CLAP... thoughts?

[tony10000]

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/vst3-and ... /201879/27

And then there is this: ^^^^^^^

[tony10000]

I believe in open standards like MIDI and CLAP, not proprietary ones like VST and AU.

[tony10000]

Looks like CLAP is the future:

https://u-he.com/community/clap/

Following companies and projects are already evaluating CLAP for their host and plug-in software:

Arturia: https://www.arturia.com/ Link
Avid: https://www.avid.com/ Link
BespokeSynth: https://www.bespokesynth.com/ Link
cableguys: https://cableguys.com/ Link
Cockos: https://www.reaper.fm/ Link
Cytomic: https://cytomic.com/ Link
DMGAudio: https://dmgaudio.com/ Link
Epic Games (Unreal Engine): https://www.unrealengine.com/ Link
Expressive E: https://www.expressivee.com/ Link
FabFilter: https://www.fabfilter.com/ Link
Image-Line: https://www.image-line.com/ Link
iPlug2 framework: https://iplug2.github.io/ Link
LHI Audio: https://lhiaudio.com/ Link
Node Audio (Entonal Studio): https://entonal.studio/ Link
Oddsound: https://oddsound.com/ Link
Presonus: https://www.presonus.com/ Link
Plogue: https://plogue.com/ Link
Qtractor: https://qtractor.org/ Link
Togu Audioline: https://tal-software.com/ Link
ValhallaDSP: https://valhalladsp.com/ Link
VCV: https://vcvrack.com/ Link
Vital Audio: https://vital.audio/ Link
Xfer Records: https://xferrecords.com/ Link

[jamcat]

logic users (myself for example) depend on AUs. so, is another plugin format necessary, useful?

Of course it's not necessary or useful. At least not to us end users.

But if you look at it through the lens that Avid (AAX), Apple (AU), and Steinberg (VST) are the 3 biggest players and each control their own plugin format, and Bitwig is a bit player but wants to become a bigwig, suddenly you see the usefulness of yet another format... to Bitwig's market strategy.

[_leras]

It really just looks like Bitwig is trying to upgrade their market position and they found a few useful idiots to wave their flag.

I don't think that's at all fair on Bitwig or the devs.

It's has extended per voice routing which is novel. This would work very well with Bitwigs modulators.

Bitwig are fully supporting Linux and seems they would also support an open source format.

Anything that's easier to code and has less friction for devs has got to be good. If its successful and taken onboard by other companies then it may lead to more people developing plug ins.

Though for it to be really successful it may take an Ableton or Steinberg to get on board.

[Urs]

Or, in other words, the argument, that CLAP is open source is an argument made by people that actually don't like free software

Well, there's open source, there's the license and then there's governance. Latter is about how a project is managed, e.g. who decides what features are supported. If the scope of governance is too narrow or two one sided, there's a good chance that things go sideways.

CLAP has been developed collaboratively with input from dozens of developers from both companies *and* FOSS projects, as well as both host and plug-in developers. The advantage of such collaboration is immediately obvious in CLAP because it a) directly supports other industry standards (e.g. MIDI), b) has no paradigms to cripple what a plug-in or host can do and c) does not create legal or technical dependency. Hence, it already has garnered an unprecedented interest on day 1.

I have prepared a diagram for the occasion:

CLAP Venn Standard.jpg

... such that CLAP has become a superset of what's possible today, with truly innovative, novel and immediately useful features, for which I'll throw following diagram in the room:

CLAP Venn Features.jpg

... and to round it off, the one or the other a-ha moment is available here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2mywWyI9es



So yeah, there's not even any room for discussion left that what we achieved is blatantly beyond the most optimistic expectations: Because of CLAP being open source, liberally licensed *and* created in a collaborative effort with a very broad range of perspectives. That's what sets it apart.

[tony10000]

Or, in other words, the argument, that CLAP is open source is an argument made by people that actually don't like free software

Well, there's open source, there's the license and then there's governance. Latter is about how a project is managed, e.g. who decides what features are supported. If the scope of governance is too narrow or two one sided, there's a good chance that things go sideways.

CLAP has been developed collaboratively with input from dozens of developers from both companies *and* FOSS projects, as well as both host and plug-in developers. The advantage of such collaboration is immediately obvious in CLAP because it a) directly supports other industry standards (e.g. MIDI), b) has no paradigms to cripple what a plug-in or host can do and c) does not create legal or technical dependency. Hence, it already has garnered an unprecedented interest on day 1.

I have prepared a diagram for the occasion:


CLAP Venn Standard.jpg


... such that CLAP has become a superset of what's possible today, with truly innovative, novel and immediately useful features, for which I'll throw following diagram in the room:


CLAP Venn Features.jpg


... and to round it off, the one or the other a-ha moment is available here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2mywWyI9es



So yeah, there's not even any room for discussion left that what we achieved is blatantly beyond the most optimistic expectations: Because of CLAP being open source, liberally licensed *and* created in a collaborative effort with a very broad range of perspectives. That's what sets it apart.

Bravo for what you guys have accomplished!

[tony10000]

Or, in other words, the argument, that CLAP is open source is an argument made by people that actually don't like free software

Well, there's open source, there's the license and then there's governance. Latter is about how a project is managed, e.g. who decides what features are supported. If the scope of governance is too narrow or two one sided, there's a good chance that things go sideways.

CLAP has been developed collaboratively with input from dozens of developers from both companies *and* FOSS projects, as well as both host and plug-in developers. The advantage of such collaboration is immediately obvious in CLAP because it a) directly supports other industry standards (e.g. MIDI), b) has no paradigms to cripple what a plug-in or host can do and c) does not create legal or technical dependency. Hence, it already has garnered an unprecedented interest on day 1.

So yeah, there's not even any room for discussion left that what we achieved is blatantly beyond the most optimistic expectations: Because of CLAP being open source, liberally licensed *and* created in a collaborative effort with a very broad range of perspectives. That's what sets it apart.

Any chance the folks at JUCE will jump onboard? They have been resistant up to now. There is an unofficial CMAKE extension but no official support:

https://github.com/free-audio/clap-juce-extensions

[Urs]

We do talk. They currently have other priorities, and that's something we all need to respect.

OTOH the JUCE drop in works very well, afaik most projects can be migrated to CLAP within 1-2 days.

[ReleaseCandidate]

Or, in other words, the argument, that CLAP is open source is an argument made by people that actually don't like free software

Well, there's open source, there's the license and then there's governance. Latter is about how a project is managed, e.g. who decides what features are supported. If the scope of governance is too narrow or two one sided, there's a good chance that things go sideways.

CLAP has been developed collaboratively with input from dozens of developers from both companies *and* FOSS projects, as well as both host and plug-in developers.

That wasn't meant as an 'attack' on CLAP, because of course I know that you can't 'succeed' if your license isn't anything permissive like MIT or BSD. That's has been a remark to people thinking that VST3 isn't free software.
The governance of the project is orthogonal to it being open source or proprietary, and I didn't talk about that. As I said, that is of course a problém with AAX, AU and VST, but the lack of a free license isn't for VST3.

And I _do_ hope CLAP succeeds in becoming a(t least another) widespread plugin standard, because what I've heard about it - including it's organizantion - sounds great.

[tony10000]

We do talk. They currently have other priorities, and that's something we all need to respect.

OTOH the JUCE drop in works very well, afaik most projects can be migrated to CLAP within 1-2 days.

Well that is good news and will definitely make it more palatable to devs.

[Urs]

That wasn't meant as an 'attack' on CLAP, because of course I know that you can't 'succeed' if your license isn't anything permissive like MIT or BSD. That's has been a remark to people thinking that VST3 isn't free software.
The governance of the project is orthogonal to it being open source or proprietary, and I didn't talk about that. As I said, that is of course a problém with AAX, AU and VST, but the lack of a free license isn't for VST3.

And I _do_ hope CLAP succeeds in becoming a(t least another) widespread plugin standard, because what I've heard about it - including it's organizantion - sounds great.

My reply was not meant to be an attack on you, either. I was just reacting to the argument you reacted to (and extended that to the somewhat pessimistic views raised in this thread), because surely anything that comes as a development SDK is by definition open source (to a debatable degree), otherwise it would come as a closed source link library or something.

AudioUnits for instance are both open source and liberally licensed. They're just not viable to be ported to other operating systems as they have a lot of very specific dependencies.

My point is that just arguing from the perspective of open source and / or the license is not enough to do CLAP justice.

[BONES]

logic users (myself for example) depend on AUs. so, is another plugin format necessary, useful?

Are you saying Logic doesn't support VST? Seriously?

Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

Sounds like BS to me. I never had to pay any licensing fees to anyone to publish VST plugins and I'm pretty sure SynthEdit weren't paying any fees on my behalf.

no reason to be so cynical. it could be something really good down the road for users who get more functionality and pushes the other formats forward.

By the same token, it will be yet another format to support, which might be enough to make some small developers think twice about bothering at all. Still, that would be short-term pain so if the long term benefits are there, it might be worth it. At this point it's pretty much impossible to say, one way or the other.

Already is a better mousetrap. I have useful new functionality today with the u-he CLAP plugins that I did not have a week ago. So it is already a win for me!

Like what? I'm not seeing anything that's going to benefit me.

If its successful and taken onboard by other companies then it may lead to more people developing plug ins.[/quote[
Or less if all it succeeds in doing is fragmenting the market. It could conceivably make every format less attractive, unless it ends up with the lion's share of the market. But if, as Urs says, it makes everything easier, then it will probably not do any harm.

Personally, I couldn't care less. The tools I have now work wonderfully well and I struggle to imagine how a new plugin format is going to change anything for me.

Something that would absolutely be of benefit to just about everyone, though, would be a universal exchange format. Let's call it a .uef file. It's a format that allows you to save a project in one host, say Live, and open it in any other host, like Cubase or Logic or Studio One. All your sequencer data, including automation, as well as all your plugins with the correct settings and everything else, all open exactly as they were in Live when you saved them. Imagine how useful that would be to pretty much everyone.

[Urs]

Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

Sounds like BS to me. I never had to pay any licensing fees to anyone to publish VST plugins and I'm pretty sure SynthEdit weren't paying any fees on my behalf.

The fallacy in your line of argumentation here is cherry picking. Only because one half sentence does not apply to how you perceive your situation does not mean that the rest of the argument is false. So the actual thing that sounds like BS is your argument, not mine.

[tony10000]

logic users (myself for example) depend on AUs. so, is another plugin format necessary, useful?

Are you saying Logic doesn't support VST? Seriously?

Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

Sounds like BS to me. I never had to pay any licensing fees to anyone to publish VST plugins and I'm pretty sure SynthEdit weren't paying any fees on my behalf.

"Logic only accepts Audio Unit plug-ins."

https://sound.stackexchange.com/questio ... s-in-logic

"Sounds like BS to me."

Did you bother to read Urs' post above?? ^^^^