CLAP... thoughts?

[zvenx]

Point taken.
(well I read it as the 'delay' this will cause is necessary and will pay off in the end.)

(though I think SB revoked the concerning part about vst2 use for current vst2 licensees, but indeed to keep developing on dead vst2 doesn't make much sense)
rsp

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Without Asio and vst2 how many of us would be in music professional or as a hobby?

I don't think people want to be against Steinberg or VST3. Or at least I certainly didn't. But VST3 was not embraced by the development community it needed to be for various reasons that Steinberg had a decade to respond to. From my perspective, it looks like they didn't want to take the feedback from users and developers seriously, and thought their reputation alone could make VST3 as ubiquitous as VST2. When it became clear that plan wasn't working, they doubled-down and made some very arrogant moves to try to force VST3 down people's throats and kill off the still popular VST2 format.

We all owe Steinberg a huge deal of gratitude for creating VST in the first place and making incremental improvements all the way up to VST2.4. But today, they're not acting like the Steinberg of old. They're behaving more like a big-tech monopoly, and that's built up some new ill-will towards them. You mention the stubbornness yourself. Some people feel like the younger, idealistic Steinberg that created VST2 is long dead - and they don't like the version of the company that's replaced it.

But that's politics. If the VST3 was actually everything Steinberg makes it out to be, it wouldn't have needed the strong-arm tactics. Steinberg just behaved as though they were the only stakeholder in the room in regards to VST3, ignoring the other stakeholders that could've helped make it successful earlier. And now here we are with CLAP.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

(though I think SB revoked the concerning part about vst2 use for current vst2 licensees [...])

...And simultaneously promised to bring it back someday. Don't forget that.

The liabilities stemming from VST2 are overwhelmingly legal. The technical problems are certainly serious, but almost a footnote in comparison to the legal problems.

[0degree]

Another advantage of CLAP over VST3 is that (from at least what I can see) the former is C compatible which means other languages such as Zig or Rust could be used for plugins development

[pdxindy]

It wasn't about adoption it was about capability and functionality (and specifically on a host that can soar without vst2 compatibility with properly coded vst3 plugins (not wrapped)), my post that is.
rsp

Oh I got that, but that whole line of thought also implies that "properly coded VST3 plugins (not wrapped)" are a thing, as if people are coding for VST3 first and foremost, and then porting to other formats. I don't believe that's going to ever happen except maybe at Steinberg.

It sure doesn't look like it will ever happen. Especially with the arrival of CLAP. The thing is, since CLAP has a lot of functionality, some of which VST3 has the potential to have, CLAP wrapped to VST3 can come closer to meeting the VST3's potential than a VST2 wrapped to VST3... In this way, CLAP can also benefit Cubase users.

My guess though is that a decade from now, VST3 will be more like AAX... Mainly there for Cubendo.

[zvenx]

Without Asio and vst2 how many of us would be in music professional or as a hobby?

I don't think people want to be against Steinberg or VST3. Or at least I certainly didn't. But VST3 was not embraced by the development community it needed to be for various reasons that Steinberg had a decade to respond to. From my perspective, it looks like they didn't want to take the feedback from users and developers seriously, and thought their reputation alone could make VST3 as ubiquitous as VST2. When it became clear that plan wasn't working, they doubled-down and made some very arrogant moves to try to force VST3 down people's throats and kill off the still popular VST2 format.

We all owe Steinberg a huge deal of gratitude for creating VST in the first place and making incremental improvements all the way up to VST2.4. But today, they're not acting like the Steinberg of old. They're behaving more like a big-tech monopoly, and that's built up some new ill-will towards them. You mention the stubbornness yourself. Some people feel like the younger, idealistic Steinberg that created VST2 is long dead - and they don't like the version of the company that's replaced it.

But that's politics. If the VST3 was actually everything Steinberg makes it out to be, it wouldn't have needed the strong-arm tactics. Steinberg just behaved as though they were the only stakeholder in the room in regards to VST3, ignoring the other stakeholders that could've helped make it successful earlier. And now here we are with CLAP.

I agree with most of what you said. I would say that as they got more established they became more formal/structured too.. (which is why with vst2 a lot of unintended functionality was added because SB wasn't as formal in their protocols about it).


I think vst3 was created with larger set of ground rules very contrary to vst2.
And indeed SB for the most part doubled down on their belief in their rightness vs major reconsideration. That is they were very convinced that their paradigm of what vst should do and not do, regardless of what had taken place before.

rsp

[zvenx]

(though I think SB revoked the concerning part about vst2 use for current vst2 licensees [...])

...And simultaneously promised to bring it back someday. Don't forget that.

The liabilities stemming from VST2 are overwhelmingly legal. The technical problems are certainly serious, but almost a footnote in comparison to the legal problems.

I think they changed the ambigious language that suggested that they could bring it back someday.
I had seen the exchange on their developer's forum. Where I think Urs et al were asking wth?
rsp

[zvenx]

...

It sure doesn't look like it will ever happen. Especially with the arrival of CLAP. The thing is, since CLAP has a lot of functionality, some of which VST3 has the potential to have, CLAP wrapped to VST3 can come closer to meeting the VST3's potential than a VST2 wrapped to VST3... In this way, CLAP can also benefit Cubase users.

My guess though is that a decade from now, VST3 will be more like AAX... Mainly there for Cubendo.

Hope you right about the first part.

The second part we shall see over time.

We are after all in the early honeymoon period of CLAP.
rsp

[EvilDragon]

with properly coded vst3 plugins (not wrapped)

Nobody's gonna do "properly coded VST3 plugins" because that SDK is an abomination to work with directly, as it has been commented on by many, many plugin developers.

[pdxindy]

But that's politics. If the VST3 was actually everything Steinberg makes it out to be, it wouldn't have needed the strong-arm tactics. Steinberg just behaved as though they were the only stakeholder in the room in regards to VST3, ignoring the other stakeholders that could've helped make it successful earlier. And now here we are with CLAP.

Exactly... the results are what is actual. VST3 has been around for what now, like 14 years, and Steinberg has had to try and force it on developers. If it actually met developers needs (like Steinberg claims) it would have been enthusiastically and widely adopted long ago and we would not be talking about this and I would be using VST3 plugins and having the great functionality that I am now exploring with CLAP. As a user, CLAP has done more for me in one week as far as useful capability than VST3 has in 14 years!

And now we hear that Avid is likely to adopt CLAP... one of the companies people expected to be least likely to do so.

[melomood]

It's almost like they were hoping something like this would happen

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

It's almost like they were hoping something like this would happen

My guess is that they have to be thinking AAX adoption is a bit slow too and feel like they're bleeding marketshare to other hosts/formats in the hobbyist end of the market. CLAP being successful, and Pro Tools supporting it, would make a lot of sense for them.

[zvenx]

You think that is their issue? They just turned subscription only. My guess (without data) is that that may be even a bigger stumbling block to marketshare than AAX adoption.

I still await their statement. It may not be what many of are assuming it is to do (that is replace AAX or in addition to AAX in Pro Tools... it being open source they may want to use parts of it in aax? is that possible technically? ).


It could even be just for Media Composer and not Pro Tools.
rsp

[MirkoVanHauten]

It's almost like they were hoping something like this would happen

My guess is that they have to be thinking AAX adoption is a bit slow too and feel like they're bleeding marketshare to other hosts/formats in the hobbyist end of the market. CLAP being successful, and Pro Tools supporting it, would make a lot of sense for them.

Unlike VST3 I've seen AAX has been adopted quite fast and with Avid cancelling RTAS pretty quick. I think there was 1 intermediate ProTools version being able to load both. If Avid is looking into it, cool. AAX has other advantages I think like the DSP & audio interface processing stuff. I wonder how they would deal with that. If CLAP is additional, that would even be more fantastic.

[apoclypse]

There are a lot of DAWs in the market nowadays. I think if Ableton and FL Studio adopted CLAP we would see more uptake from developers as that’s where a lot of users are. Logic is pretty popular too but I don’t see Apple moving away from AU. Though you never know. I think one reason Apple has avoided VST is because of the licensing.

Logic used to support VST plugins. Apple dropped VST support for Logic when they bought Emagic. This is utterly stupid that people regurgitate nonsense about 'licensing' from a handful of disgruntled developers. It wasn't a complaint from anyone prior to VST3, and it's still not a complaint from most. When Apple dropped VST support, VST was still in version 1. They did so because they wanted total control over Logic's plugin interface. It's that plain and simple. And it's why they will never adopt CLAP either. Neither will Steinberg, for the same reason. Even if everyone else dropped VST and AU for CLAP, we'd still have VST3, AU, AAX, and CLAP, and developers would have to cater to all 4 of them to reach 100% of the market. At least as it stands right now, they only have to cater to 3.

Apple are the ones who had issues with the licensing for VST, not Emagic. AU was already being worked on before Apple even bought Emagic. AU was introduced in Cheetah with CoreAudio (10.0) and EMagic wasn't acquired by Apple until 2002. Apple's goal was to have a plugin interface that didn't require any licensing fees and like you said that they could control. Not sure how that contradicts what I wrote, Apple's issue with Steinbergs licensing is that they didn't want to be beholden to it.