of plugins I think I only have 2 or 3 that are VST3 only.

In contrast, Steinberg for example started the transition to high-DPI support with v10 and 2 PAID versions later they're still way behind Live that did all it with early v10, or Bitwig that had it from the start... Not to mention Steinberg doesn't do intermediate feature updates between - again, PAID - x.0 and x.5 versions, so it's actually their pace of development that's glacial in comparison.

Really. If I was to invest my personal money in any DAW company it would be Ableton.

[crickey13]

I smell desperation.

[antic604]

Is that a good investment? Maybe if your investment was a majority takeover and you were going to go in a wildly different direction...

When I'm saying about investing in a DAW company I don't think of becoming its owner to move it in another direction.

I'm talking about making a - relatively small compared to market cap - private investment in a company that I think has a great product, faithful & growing user base, clear - and aligned with the market - direction of what it wants the product to be going forward. I'm thinking of safely investing my savings.

That's Ableton for me. Then Presonus, followed perhaps by Bitwig although that one can go either way.

We can probably agree that Reason's dying. And I'm devastated about it.

[antic604]

You know it's sort of funny because, they resisted implementing VST for so long and so arrogantly even as they were plummeting, knowingly for blatantly resisting VST.. and they finally implemented... but.. not only that, in the end... they released a VST version of the program itself.

It was so obvious, they just took too long. People use Reason like they use a VSTi/Synth. Release it as a VSTiDAW.

I figured we'd differ about this

I think they never should've opened to VSTs, but instead further improve the RE ecosystem and allow for 2nd hand market there. Some of the REs are brilliant, much better than VSTs and the whole ecosystem work so well together - single login & password the DAW, 1st and 3rd party REs, automatic updates, virus protection, streamlined shoping, etc.

But can you really see no similarity there to Abelton?

No.

Ableton didn't sit on their laurels for years (a decade?), continuead to innovate (heard of Push1/2 - hello?) and most importantly didn't suddenly change their course 90-180deg pissing off people who sunk thousands of EUR/USD to support it over the years.

[antic604]

no need to disagree bro, let's be friends.

I understad the benefits of VSTs and I use them - for better or worse - in other DAWs, but for Reason I think it was best to stay closed as it was a very well integrated environment and if they'd put more work into it, more devs would port their synths & FX to RE format, because it has a lot of advantages over VST/AU/AAX:
- one login & password for native & 3rd party stuff
- automatic updates
- integrated shop - you buy something, it gets installed immediately
- central file hosting and virus protection
- sandboxing (REs don't crash the host)
- last but not least - hardware- and OS- agnostic RE SDK, which means REs can be "ported" by Reason Studios to anything: new OS, new CPUs, web, hardware synths, etc. without any work required from the developer!

Had they marketed it properly and actually invested in DAW and RE SDK more, then they'd be in a completely different situation.

So let's be friends who disagree on some things