Bye bye VST2

[ckoe]

I hope there will be some great plugins only in CLAP Format available in the future.

@Steinberg: I will never ever buy a product from you. You kick all developer in the ass, that's a shame.

@Plugin-Developer: If you have a plugin with CLAP Format I will buy it, otherwise not.

@DAW-Companies: No CLAP support? No support from me, it's simple as it is.

[martinjuenke]

@Steinberg: I will never ever buy a product from you. You kick all developer in the ass, that's a shame.

@Plugin-Developer: If you have a plugin with CLAP Format I will buy it, otherwise not.

@DAW-Companies: No CLAP support? No support from me, it's simple as it is.

This will change their mind, definitely!

[MrJubbly]

@Steinberg: I will never ever buy a product from you. You kick all developer in the ass, that's a shame.

@Plugin-Developer: If you have a plugin with CLAP Format I will buy it, otherwise not.

@DAW-Companies: No CLAP support? No support from me, it's simple as it is.

This will change their mind, definitely!

Perhaps, not just from one person. But if thousands of other users/potential customers, shared similar perspectives, it might? ... And if hundreds of thousands also agreed, Steinberg might even be forced to support CLAP themselves, or face the prospect of eventually going out of business. (I realise most people would find that almost impossible, at this point in time).

However, if within this next decade, many (if not most) top-tier plugins were to become CLAP exclusives, or even just started to drop their support for VST3 (and VST4, or whatever it might devolve into, by then.) Then, the VST3/VST4/VSTx family audio plugin format, itself, could easily start to be regarded as a "legacy" format by most non-Steinberg DAW users, which by then, became seen as a niche format just for Steinberg-branded DAWs only.

If such a thing ever transpires, Steinberg might be coerced into reluctantly supporting CLAP for its own customers, or else risk losing even more of its established userbase to other rival DAWs which did fully support those CLAP-exclusive plugins. Or at least, top-rated plugins which support CLAP, but no longer support the, then legacy, VST3 format.

Like I said, most (especially Cubase) users, might doubt that could, or ever would happen right now. But these are the early days for CLAP. And until very recently, VST formats have enjoyed a virtual monopoly, especially on Windows. So the landscape has changed. And it will be very interesting to see how this develops.

It would be pretty funny if this did all backfire on Steinberg. And it will have been all their own fault, if they end up getting "CLAPped!"

[jens]

+1000

[Charlie Firpo]

I actually switched daws from Cubase to reaper because of them stopping their support for Vst2 . I use some beloved plugins that may never be Vst3. If i got this right : now you're telling me daws/hosts may be forced to stop including Vst2 support in future releases? Well, that's it then. I'm freezing my system. Clap for da president.

[gaggle of hermits]

I'm not sure how far Steinberg is going to push this one and even if they did I would not be surprised to see DAW vendors facing them down over it – up to the point OS changes force the issue, as maintaining compatibility might involve reverse engineering the components (which would be an easier legal fight for Steinberg).

but Steinberg has said absolutely nothing even on their own forum. they probably just want their cake and eat it: make out vst2 is now verboten, but not do anything that would trigger legal action. Because at that point, things might spiral out of control because it could be used to demonstrate anti-competitive behaviour. Justin Frankel (Cockos owner) is no stranger to legal action.

in reality what Steinberg has really done is aim a shotgun at its foot.

[jens]

Yes, except it can turn out to be more like a bazooka...

[Sascha Franck]

However, if within this next decade, many (if not most) top-tier plugins were to become CLAP exclusives,

As much as I'd welcome that, it's not gonna happen unlike you have one of the big host companies onboard. Which would possibly be Steinberg and Apple in the first place. And that's just not gonna happen.

[revvy]

Not likely gonna happen.

And when I gently mocked clap for attempting to be a new standard Urs kindly shared a cartoon he’d already prepared to show that clap wasn’t even attempting to be the one plugin format to replace the rest. That told me ….

[Urs]

For me, it's just fine if the future of my business does not depend on the corporate decisions of another company.

I do not need or wish for more formats to go away. I still hope for Steinberg to just place VST2 in the public domain. Replacing VST3 was never a goal of my support for CLAP. To the contrary, I was hoping to use CLAP to support more of VST3's features, e.g. Note Expressions (which we do through the wrapper).

So let's be realistic here. VST3, AU and AAX aren't going anywhere (well, not sure about AUv2 vs AUv3).

What we will see though is CLAP in different areas than DAWs. I'm sure it'll find its place and it's meant to stay.

#-------

@revvy: That meme was made to point out that most other "standards" have more in common with "platforms", and that by supporting CLAP, we're trying to establish something that looks more like an actual standard, i.e. real standards usually have standard licenses and are not owned by a single competitor etc. etc.

[urosh]

By the way: am I the only one who thinks the timing is curious?

2008 - VST3 announced
2013 - announced that VST2 is no longer maintained and moved to VST3 SDK
2018 - announced VST2 deprecation, no new VST2 licenses
2023 - ???

Unlike unambiguous announcements in 2013. and 2018. there was no official announcement now (that I've seen), only changes in license.

I find all "let's stick it up to the Steinberg" and "yay, CLAP" weird (to put it mildly). Only thing Steinberg is definitely guilty of right now is (non)communication. There is no clarity from them on status of VST2 development, and my only wish is for them to clarify this once and for all. If they actually cut all further VST2 development CLAP will not save me. Two plugin developers that I critically depend on have embraced CLAP, as well as my secondary DAW. But multiple critical companies have not moved to CLAP and for several I've seen zero (at least public) interest. So I and 99% of people out there will have to stick with VST3 for time being. I have no idea how would f**king up Steinberg help me, even if they default tomorrow and deprecate VST3 on top of this, CLAP migration of whole market would take 2 years.
Not to mention that I have large number of projects using VST2 plugins that will never migrate to either VST3 or CLAP, I want to know should I start preparing time-frozen vault.

[MrJubbly]

Customers, quite unlike developers (who as we are aware, are unfortunately still beholden to certain signed contracts and "playing nice" with said parties), have the luxury and freedom of not caring one iota what Steinberg does, or does not think about us.

But just for giggles, I'll play along and don a 'faux-developer' hat with this next major prediction:

"CLAP definitely will / will not become a direct replacement for VST3."

Honestly, Steiny!

[gaggle of hermits]

However, if within this next decade, many (if not most) top-tier plugins were to become CLAP exclusives,

As much as I'd welcome that, it's not gonna happen unlike you have one of the big host companies onboard. Which would possibly be Steinberg and Apple in the first place. And that's just not gonna happen.

FLstudio: are we chopped liver or something?

counting seats, market share has changed significantly over the past couple of decades. cubase isn’t that high up the list. to make Clap a format that devs regard as important, it probably needs ableton onboard. but just FLstudio and bitwig are certainly worth having, especially if they use the features. it doesn’t need Cubase and it ain’t gonna get Logic anyway.

[MrJubbly]

However, if within this next decade, many (if not most) top-tier plugins were to become CLAP exclusives,

As much as I'd welcome that, it's not gonna happen unlike you have one of the big host companies onboard. Which would possibly be Steinberg and Apple in the first place. And that's just not gonna happen.

FLstudio: are we chopped liver or something?

counting seats, market share has changed significantly over the past couple of decades. cubase isn’t that high up the list. to make Clap a format that devs regard as important, it probably needs ableton onboard. but just FLstudio and bitwig are certainly worth having, especially if they use the features. it doesn’t need Cubase and it ain’t gonna get Logic anyway.

Well, I agree. I believe with the current market share of the various DAWs and their userbases. Added to the respective and expected trajectories for each DAW's likelihood of increasing their popularity, within the near future. Would suggest that, as long as FL Studio and Ableton both support CLAP (and one of those two already does), then it's pretty much a done deal.

Those are clearly the two most popular DAWs currently, in terms of sheer number of customers (from what data we can ascertain, via their visible popularity over all social media, etc.) As such, the lions share of most plugin sales are probably from those with the most customers. i.e. those from users of either or both of those two major DAWs.

The other smaller DAWs will obviously help to additionally contribute to the overall success of CLAP, as and when they also add their support for hosting this format. But, those two big hitters are probably all that is really required, for the format to truly take off and become very prevalent, if not the dominant player (after the first few years of industry-wide adoption).

I personally believe CLAP can eventually become the dominant format, even without any support from the likes of Steinberg, Apple and Avid. While, Cubase/Nuendo, Logic and Pro Tools, might be important to certain legacy professional studios and education establishments and even some of the older generation...

How much do plugin developers really rely upon the income generated through sales purely to those pro production studios and colleges/universities, etc. versus to the vast horde masses of independent music producers, especially of the younger generation, who surely are far greater in numbers and are (and will continue to become more and more) responsible for the large majority of plugin sales and profit for developers in this next decade onwards?

Can we even be sure those old school DAWs will still be commercially viable in the next 10-to-15 years? Or would their older generation users have started to retire (or pass on), to make way for a younger generation, more attracted to other and newer more innovative DAW players likely to be introduced on the market?

And I also include the likes of Ableton and FL Studio in that. Since, even they might have to make way for other newer/more innovative competitors arriving in these coming years. And that's not even factoring in the role/influence that AI may have upon the music production scene as a whole (I know most of us hate that idea, but it needs to be considered).

The only thing I feel sure of, is that things will not likely regress towards re-popularizing the stale establishment systems of the previous eras ... Steinberg and its proprietary VST formats included.

[Sascha Franck]

FLstudio: are we chopped liver or something?

Conpletely irrelevant.
As long as neither Cubase nor Logic nor PT will natively support CLAP, it will not exactly gain too much momentum.

And as said, I'd be more than happy if there was only one plugin format, developed by an independent consortium of people (sort of comparable to MIDI, just not as lame), the only differences being OS-relevant things.
But it won't happen as long as the big players don't even support CLAP, let alone exclusively.
Could as well be a bunch of big plugin players. Imagine something such as Kontakt being CLAP only. Now *that* might have an impact.