Steinberg Discontinuing VST2 Support in its products

[Dewdman42]

yea its a good point. Though I do have to say that LogicPro currently works very poorly with AUv3. It is very prevalent on the iOS platform, but I personally only know of one AUv3 plugin on MacOS...and it is considered Beta because some stuff doesn't work properly yet and a lot of stuff about LogicPro's general architecture seems to get in the way of it.

Apple is a LONG ways away from pulling the plug on AU2's working anymore, if they did it would be a catastrophe for LogicPro users everywhere.

I thought Apple's business ethos was to make almost nothing backwards compatible to force users to incessantly buy new stuff. It's exactly the kind of thing Apple would do.

That has nothing to do with VST2... that statement was just Steinberg trying to muddy the waters and shift blame to Apple for their own decisions which have nothing to do with Apple.

I’m not even sure what statement we’re talking about, but yea it definitely sounds like some scapegoating

[SparkySpark]

If they (third-party developers) don't want to give up VST2, Steinberg can punish them in other ways, like permanently banning them from using the VST3 SDK.

That's a win, win, isn't it?

Yes, which is why I'm not sure there's a conspiracy here. I don't think Steinberg would want to be alone with their sassy format, having everyone else using VST2.

Rather, as some have mentioned, it's more likely a way to get VST within the overall coding framework Steinberg is using. I can understand they want VST2 to go away, given it wouldn't adhere to the new paradigm.

But anyway - go CLAP! (I still think Cream is a cooler name though!)

[SparkySpark]

And this is what I'm talking about.

(I thought I'd just paste a few sentences, but the whole thing is a masterpiece of clarity , so I encourage reading the long post by Dewdman42 on page 23; click the arrow to jump to post.)

...long text goes here...

[zvenx]

I did manage to find a copy of the vst2 agreement (Steinberg VST 2 Plug-Ins SDK Licensing Agreement
(Version ”2.4– January 2006”)).

It actually does mention OS versions, though it only says ... well

here is what it says:

Screen Shot 2022-02-06 at 6.58.53 AM.jpg

If SB's interpretation is that Mac OS11 (and I imagine Windows 11 if it ever brings in special requirements of plugins not previously required) is not covered under the agreement does this also mean Linux was never covered either?

rsp

[crickey13]

Welp, I guess I gotta start deleting all my VST2 plugins and replace them with their VST3 counterparts even though some of them appear to be less stable and VST3 support is all over the place. Bye bye old but gold plugins which are probably never going to get ported to VST3.

Thank you, St*inberg, very cool.

[zvenx]

Why would you have to?
Or you just being dramatic?

Unless you are a developer you haven't signed any contractual agreement with SB, and worse case scenario which is already mooted when they removed clause, 9.7 I believe, would have been the developers would have to stop distributing them.
rsp

[crickey13]

I won't uninstall all of them right away, but if St*inberg starts twisting DAW devs' arms to drop support for VST2 at some point, then it means that after some update, my old projects won't be able to load the VST2 plugins and I will have to rework these old projects from scratch, which is not something I wanna do.

[pdxindy]

I won't uninstall all of them right away, but if St*inberg starts twisting DAW devs' arms to drop support for VST2 at some point, then it means that after some update, my old projects won't be able to load the VST2 plugins and I will have to rework these old projects from scratch, which is not something I wanna do.

Which DAW do you use?

[pdxindy]

Unless you are a developer you haven't signed any contractual agreement with SB, and worse case scenario which is already mooted when they removed clause, 9.7 I believe, would have been the developers would have to stop distributing them.
rsp

Temporarily mooted... they can add 9.7 back anytime. They obviously want to since they did it once and only took it out cause people made a fuss (rightly so). Steinberg cannot be trusted as a steward of the format.

The developers would have to stop distributing them... also stop authorizing them.

But even if that happens, it wouldn't be for a while and one could keep an older computer with those plugins to keep old projects accessible.

[LeVzi]

tbh they risk losing a LOT of business here if they drop VST2 from loading in old projects.

Studio One must be getting ready for an influx.

[Jaxeto]

tbh they risk losing a LOT of business here if they drop VST2 from loading in old projects.

Studio One must be getting ready for an influx.

Most VST3 plugins load in place of VST2 plugins in cases where the project was previously saved with the latter.

[Dewdman42]

I did manage to find a copy of the vst2 agreement (Steinberg VST 2 Plug-Ins SDK Licensing Agreement
(Version ”2.4– January 2006”)).

It actually does mention OS versions, though it only says ... well

here is what it says:

Screen Shot 2022-02-06 at 6.58.53 AM.jpg



If SB's interpretation is that Mac OS11 (and I imagine Windows 11 if it ever brings in special requirements of plugins not previously required) is not covered under the agreement does this also mean Linux was never covered either?

rsp

My interpretation of that paragraph is that it spells out SB’s contractual obligation to support vst2 on the explicitly mentioned OS versions. I do not think it precludes anyone from distributing or running vst2 plugins on other OS, it’s just that SB takes no responsibility to ensure it will work.

[zvenx]

I believe that at the end of the day a court's interpretation of that will be all that matters if it goes that far, not your interpretation (or mine for that matter).

I remember all the complaints from developers over the years how SB was allowing use of their IP without charging them a cent...
rsp

[Dewdman42]

Naturally if it comes down to lawsuits it would be the court’s decision but of course in the meantime the rest of us have to determine how best to proceed without any court decisions.

Is it not getting clearer why CLAP is needed so badly? The fact that we are wondering whether Steinberg will sue people for using or distributing vst plugins on Linux or windows11.

[zvenx]

The only "I am on board with clap" part for me is that it will allow outputs that will include vst3, that is some of the louder developers complaining about vst3 will be able to output vst3 hopefully with less issues and complaints. Other than that no, it will be another format yet to beta test and trouble shoot and develop for, already each DAW and each format that exist currently have their own intricacies and got ya's.

These same developers who have EULAs of their own, mind you.

rsp