Clap support
-
- KVRist
- 423 posts since 3 May, 2004 from UK
It will take time to gather momentum.
The fact that 3rd party developers seem to hate VST3 and like CLAP, I think will drive it, because the more CLAP plugins that are out there will make it more impossible for the big DAWs to ignore.
The fact that 3rd party developers seem to hate VST3 and like CLAP, I think will drive it, because the more CLAP plugins that are out there will make it more impossible for the big DAWs to ignore.
i7-9700, 32GB, 2TB Nvme, Win 11, Live 11 Suite
-
- KVRAF
- 1525 posts since 29 Oct, 2015 from Jupiter 8
as far as i understand, it's already helping people who don't have access to VST2 dev kits anymore to produce (wrap) VST3 plugins, even if they're not developing for CLAP at all
The GAS is always greener on the other side!
-
- KVRAF
- 5506 posts since 2 Sep, 2019
VST3 already supports per-note modulation. But nothing you mentioned means anything to 99% of plugin buyers. Niche features aren't going to win CLAP mainstream acceptance, no matter how vocal the 1% is.
This is utter nonsense based on little evidence and a lot of confirmation bias. Actual evidence shows that every relevant plugin developer already supports VST3. Every current DAW also already supports VST3. So a handful of indie developers releasing CLAP versions along side VST3 versions doesn't give anyone else an incentive to support CLAP, because everyone is already covered with VST3.Rod Staples wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:03 pm The fact that 3rd party developers seem to hate VST3 and like CLAP, I think will drive it, because the more CLAP plugins that are out there will make it more impossible for the big DAWs to ignore.
In order to actually incentivise CLAP support, it needs to be a singular access point for something unique. If Bitwig were to drop VST support the way Logic did when Apple bought it, that could possibly do it. You may notice that every relevant developer supports AU, because that's the only way to get their plugins into Logic. CLAP needs something similar.
Contrary to popular belief, I don't want to see CLAP fail. I simply haven't seen anything to make me believe that it will succeed so far. But I have thought about it a bit. And now my thinking is that CLAP's angle actually could be as a universal MIDI plugin format. The audio processing side of it would simply piggyback that.
Where Steinberg has left an opening is by shutting down the ability to use VST3 to build MIDI plugins they way you could with VST2. So if the CLAP team were to push that angle, then DAW developers in particular may see that as an added value they could bring to their DAW, particularly if there was a healthy selection of inventive MIDI plugins already available for CLAP which could not be developed for VST3.
THIS MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO BE PLAYED LOUD SO TURN IT UP
-
- KVRAF
- 1525 posts since 29 Oct, 2015 from Jupiter 8
problem is seemingly more on the side of the developers.
VST3 came out in 2008 and many of the devs were quite reluctant adapting to it as they seemingly prefer(ed) VST2.
Some of the big ones are moving over just now, mainly probably just because of the recent threatening that VST2 might be gone for good soon-ish. And not because VST3 is so super awesome for them.
Of course another “standard“ can be detrimental too, but i think CLAP emerged out of an actual need by many developers, as VST3 turned out not to be as great as a succeeding standard as most would have liked and i think most of them would be happy if that wasn't the case, so that “yet another standard“ in the form of CLAP, or whatever, wouldn't have been “needed“ in the first place
if VST3 was such a great standard, most devs surely would have fully adopted to to it by 2010, or maybe 2012 and VST2 would now be a long forgotten standard by now that maybe just some random geeky DAW like Reaper still supports for legacy compatibility reasons
VST3 came out in 2008 and many of the devs were quite reluctant adapting to it as they seemingly prefer(ed) VST2.
Some of the big ones are moving over just now, mainly probably just because of the recent threatening that VST2 might be gone for good soon-ish. And not because VST3 is so super awesome for them.
Of course another “standard“ can be detrimental too, but i think CLAP emerged out of an actual need by many developers, as VST3 turned out not to be as great as a succeeding standard as most would have liked and i think most of them would be happy if that wasn't the case, so that “yet another standard“ in the form of CLAP, or whatever, wouldn't have been “needed“ in the first place
if VST3 was such a great standard, most devs surely would have fully adopted to to it by 2010, or maybe 2012 and VST2 would now be a long forgotten standard by now that maybe just some random geeky DAW like Reaper still supports for legacy compatibility reasons
The GAS is always greener on the other side!
-
- KVRAF
- 5506 posts since 2 Sep, 2019
It's not that VST3 isn't a great standard. It's simply that VST2 sufficed. Just as ubiquitous VST3 support is a barrier to CLAP, ubiquitous VST2 support was a barrier to VST3. Why do the extra work if you don't absolutely have to? That's how developers think. Especially ones with a lot of investment and responsibility. An indie developer who has a 9-5 dayjob can jump into CLAP and land on his face and it doesn't make a difference to anyone. The same is not true for a company with 50 hardware and software products and 100+ employees, a roadmap already laid out for the next 18 to 24 months, and a strict budget for all of it.
Also, the VST2.4 choir is forgetting just how much resistance there was from these same developers to VST2.4 when it was introduced. There was way more actual pushback from developers over it than there has been over VST3. You can find posts from 2006/2007 right here on KVR from developers denouncing VST2.4, saying it would break their plugins and they're waiting for VST3 instead of refactoring all their code for 2.4, and saying 64-bit is totally unnecessary and pointless anyways.
Also, the VST2.4 choir is forgetting just how much resistance there was from these same developers to VST2.4 when it was introduced. There was way more actual pushback from developers over it than there has been over VST3. You can find posts from 2006/2007 right here on KVR from developers denouncing VST2.4, saying it would break their plugins and they're waiting for VST3 instead of refactoring all their code for 2.4, and saying 64-bit is totally unnecessary and pointless anyways.
THIS MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO BE PLAYED LOUD SO TURN IT UP
-
- KVRAF
- 1525 posts since 29 Oct, 2015 from Jupiter 8
how long did it take developers to go VST2.x from 1.x though?
it wasn't 14+ years with most people still complaining what a %&@"§#! VST2 is.
and i agree that VST3 is a great standard in principle, it "just" seems to be very cumbersome to work with for most devs.
from those who say anything about it, i've actually only read negative opinions on it. for almost 1 1/2 decades now, with no real signs of shifting perceptions
it wasn't 14+ years with most people still complaining what a %&@"§#! VST2 is.
and i agree that VST3 is a great standard in principle, it "just" seems to be very cumbersome to work with for most devs.
from those who say anything about it, i've actually only read negative opinions on it. for almost 1 1/2 decades now, with no real signs of shifting perceptions
The GAS is always greener on the other side!
-
- KVRAF
- 5506 posts since 2 Sep, 2019
VST wasn’t even treated as a serious plugin standard until after VST 2.0 came out in 1999. VST 1.x plugins were pretty much the exclusive domain of GUI-less freeware coded by college students. The VST 2.0 SDK introduced MIDI to VST, making VST instruments possible for the first time. So there really wasn’t a professional VST industry to complain about VST 2.0 when it came out. (But if there had been, I’m sure they would have found something to complain about.)
The “professional” plugin standard on Windows at the time was DirectX. Most pro audio developers ignored VST completely for a long time. Waves didn’t release VST versions until 2003 or 2004. This is also when Arturia released their first VST products.
REAPER and Studio One didn’t exist. Logic was no longer on Windows starting with v5.3 after Apple acquired Emagic, and supported only AU on Mac. Cakewalk/Sonar was the other major DAW on Windows besides Cubase/Nuendo, and it didn’t support VST at all, only DX, up until 2004.
There wasn’t a major move to VST by developers until… you guessed it… Steinberg announced they were dropping DX support in Cubase. (Sound familiar?)
So to answer your question, VST 1.x/2.x was pretty much shunned by major developers from 1996 until 2004. That’s 8 years. Steinberg finalised dropping DX support two years later, when VST was 10 years old.
The move from VST 2.3 to VST 2.4 in 2006 was pretty rocky, because it broke a lot of existing code due to 64-bit memory addressing and a tonne of deprecated functions. Lots of plugins never made the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit, which was introduced with VST 2.4.
Waves was supporting VST3 by 2009, less than 2 years after it came out, which was much quicker than their VST2 adoption. Most major developers were supporting VST3 by then or soon after. There hasn’t actually been that much resistance to VST3. It’s just that the handful of detractors are very vocal and culty.
The “professional” plugin standard on Windows at the time was DirectX. Most pro audio developers ignored VST completely for a long time. Waves didn’t release VST versions until 2003 or 2004. This is also when Arturia released their first VST products.
REAPER and Studio One didn’t exist. Logic was no longer on Windows starting with v5.3 after Apple acquired Emagic, and supported only AU on Mac. Cakewalk/Sonar was the other major DAW on Windows besides Cubase/Nuendo, and it didn’t support VST at all, only DX, up until 2004.
There wasn’t a major move to VST by developers until… you guessed it… Steinberg announced they were dropping DX support in Cubase. (Sound familiar?)
So to answer your question, VST 1.x/2.x was pretty much shunned by major developers from 1996 until 2004. That’s 8 years. Steinberg finalised dropping DX support two years later, when VST was 10 years old.
The move from VST 2.3 to VST 2.4 in 2006 was pretty rocky, because it broke a lot of existing code due to 64-bit memory addressing and a tonne of deprecated functions. Lots of plugins never made the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit, which was introduced with VST 2.4.
Waves was supporting VST3 by 2009, less than 2 years after it came out, which was much quicker than their VST2 adoption. Most major developers were supporting VST3 by then or soon after. There hasn’t actually been that much resistance to VST3. It’s just that the handful of detractors are very vocal and culty.
THIS MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO BE PLAYED LOUD SO TURN IT UP
-
- KVRAF
- 8828 posts since 6 Jan, 2017 from Outer Space
The majority of plugins is made with Juce. To compile for multiple platforms is a check box away. As the feature set of CLAP covers the features of all other formats, but not the other way round, I suspect, the moment CLAP is officially supported by Juce, devs will target CLAP in the first place and wrap it to all the other demands. Until today, a huge amount of plugins still work better as VST2. Big players included. For the reason that the first target is VST2 and VST3 is just a wrapped version without any benefit of VST3 features…
From a user perspective you get better working plugins. The details are under the hood…
CLAP has still go a long way. Except for Surge none of the CLAP instruments support expressions properly. I am sure that is easier to solve than teaching a VST3 proper Midi…
I can happily ban all other formats when I get a CLAP version of the same plugin… I never did that with the others, I always kept al three, just in case…
From a user perspective you get better working plugins. The details are under the hood…
CLAP has still go a long way. Except for Surge none of the CLAP instruments support expressions properly. I am sure that is easier to solve than teaching a VST3 proper Midi…
I can happily ban all other formats when I get a CLAP version of the same plugin… I never did that with the others, I always kept al three, just in case…
