What are the best reasons to use VST3 over VST2? or should I just use CLAP?

[Unaspected]

That's an assumption that doesn't at all need to be true.

Absolutely.

The original thread should provide enough reason to be excited. Good team behind it and the rate of adoption is solid. I see it becoming a true contender, valid competition and a step forwards for DAW based work.

The funny name is a bonus.

[jinotsuh]

Well for me, not that it matters, but, if given the choice I'll take vst2/3.
If only given the choice of CLAP, I'll find another comparable plugin, for no particular reason than I'm quite happy with vst2/3, does everything I require and probably more. I always install both when available, just a habit, and always use VST3 when given the choice, no problems.
Quite happy with things how they are thank you very much, as long as there will always be that choice, by all means, have a big CLAP party. If not, bring on a quick and hard death to CLAP.

[jamcat]

That's an assumption that doesn't at all need to be true.

Absolutely.

The original thread should provide enough reason to be excited. Good team behind it and the rate of adoption is solid. I see it becoming a true contender, valid competition and a step forwards for DAW based work.

The funny name is a bonus.

Except no one can give a single reason why diverting resources to CLAP development will increase a major plugin developer’s profits or reach.

[Unaspected]

That's an assumption that doesn't at all need to be true.

Absolutely.

The original thread should provide enough reason to be excited. Good team behind it and the rate of adoption is solid. I see it becoming a true contender, valid competition and a step forwards for DAW based work.

The funny name is a bonus.

Except no one can give a single reason why investing resources in CLAP development will increase a major plugin developer’s profits or reach.

Not yet. The potential is there for the end user though and I think that developers should see that. If the claims are proven to be true then it will mean a little investment paying off a little later - for the developer. Plenty of big name developers are already working with the format, along with a number of DAWs adopting it.

It might not be wise to go back and retroactively install a plugin just because an update provides a CLAP version but for new plugin installations, I would at least try it alongside the VST.

If all works out then everyone benefits - especially the end user.

Eventually. Whether we like it or not. We'll all have the CLAP.

[jamcat]

Developers who are medium and large firms don’t throw resources away with no actual return. Indie guys can do it because they’ve got time on their hands and believe in the cause. Majors don’t have that luxury.

Since developers who already support VST3, AU, and AAX have 100% market penetration, they see no advantage in investing additional resources in a redundant format.

To get there, as Steinberg learned with VST3, takes a major DAW dropping all other formats. Just as Logic did when Apple bought it. Otherwise, profitable developers will invest in the essential formats and ignore the superfluous one.

And as I said, I don’t think Bitwig is prepared to do what it takes to make CLAP an essential format the way Steinberg, Apple, and Avid have done. I doubt Bitwig has the market share to force it even if they tried. Which is why they won’t.

As long as CLAP is non-essential, it is going to remain largely non-supported by profit driven developers.

[Unaspected]

I see some big names on the ever-growing list and suffer with optimism so I'm hoping to see beneficial happenings in the near future. The benefits for developers in terms of workload seem clear and the performance improvements and features for end users are encouraging.

All I think it will take is for more DAWs to adopt the format and that is in the works. Of course, a number of professionals will stick to what they know and what works for the time being. I wouldn't expect any different - I have the same attitude - but I will be trying out the format when Reaper has a working implementation and I happen to be installing a plugin which supports CLAP.

If the performance benefits are significant enough then yes, I probably would go back and install updates to fully switch over, when available and stable. At that point, CLAP support would become a selling feature rather than the novelty that it appears to be at present.

[jamcat]

Big names who have committed resources and released CLAP versions, or big names that the CLAP team claims have inquired about it?

By the way, the calculus is different for hosts and plugins. There are more obvious advantages to adopting CLAP as a host than as a plugin.

It’s getting the major plugin developers onboard that is going to be difficult to impossible without real financial incentives.

[EvilDragon]

There are other incentives than just financial ones, but we've been through that already. Tech debt resolution (=a huge bunch of major devs basing their whole pipeline on VST2 then wrapping into other formats, which Steiny can shut down with a flick of a wrist if they want to), licensing freedom (not being under whims of a market competitor who holds the format), etc etc.

[jamcat]

That doesn’t hold up because those developers are still going to have to develop for VST3, AU, and AAX. No developer of note is going to drop any of those for CLAP. Least of all VST3.

The tech debt is interesting if it really can do all of the VST3 setup code for you. But it doesn’t help developers who already have a substantial catalog and their own VST3 framework.

So as users, we’re still going to be using VST3 plugins for the foreseeable future, and developers are going to still be developing for it and signing the same developer licenses with Steinberg, Apple, and Avid. There is still no escaping that.

It just doesn’t seem like CLAP’s proponents are think this all the way through.

Anyways, I’m not saying CLAP is completely devoid of merit. I’m just saying the conditions are not ripe for widespread adoption for the foreseeable future.

[BONES]

I guess none. Perhaps because the developer needs to include it to have a complete plugin?

Clearly he does not, as every host can handle presets. In fact, for the 20-odd years I used Orion, it did 100% of my patch management and, even now, all my own patches get saved in Studio One's system, not in the synth's own library, just so I can have everything in one place. It makes etting up a new computer a whole lot easier.

Are you still running 32-bit?

This is the perfect example, thanks for bringing it up. I would absolutely still be using 32 bit if developers were still making 32 bit versions of the plugins we use. We changed for one reason - KORG ARP Odyssey - and it is a decision I have regretted regularly since. The reason I bought a Bitwig license was so that I could keep using my 32 bit plugins alongside my 64 bit jobbies but I hated the experience too much and ended up having to leave 32 bit behind. To this day I have not found one advantage in using 64 bit over 32. Not one.

[jamcat]

It's not about whether or not you've found an advantage to 64-bit. It's that plugins that were abandoned before they were ported to 64-bit are lost to antiquity, as 32-bit has become a dead format. This is why you want developers to keep up with continued, active maintenance.

[rod_zero]

Is Bitwig prepared to do the same with CLAP?

and this sentence here just show that you have your own perspective on CLAP which seems quite dettached from reality.

So what is the reality then?
Other than CLAP will remain a niche enthusiast format, similar to Linux audio.

To provide a format to develop in, and then wrap for VST3 or whatever, because it is more flexible developing in clap.

It might take time for DAWs to adopt but its adoption as the standard to develop may have a faster and bigger success.

[jamcat]

If people are wrapping CLAP with VST3, then why would DAWs need to adopt CLAP?

Also, you'd probably never know a plugin utilized CLAP. It would just be a VST3 plugin to you.

So this voids claims that CLAP could replace VST and developers could escape the evil clutches of Steinberg, and leaves moot questions like the one posed in the topic of whether users should use CLAP over VST3.

So yet again, the world order as we know it is left fairly undisturbed by the emergence of CLAP.

[BONES]

Well for me, not that it matters, but, if given the choice I'll take vst2/3.

Yeah, I'm the same. It's a plugin standard, it excites me not at all. VST works, that's all I care about. If CLAP works, I'll be happy to use it, too, but I am not going out of my way to try it or anything. I have far more important things to be doing.

It's not about whether or not you've found an advantage to 64-bit. It's that plugins that were abandoned before they were ported to 64-bit are lost to antiquity, as 32-bit has become a dead format. This is why you want developers to keep up with continued, active maintenance.

I still have 32 bit Orion, I can still load 32 bit projects and everything works perfectly well on both my current PCs. That's all that matters to me. As a bonus, 32 bit Orion uses a tiny fraction of the resources every 64 bit host I've tried uses, so I can even run it on my 2014 vintage Atom powered tablet.

[jamcat]

But are you still actively using those old 32-bit plugins on new material, or are you only using them when you open old projects that contain them?

If they were part of your process, haven't you had to replace them with something current and 64-bit?

And the main question: would you buy a 32-bit only plugin now?