Bye bye VST2

[jamcat]

My actual experience with automating physically modeled bowed instruments is that instruments built with VST2 are not capable of consistently reproducing bowed articulations correctly, while the VST3 versions are.

So in real-world application, VST2 is deficient for my needs.

aw, gee, and you used to be such a fan of arché: viewtopic.php?p=7975040#p7975040

maybe it has sod all to do with vst2 given that swam strings runs as both vst2 and vst3? do you really think vst3 is giving the incoming midi a good polish but the vst2 just barfs it out?

I was a fan of Arché, until I began running into too many VST2 related automation problems. Arché were actually the last plugins I ever bought without making damn sure VST3 was supported. It was the final straw for me, actually.

SWAM supports both VST2 and VST3. Do you own them? I do, and the articulations are noticeably more consistent when using the VST3 versions.

[sacer]

I still don't see how this sows distrust from very many developers. The vast majority have already moved on to VST3 and now have an excuse to drop legacy VST2 support.

A vast number of plug-ins still has VST2 at its core which is then wrapped to VST3. It's not even unlikely that this is the vast majority of plug-ins.

All of these plug-in need to be changed, partly rewritten, VST2 replaced with something else inside, tested, rereleased, bug fixed and all that.

For those which don't have VST2 at its core but something like JUCE. If these plug-ins are currently released with VST2 support, they have to be repackaged and rereleased.

The cost of each of these rereleases may vary from company to company. For us just a release like this (without any rewrite etc.) takes about a month in planning and execution. Our monthly revenue is beyond 100k. If half the team is bound by a release, it's half of that. So that's what that costs us when we do useless shit instead of working on something that makes us money.

Does this eventually sink in with you?

I really like to open my old Ableton projects, since 2012 I mainly used Diva, because it is and was one of my favourite synths. After GForce and Fxpansion Dcam it reached a new level of analog spirit.
I was really excited of zebra3 at Musikmesse, 10 years ago and afterwards you have spent much time to solve a lot of new Apple OS issues and don’t want you to waste time again for this stupid contract.
I really hope there could be a CLAP wrapper in future, that can open old DAW projects, where VST2 and maybe also VST2 32 bit has been used.
Maybe you can ask Ableton again, CLAP is very high demanded and top ranked in their Beta centercode suggestions.
I think if you have fruity loops, bitwig, Ableton, reaper and studio one - than it would become a new industry standard.
Vst3 could fall to cubase, like AU to logic and AAX to avid. Other daw like samplitude can’t ignore this new standard. I wish I good luck. But one big step could be the integration of Ableton and maybe Arturia or your other neighbours NI. This could solve their NKS disaster.

[Blue Cat Audio]

• The fact that the only way to kill VST2 after so many years is the legal way stands for itself. Back in the day, DirectX plug-ins just faded away without the need for anyone to deprecate this format (you can actually still build DirectX plug-ins, but who does?).

Well, it did take Steinberg abruptly dropping DX support from Cubase 4 (the one that came after SX3) to finally shift the industry away from it on Windows.

It actually took a bit more than that. Some apps have been DirectX-only for a while. It's only when they disappeared or moved to VST that the format started to disappear too. The increase of Mac sales when they moved to Intel help too, as DirectX was Windows only and people started to work on both platforms and share projects.

Anyway my point here is that it faded away by itself. It was much easier to write a VST plug-in anyway (a simple C interface, no COM interfaces and other complex mechanisms that VST3 actually brought back... ), and it was pretty limited in terms of features, so developers did not think about it twice!

[jamcat]

But you may recall there was just as much gnashing of teeth back then when Steinberg dropped DX. Some developers never recovered to come out the other side of it (remember the excellent DSP-FX?)

You may even remember there was even a mini developer revolt against VST2.4, with many devs wailing that it required a total rewrite, and their careers were over.

The difference here is this time Steinberg gave everyone 15 years to plan accordingly, instead of just ripping the band-aid off.

[urosh]

Why wouldn't I believe that? It's not really impressive. At ~20 employees, that's only 5k each per month. Arturia brings in over $2 million per month, perhaps $4 million. IK Multimedia brings in $1.5 million per month. And you can be sure neither of them are hacking VST2 plugins into a VST3 wrapper.

LOL, Urs and the rest of U-He are dumb hacks, we got it.

And he didn't try to impress you or anyone else, just to explain that company of U-He size does not have disposable money to throw on things. But this was extremely clear from his comment. So, either you are extremely dumb and can't comprehend simple statement, or your sole intent is to insult and antagonize. And you're not extremely dumb.

[jamcat]

I didn't say Urs or u-he are hacks. I respect what Urs has built with u-he, actually. I just don't believe that the major audio firms that bring in $1 million+ a month are wrapping VST2 plugins in VST3 clothing. But maybe a bunch of smaller indie guys are, and maybe those are the peers that Urs surveyed?

[urosh]

You also need everybody on board. Every dev of every host and plugin . That is a long way off.

Nah, you just need critical mass on board. If lets say NI and Ableton hopped on the train, then you would just leave it to Newton's First Law for 3 to 5 years and that's it.
Situation where you need everybody to be on board and on the same page is when you control interoperability format and then decide to break it. I mean, you don't need it, but you'll end up in a mess as some real life examples show. CLAP is new interoperability format, does not break anything, just needs critical mass on the market, like AU had for example.
(That being said and to repeat myself: just gathering critical mass will be a lot of work and uncertain, but it's still a long way off from needing to get everyone on board).

[ampetrosillo]

It has a lot of deficiencies. And it's not nearly as widely used as Microsoft software.

VST3 has sample-accurate automation, VST2 does not.
Automation with VST2 is sloppy, to say the least, and it was incurable without a rewrite. That alone is reason enough for VST3.

Let's even assume that this is true. How often is sample-accuracy essential? Most automation essentially consists in "riding the faders". Whenever does this need to be sample accurate? It's like presenting BEVs as a superior vehicle on account of their 0-60 times. Yes, you can easily get sub-4s times with EVs (while essentially wasting a lot of energy), but who actually needs this? VST3 may even be superior in some respects, but if (for instance) the licensing is a show-stopper then it counts f**k all.

It's certainly not unheard of to draw in automation manually instead of riding faders, including instant vertical changes on the automation lane to coincide with transients which can be just a few milliseconds long. Usually there are more efficient ways to deal with such automation, such as sidechaining, MSEG's etc. but like I said, manually drawn automation is not unheard of.

Of course, I do it all the time because I'm too cheap to buy a control surface.

Still, it shouldn't be necessary most of the time, which is why VST2 can arguably get away with it not being so precise. (I mean... most users can't tell the difference between VST2 and VST3 versions of the same plugin).

[ampetrosillo]

• The fact that the only way to kill VST2 after so many years is the legal way stands for itself. Back in the day, DirectX plug-ins just faded away without the need for anyone to deprecate this format (you can actually still build DirectX plug-ins, but who does?).

Well, it did take Steinberg abruptly dropping DX support from Cubase 4 (the one that came after SX3) to finally shift the industry away from it on Windows.

Back then, Cubase was essentially the only big player on Windows. Not today. Today there are at least 5-6 major DAWs (Cubendo, Ableton, FL Studio, ProTools, Reaper, possibly something else).

[jamcat]

• VST3 is still missing features that were available in VST2, even after 16 years (and they will probably never be implemented). So for several of our products I just cannot recommend it over VST2 or any other format. The whole MIDI support thing is incomplete and such a mess that it is a shame and will never work flawlessly.

It's my understanding that Steinberg views MIDI-FX in VST2 as an unauthorized hack, and shut it down in VST3. My theory on this is that Steinberg views their MIDI features as defining selling points, and sees the ability to add MIDI processing features in other DAWs via plugins as a threat to their DAW itself. This is probably why there hasn't been a universal MIDI-FX standard.

While I have tried to point out that the obstacle to CLAP adoption is that there is no incentive for plugin developers to adopt a redundant plugin format like CLAP that doesn't give them access to any additional DAWs that they can't get with VST3, and DAW developers have no incentive to add CLAP support when all plugins are already available through VST3, I have also tried to give suggestions as to how pro-CLAP developers could overcome that. Namely, someone should create some really kick-ass free MIDI-FX for CLAP, which is something that cannot be done with VST3. Perhaps that someone could even be you.

I suspect that closing the MIDI loophole in VST3 is what ultimately led to Toontrack discontinuing EZplayer. And certainly if they brought it back as a CLAP plugin, I would be first in line demanding my DAW start supporting CLAP. That would be some of that tangible incentive that is currently missing.

[gaggle of hermits]

SWAM supports both VST2 and VST3. Do you own them? I do, and the articulations are noticeably more consistent when using the VST3 versions.

i do.

how are they more consistent in vst3 mode?

[gaggle of hermits]

I didn't say Urs or u-he are hacks. I respect what Urs has built with u-he, actually. I just don't believe that the major audio firms that bring in $1 million+ a month are wrapping VST2 plugins in VST3 clothing. But maybe a bunch of smaller indie guys are, and maybe those are the peers that Urs surveyed?

you probably want to lay off syllogism. it's not really your field by the looks of it.

a sizeable org that has built up a large chunk of technical debt is *more* likely to do a full rewrite on its entire code base? sounds legit.

[jamcat]

SWAM supports both VST2 and VST3. Do you own them? I do, and the articulations are noticeably more consistent when using the VST3 versions.

i do.

how are they more consistent in vst3 mode?

It's been my experience that after writing automation with the VST2 versions, it doesn't sound quite the same on playback. But I haven't experienced that with the VST3 versions.

[gaggle of hermits]

It's my understanding that Steinberg views MIDI-FX in VST2 as an unauthorized hack, and shut it down in VST3. My theory on this is that Steinberg views their MIDI features as defining selling points, and sees the ability to add MIDI processing features in other DAWs via plugins as a threat to their DAW itself. This is probably why there hasn't been a universal MIDI-FX standard.

ok...

While I have tried to point out that the obstacle to CLAP adoption is that there is no incentive for plugin developers to adopt a redundant plugin format like CLAP that doesn't give them access to any additional DAWs that they can't get with VST3...

ok...

someone should create some really kick-ass free MIDI-FX for CLAP, which is something that cannot be done with VST3. Perhaps that someone could even be you.

oh wait, there is an incentive* to get around Steinberg's anti-competitive actions. I'm not sure why it has to be free, but whatever.

* I got the feeling there are more, but if you want to stick with this one, ok.

[jamcat]

I didn't say Urs or u-he are hacks. I respect what Urs has built with u-he, actually. I just don't believe that the major audio firms that bring in $1 million+ a month are wrapping VST2 plugins in VST3 clothing. But maybe a bunch of smaller indie guys are, and maybe those are the peers that Urs surveyed?

you probably want to lay off syllogism. it's not really your field by the looks of it.

a sizeable org that has built up a large chunk of technical debt is *more* likely to do a full rewrite on its entire code base? sounds legit.

This sounds more like an argument against adding support for a new plugin format like CLAP.