CLAP, the Plugin Format (of the future?)

[Held]

VST3 is open source too under the GPL license. If you want to use the open source license, your software has to be open source as well, so commercial developers don't want to use it and have to sign an agreement with Steinberg for another license.

CLAP is licensed under the MIT license and can be used in closed source applications.

So while both CLAP and VST3 are open source, only CLAP can be used in commercial plugins under its open source license.

[Tagirijus]

Thanks for this clarification. I did not know that. Quite interesting! (=

[AGIGA]

Article:
CLAP is a new open-source plug-in format from Bitwig, u-he – do we need it, and who will use it?
https://cdm.link/2022/06/clap-is-a-new- ... ll-use-it/

CLAP - I Have High Hopes For This New Audio Software Standard

[Tj Shredder]

We need it and I will use it. As simple as that…
With VST2 vs VST3 I always struggle to decide which format to use, as I don’t know which is the basis and which might not support all features. With CLAP I can safely trash all VST versions and I know it could possibly do even more than the older VST versions (like per voice modulation for example…)
Just comparing the response of developers to VST3 and to CLAP is two different worlds, CLAP wide open and welcome, VST3 a tiny nasty locked in space…

[Kalamata Kid]

Does CLAP consider Midi FX and such as a plugin class or as a sideshow of VSTi.

I always did wonder that the original MFX format by Cakewalk was superior than the VSTi.
In Cakewalk and Cubase, MFX had their own convenient routing.

[ThomasHelzle]

As I understand it, not as a different class of plugin, but it supports Midi 1.x, 2.x and MPE fully.
No silly shenanigans as with VST3s crippled Midi support...
It should actually enable quite a lot of great things for Midi Plugins.

[robbert-vdh]

As I understand it, not as a different class of plugin, but it supports Midi 1.x, 2.x and MPE fully.
No silly shenanigans as with VST3s crippled Midi support...
It should actually enable quite a lot of great things for Midi Plugins.

There's a feature you use set to tell the host that the plugin is a note effect. Bitwig shows these plugins alongside the Note FX devices.

[ThomasHelzle]

I stand corrected

[rasmusklump]

At least I know what brand I don't buy anymore.

[MirkoVanHauten]

At least I know what brand I don't buy anymore.

Yes. The brand with the biggest ego behind... I won't even ask what he thinks the "f*** ups" are in CLAP because I assume there already were intensive talks with Urs and somehow all other developers must have missed them

[liquidsound]

Great people, great mistakes.
“Napoleon”

[Held]

some egocentric "I ate all the wisdom of the world" comes and says I'll make a revolutionary thing, that will be better than anything else before.

Still waiting for the Mixing Revolution, though

[GNXT]

- - -

[AlexShesha]

Well, I can totally understand Vojtech.
I mean, from what I`ve seen so far, Melda plugins are really deep and advanced at this point with vst 2 and 3. And don`t forget he is pretty much the only guy coding all of this stuff. So forcing him to port everything to another format, supporting and developing it, will take days and months.

I mean, I would rather have more cool plugins and/or features with vst3 only

By the way, it`s pretty cool that he gave his honest opinion about it, instead of something like "maybe one day" which would be the typical reply from any other company. I kind of appreciate that

[Tagirijus]

Do you know many of these interfaces have already perished??

I do not know technical things about such formats. That's why I mainly ask questions. So: isn't your described process some kind of "evolutionary" process? I just try to view it as an analogy to other systems - e.g. also some social systems in societies. People tend to stick to old things, since it worked for some people for a long time already. This doesn't mean that it is good or economic. And please: don't get me wrong! In general I really trust you as a dev, you know that! ... it's just that I like to learn about these things.

1) AU - complete junk, but guess what, it will stay, since Apple is Apple...

I also do not like Apple. But to me as a noob (technical wise when it comes to plugin interfaces) I now wonder what this exactly means. Is the junk regarding its performance? It's technical possibilities? Is it another stupid licencing thing!?

2) AAX - complete junk nobody cares about except for poor ProTools users, who are forced to...

Same thing as above. What is junk about it? I am really just curious!

3) Something Reason has... yeah, pretty much dead, as expected, called itself revolutionary too...

Also please enlighten me here. And all the others: feel free to enlighten me as well! ... I am just curious again.

5) Some linux stuff..

LV2, right? Does this have a good basic concept after all?

But guess what - VST3 has been made so that it can be easily extended. There's not a SINGLE thing in CLAP that couldn't be made by making a simple extension to VST3...

So this means you could have pushed some kind of pull request to a VST3 repo which would extend VST3 to have features CLAP is supposed to have? Some things I read are: platform-independent, quickly compile to other plugin formats, non-destructive modulation, polyphonic modulation. Again: I am no plugin dev and do not have that much knowledge in this specific area. So it's again a question out of my curiosity! Would it have been really possible to extend VST3 to something what CLAP now is or will be, technically spoken?

But no, they had to complicate everyone's life by reinventing the wheel once more... with new features and new f*** ups...

I just want to express my understanding from a person with almost no knowledge about plugin development. I am rather a script kid in this specific area (e.g. Reaper scripts, Python stuff, bash, etc.), but I never wrote something in C nor did I create a VST or so! So with this background info I want to say: to me it read till now that CLAP is supposed to not invent something new, but to restart something in an open source manner and modular "opened" for easier future extensions or so. When it comes to critic, which I might express: as a noob in these fields I just wonder indeed why Urs did not put this much effort into pull requests for LV2 or so, which is also completely open source without VST3 licencing issues, when it comes to commercial usage, right? But again and again: I am just a noob here asking questions, for real!