CLAP... thoughts?

[Ichad.c]

Think the whole fallout with VST3, legal issues aside, was more to do with Steinberg's unrelenting dismissal of MIDI(plug-in side, not DAW side - there is a difference), they have since backtracked on some of it, like allowing plug-ins to send MIDI out(that took years btw). Also, in the beginning, something as simple plug-in MIDI Learn took some odd hacks from the developers just to get it to work.

Technically, I think their issue with MIDI, is that they simply don't believe it is the job of the plug-in to handle it, but rather the DAWs responsibilty, heck, technically midi-plugins are not suppose to exist (not even in VST2). From the horse's mouth: https://forums.steinberg.net/t/vst3-and ... /201879/16

[rafa1981]

It's a compendium of things. The summary as I see it:

• Devs not using frameworks (JUCE, iPLug, etc) wasting (substantial) time implementing a complex, underspecified/underdocumented standard. Time could have been dedicated to its core business and hence getting revenue.

• Maintenance. Same song. A complex and underspecified/documented standard leads to multiple interpretations and corner cases. Again time that could have been dedicated to getting products out is wasted fixing bugs.

• Not offering substantial improvements against the well established standard it superseeds, which if it probably had some rough edges, everyone had de-facto standard ways of circunventing the limitations of the old standard.

• Going against MIDI, which is industry-standard, then trying to force its own way. Devs of MIDI plugins losing its product/investment.

• Making a temptative attempt of revoking VST2 licenses to VST3 devs on the small print of VST3 SDK update. Then backed off. This attempt would have meant for 3rd party devs not reading the fine print throwing away its probably multi-year investment, or at least not being able to make a revenue until they ported it to VST3.

A popular free standard not controlled by a single entity is very much needed. Probably if VST3 had never existed we would have better products on the market today, as devs would have never had to dedicate time to it for no real win for anyone.

That CLAP is simple to implement and has real technical merits and features for both users and devs is a side-effect of being developed by people that knows what they are doing. Consider it the cherry on the top. It is also strategical for its success.

[Markus Krause]

Devs not using frameworks (JUCE, iPLug, etc) wasting (substantial) time implementing a complex, underspecified/underdocumented standard. Time could have been dedicated to its core business and hence getting revenue.

Sadly I can confirm this. Fact is that I wasted one year of development time by adding native VST3 Support using Steinberg's VST3 SDK. With native I mean supporting it not by using wrappers and adapters, but by using Steinberg's SDK only and directly. In the end I had a working product (Warlock). But I had to fix lot's of bugs from Steinberg's side. The SDK is seriously broken. For example, I was not able to build an AUv2 version of Warlock because it does not compile. Not even their own examples in the SDK compile. I notified them about this, but Steinberg never fixed it and all my requests got ignored. In the current SDK they just removed Auv2 support completely to 'fix it'.
Proof:
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/again-au ... e/698740/8
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/au-wrapper-issues/201845
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/no-gui-w ... 3/711525/5
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/failed-t ... t-r/777482

The wasted time and the missing AU version caused a big financial loss and angry customers for my company.
That's why I have moved to back to VST2 and JUCE recently.

CLAP support is high on our priority list.

[sQeetz]

I notified them about this, but Steinberg never fixed it and all my requests got ignored.

A pattern emerges here. Not related, but I feel it to be kinda substantial in this context: tried to get a license transfer for one of their plugins. (which they have a form to fill out and whatnot) but after 2 weeks I had to reimburse the money to the guy who bought my license because Stein-f**king-berg didn't move a finger in order to complete the task. Filing complaints twice also didn't do a thing. no response
So they are either understaffed, or simply don't care. dunno

[Urs]

I think then biggest issue often got overlooked: Support through the VST mailing list was ended. When I started, this was the place to get help immediately. Thus, the single most used entity of developer support that usually helped developers within a few hours had been abandoned. Instead, a web forum was established where answers to crucial problems were giving only after several days, if ever. The main problem here being Steinberg employees going absent and many, many VST "veteran developers" not signing up and thus not helping the newbies as they did on the mailing list.

I think they simply gave up on answering to issues because they probably couldn't take the criticism anymore, and they simply wouldn't (or maybe wouldn't be allowed to) admit to issues.

[jules99]

It's baffling to me how the development, the maintenance and the crucial communication with devs where so absurdly mismanaged. Does anyone have any theory on why they changed so much for the worse in VST3?

This is not about playing the blame game,more trying to understand how this all went so wrong.

Was there a change in personell within the team that oversaw development of VST SDK development?

A new direction given by steinberg management? Were there signs before VST3 SDK rollout that pointed into this disastrous direction?

Just things to keep in mind in the long run for CLAP to avoid.

[FigBug]

I think it's a class case of Second System Effect. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect). VST1 organically grew in to VST2 based on need. Sue it had warts and was a bit ugly... but it was simple and useful. It could have continued growing.

Then all that was thrown out, because of pride and over confidence. And now it's too embarrassing to admit it's a failure, so we are stuck with it.

[pdxindy]

And now it's too embarrassing to admit it's a failure, so we are stuck with it.

Give CLAP a few years and that won't be the case

[SebAV]

Maybe we need an open-source equivalent to NKS....

Personally I think what we really need is for plugins to be designed with controllers and expression using controllers and keyboards in mind from the start, that don't just passively advertise to controllers what params are available for controlling but also interact with controllers to create the optimal param layout given the capabilities of that controller. Intermediate layers like NKS really shouldn't be needed, it's too clunky and creates a dependency on companies and users doing a lot of hard work in creating mappings and templates (and so much that can go wrong when plugins get updated). Maybe CLAP could make that possible?

Isn’t this one of the basic ideas behind Midi 2.0?

I thought so too, but I don't think anyone has got hardware or software that implements this in any meaningful way yet. I certainly haven't seen it. This could end up being something in the MIDI 2.0 spec that no one ends up supporting. Or maybe I'm wrong and MIDI 2.0 will be huge and that aspect of it will ultimately deal with it. But I think you'd still need MIDI 2.0 hardware, a MIDI 2.0 host, and MIDI 2.0 plugins that all support this. We're just not there yet.

Would be great if CLAP could somehow solve for this with hosts acting as an intermediary between MIDI (1.x) hardware and plugins. Not sure if that's in scope though.

As a user, I can only see that VST is far from being great with « remote control ». When I used Reason, it was great because of the Remote tech. And the Nektar Panorama keyboards are great with Reason. But in VST world remote control is a joke. NKS is not great (pages are sequentially accessed : you’re better using the mouse to the one parameter you’re looking for).
I hope that Clap will do something in this domain. U-he already gave us the best sounding soft synths, now please give us the way to interact with them as if they were hardware
Otherwise, Clap will be a thing of devs

[nightjar]

As a user, I can only see that VST is far from being great with « remote control ». When I used Reason, it was great because of the Remote tech. And the Nektar Panorama keyboards are great with Reason. But in VST world remote control is a joke. NKS is not great (pages are sequentially accessed : you’re better using the mouse to the one parameter you’re looking for).
I hope that Clap will do something in this domain. U-he already gave us the best sounding soft synths, now please give us the way to interact with them as if they were hardware
Otherwise, Clap will be a thing of devs

Smart integration of hardware controllers with software instruments is a product area begging for innovation and market execution. So much redundant effort into more of the same, when this area goes untouched.

Whoever can truly crack this nut of "easy" expressive control of software instruments will deserve lots of financial reward.... I'm not talking accessing parameters for sound design, but rather real-time musical expression with a natural feel between motor skills and a vast range of sonic nuance and performance articulations.

[EvilDragon]

NKS is not great (pages are sequentially accessed : you’re better using the mouse to the one parameter you’re looking for)

Well, yes and no. On Maschine you have direct page jump mode, on keyboards it's sequential. At any rate, NKS is absolutely great for blind users and they're thankful it exists.

[Echoes in the Attic]

As a user, I can only see that VST is far from being great with « remote control ». When I used Reason, it was great because of the Remote tech. And the Nektar Panorama keyboards are great with Reason. But in VST world remote control is a joke. NKS is not great (pages are sequentially accessed : you’re better using the mouse to the one parameter you’re looking for).
I hope that Clap will do something in this domain. U-he already gave us the best sounding soft synths, now please give us the way to interact with them as if they were hardware
Otherwise, Clap will be a thing of devs

Smart integration of hardware controllers with software instruments is a product area begging for innovation and market execution. So much redundant effort into more of the same, when this area goes untouched.

Whoever can truly crack this nut of "easy" expressive control of software instruments will deserve lots of financial reward.... I'm not talking accessing parameters for sound design, but rather real-time musical expression with a natural feel between motor skills and a vast range of sonic nuance and performance articulations.

Absolutely. To this day there is still nothing better than Novation Remote SL keyboards for plugin control. It has it's downsides, the main one being that there is no ability to jump directly to a page (like komplete kontrol, how do they not understand the need for this?), so it's not great for huge plugins. However the automap software was pretty good, had everything you need to make useful mappings, stayed in the background, and most importantly, did not force you to stay with a wrapper if you were using VSTs. By that I mean that if you loaded the automap version and later removed that and the software, it would load the normal vst just fine. Not only that but you could load old songs that had saved the regular VST and the automap version would automatically be there. That is amazing. Audio units did not work this way unfortunately. Also unfortunately the automap software has been discontinued I think, so no chance of getting CLAP versions I guess.

But yeah I'd love to see a clap compatible hardware control solution that is extremely similar to Novation automap, except that you could directly jump to a page that you want, and still allowed substitution of the non-wrapped version.

[WasteLand]

Absolutely. To this day there is still nothing better than Novation Remote SL keyboards for plugin control. It has it's downsides, the main one being that there is no ability to jump directly to a page (like komplete kontrol, how do they not understand the need for this?), so it's not great for huge plugins. However the automap software was pretty good, had everything you need to make useful mappings, stayed in the background, and most importantly, did not force you to stay with a wrapper if you were using VSTs. By that I mean that if you loaded the automap version and later removed that and the software, it would load the normal vst just fine. Not only that but you could load old songs that had saved the regular VST and the automap version would automatically be there. That is amazing. Audio units did not work this way unfortunately. Also unfortunately the automap software has been discontinued I think, so no chance of getting CLAP versions I guess.

But yeah I'd love to see a clap compatible hardware control solution that is extremely similar to Novation automap, except that you could directly jump to a page that you want, and still allowed substitution of the non-wrapped version.

+1; all scattered, and automap was (and is sometimes, but slowly it fades out) great. used it a lot. still have Novation Sl MK II, that still works with Live and Bitwig..

it did use wrapper, a none intrusive one. it worked quite well. (the main problems, i believe were always caused by settings, the ports in DAW, that had to be deactivate...). or quite well; great!
o see, you say the same thing, is i do, in better phrasing...
even if the wrapper was gone, the VST would be loaded...

in a way Nektar had and has the better solution, but they directed all to Nektarine, a short of Komplete Kontrol..

the Panorama P range is excellent (i have the P1), the integration with Reason, well; that is thé example (and community driven, not all, but a lot).

i always say i have Obsessive Tactile Controller Syndrome, but because Nektar, they are willing to change it, but that means a lot of work; for me... perhaps, at some point..

and well automap, gone...

i must say the Bitwig API does not impress me; no knobs (toggle, momentary), like Live doesn't have. and Bitwig if you change a page on one controller, all controllers change with it.. (and i could have 4 or even 5 or 6 controllers that can control bitwig).

well, this is not anti-bitwig, or Live..

this is the strange delusions of brands; great controllers; like Panorama P1, but crippled, except for Reason...

the MCU is the only full controller for Cubase (Pro), the Push 2 for Live...
and maschine, well i have them all...

at some point i bought a touchscreen, which really works well, even when plugins, aren't made for it, it works.

i have other controllers, and it is just software that could make them useable for a line of DAW's, and plugin control...

it is still a pity, that with the amount of controllers i have, i do have a lot of control, but not as much as i want, and it can be done.

but mainly; this is a Host thing, not plugin thing, because the host, or perhaps, it could be transferred to CLAP, and it would be a plugin thing, but how to let them interact with all those controllers?

[Echoes in the Attic]

Absolutely. To this day there is still nothing better than Novation Remote SL keyboards for plugin control. It has it's downsides, the main one being that there is no ability to jump directly to a page (like komplete kontrol, how do they not understand the need for this?), so it's not great for huge plugins. However the automap software was pretty good, had everything you need to make useful mappings, stayed in the background, and most importantly, did not force you to stay with a wrapper if you were using VSTs. By that I mean that if you loaded the automap version and later removed that and the software, it would load the normal vst just fine. Not only that but you could load old songs that had saved the regular VST and the automap version would automatically be there. That is amazing. Audio units did not work this way unfortunately. Also unfortunately the automap software has been discontinued I think, so no chance of getting CLAP versions I guess.

But yeah I'd love to see a clap compatible hardware control solution that is extremely similar to Novation automap, except that you could directly jump to a page that you want, and still allowed substitution of the non-wrapped version.

+1; all scattered, and automap was (and is sometimes, but slowly it fades out) great. used it a lot. still have Novation Sl MK II, that still works with Live and Bitwig..

it did use wrapper, a none intrusive one. it worked quite well. (the main problems, i believe were always caused by settings, the ports in DAW, that had to be deactivate...). or quite well; great!
o see, you say the same thing, is i do, in better phrasing...
even if the wrapper was gone, the VST would be loaded...

in a way Nektar had and has the better solution, but they directed all to Nektarine, a short of Komplete Kontrol..

the Panorama P range is excellent (i have the P1), the integration with Reason, well; that is thé example (and community driven, not all, but a lot).

i always say i have Obsessive Tactile Controller Syndrome, but because Nektar, they are willing to change it, but that means a lot of work; for me... perhaps, at some point..

and well automap, gone...

i must say the Bitwig API does not impress me; no knobs (toggle, momentary), like Live doesn't have. and Bitwig if you change a page on one controller, all controllers change with it.. (and i could have 4 or even 5 or 6 controllers that can control bitwig).

well, this is not anti-bitwig, or Live..

this is the strange delusions of brands; great controllers; like Panorama P1, but crippled, except for Reason...

the MCU is the only full controller for Cubase (Pro), the Push 2 for Live...
and maschine, well i have them all...

at some point i bought a touchscreen, which really works well, even when plugins, aren't made for it, it works.

i have other controllers, and it is just software that could make them useable for a line of DAW's, and plugin control...

it is still a pity, that with the amount of controllers i have, i do have a lot of control, but not as much as i want, and it can be done.

but mainly; this is a Host thing, not plugin thing, because the host, or perhaps, it could be transferred to CLAP, and it would be a plugin thing, but how to let them interact with all those controllers?

Yeah agree. I remember that Nektar Panorama originally didn't need wrapper, you could set up plugin control templates for certain hosts. Is that not a thing anymore? Do you have to use the nektarine wrapper? I was also never sure if the whole page could change or if the sliders and some knobs were stuck and only the encoders changed pages. I'd rather do away with faders (unless they were motorized and changed per page), otherwise I'm fine with just encoders and have them all change each page, plus buttons. Kore was another great one. 8 encoder plus 8 buttons. Perfect. If you need more, just get another one and have two pages at a time. It's actually better to have two of the same controller than one big one because then you can have any two controls available at a time. I have a Novation SL mk1 keyuboard that still works great, plus a Novation SL Zero mkII above it, so I get the combination, and a ton of control.

Sorry for going OT. Point is, using CLAP for me, the biggest downside will be that at least VSTs are still Novation Automap compatible. Anything that is multi-touch friendly though I would use that instead of automap anyways. I just really like all the vintage type plugins that map well to the Novation controllers and gives a very hardware like experience.

[mumpcake]

Will Celemony be on board?