Cubae 4, older plugins, performance improvements...

[Urs]

Hmmm. So they added audio input for VST instruments to Cubase 4. It's not that one couldn't do it in VST 2.x already. However, it's gonna be cool, so we're finally gonna be on par with AU in that respect...

Urs

[Angus_FX]

Really, wtf is this all about? Can't see too much of interest in the rest of their improvements either. Basically, in one or the oher host you could already do most of the described things.

Yes, indeed, in the VST spec you could already do most of this.. and that's how other hosts managed it. Not impressed.

[Sascha Franck]

The thing I was wondering about (seems I've been wrong about Sonar, btw, thanks for the clarification): Why do they sell this as an all so amazing new VST3 feature whereas host could (and already *do*) take care of the sitiuation? This way, each and every plugin developer has to follow their new "standard" - and as we all know, there's tons of plugin developers whereas there's still just a few host developers. Plain nonsense, if you ask me. The host developers should take care of it (and they actually *can* do).

In addition, in this article they are already (at least potentially) putting the blame on developers of older plugins, shouldn't they be working anymore. What about some old goodies, such as the MDA and TBT stuff? They're still absolutely great plugins, yet I don't expect to see a VST3 update of any of them ever.
So why doesn't Steinberg just add some (invisible) "old plugin compatibility wrapper"?
I mean, as is, Cubase users simply won't be able to load some of their older projects anymore into the latest version of the program. Being a shafted Logic user myself, hence experiencing a similar situation, I just *know* how much of a pain in the ass this can be - and we're not even talking about such a dramatical change as the dreaded Logic buyout here. It's just a freaking update.

However, good for the wrapper developing companies. I'm sure FXpansion and the likes will gladly come up with a <VST2.4 wrapper. Too bad that old projects still won't load properly anymore.

Really, this is as lame as it could get.

[mbncp]

The host developers should take care of it (and they actually *can* do).

I don't know how they did the consuming power thing, but if a VSTi tags or flags it's unused outputs as empty, it's much faster than having the host scanning the buffers.

Also, how many VSTi are still processing their internal fx even if there hasn't been a single MIDI event in the last 10 years or so.

However, good for the wrapper developing companies. I'm sure FXpansion and the likes will gladly come up with a <VST2.4 wrapper. Too bad that old projects still won't load properly anymore.

If the wrapper is done correctly this should be transparent.

Now I'm a bit surprised to see devs complaining about the changes, especially those making commercial plugs

[Angus_FX]

Now I'm a bit surprised to see devs complaining about the changes, especially those making commercial plugs

Why? Because we just love having extra work, which we usually can't charge for, foisted on us by other commercial vendors? Everyone is used to Apple pulling this cr*p by now, but apparently Steinberg has now decided to play the same game.

Say what you like about Microsoft, but they know how to keep things running without pulling these stupid stunts.

[stag]

It's new in Cubase!!! I guess when Emagig or DD get PDC working they raved about it too, albeit not being full PDC, and so on.
For instance PDC is a much more usefull feature than anyother i can remember on the past years.

[Urs]

Yeah. I'm totally tired of all those transitions.

Tiger (replaced deprecated system calls)
Universal Binaries
VST 2.4
64 Bit stuff
VST 3

I even made some changes to my stuff to support distributed audio, but it still doesn't show up on Logic Nodes.

It's all a bit too much. Especially as the older plugins don't have the same codebase as the new ones. Plus, including magware, I currently have about 27 (!) plugins to maintain, on up to 3 platforms (AU, VST Mac, VST Win)

Urs

[Angus_FX]

It's new in Cubase!!!

Absolutely, and for that they should be congratulated, and may they shout it from the rooftops!

However, it did NOT require moving the goalposts of the VST spec (again ), and forcing developers to re-code their plug-ins, in order to achieve it. If Samplitude could get it working with existing plug-ins, why not Steinberg? Answers on a postcard

Urs - amen brother.. email me sometime!

[metamorphosis]

So I think there's now an "official" way to communicate between host and plugin to determine if it's gonna do anything or not.

that sounds great-
m@

[Sascha Franck]

It's new in Cubase!!!

?!?
It's NOT new in Cubase, it's new in the friggin' VST3 "standard" - something entirely different.
So, what Steinberg is actually doing is like saying "Sorry, our host probably won't support older plugins anymore. Ask the developers to rewrite them. In addition, we won't add the 'no input signal resolves in no CPU useage' feature into Cubase. Please ask your fellow plugin developers again".

And as you are ever so constantly bragging about the full PDC in Logic (which actually exists in 7.x, admittedly less comfortable than in Cubase which has that "reduce PDC" feature, a nice thing to have), this is just similar as if Emapple would say something like "Sorry, no PDC on our program, ask the developers to only release plugins causing no additional latency".

To mbncp: Being no programmer at all, I obviously don't know whether such features are easier (or more efficient) to implement in a host or in a plugin, but looking at it from a users point of view, a host-implementation would be *way* better because it'd take care of the issue instantly - *all* my plugins would all of a sudden work a lot more efficiently, not just those being re-coded to follow the new "standard".
In addition, other host makers than Steinberg are somewhat f**ked as well, as they'll have to implement VST3 compatibility.

As Urs said, it's already more than enough of a pain to maintain plugins. And fwiw, the Emapple decision of not supporting VST anymore hasn't exacly added to the ease of a plugin programmers life either, especially since the AU standard hasn't shown its superiority by now at all - ok, it might be better documented and development environments might be easier to get ahold of, but I'm talking strictly from a users point of view here. And I haven't seen a single AU plugin that would outperform its VST equivalent both in terms of feature sets and effciency.

Now, IMO this latest VST3 move just adds to the dilemma. I'm sure further compatibility issues will be raising.
Thing is, a whole lot of professional programmers will have to develop for either platform and either plugin format. And I can very well imagine that these additional "features" will only add to the difficulties of releasing one and the same plugin (with identical feature sets) for different platforms and formats.
And more than obviously, us mere end users won't benefit from it either, as support is going to be splitted up for the various formats.

On a personal note: So far things have been working extremely well for me. Heck, even in the most up to date host I'm sometimes having to use (that would probably be SX 3) I can still load the very first VSTs and VSTis ever released (yeah, even "choirus" and "wunderverb" can still deliver their magic to my mixes...).
But since a few years everything has changed drastically in terms of compatibility. As long as Emagic supported the VST format, I could easily tranfer my homemade PC-based songs to whatever studio's Macs in case the same plugins were installed. Now, since Apple decided to drop VST support, this isn't possible anymore under Logic already, even in case I *do* have the very same plugin package(s) in AU format. Songs loaded will simply complain about missing plugins (and fwiw, this is really something I could simply chop those Emagic programmer's hands off for and see them dying the most miserable death ever).
The VST world has been looking all shiny and great until the very moment those Apple fuckwits decided to drop the format. After that everything only got worse and each and every company (the host companies that is) seems to jump onto the "let's make our host as proprietary as it could get" ship.
Now, this VST3 move will just add to the scenario. Yet another format, yet another incompatibility factor, yet another PITA for the developers.
Oh, and of course, the new Cubase plugins certainly won't run in any other host either (simply the same as their current ones) - just the same as the f**ked up decision of Emapple to build their plugins in a proprietary format as well. After all it's been Emagic praising the all so shiny AU plugin standard. So how comes we haven't seen a *single* AU plugin (ok, there's the laughable EXSP, but I don't think they even distribute it any longer) from them yet?

Bottomline: This is all just f**ked up!
I'm getting me a MacBook tomorrow though... more troubles coming ahead... *sigh*

[Sascha Franck]

So I think there's now an "official" way to communicate between host and plugin to determine if it's gonna do anything or not.

that sounds great-

Yeah, it's an "official" way for VST3 compliant hosts - that have to be rewritten anyways to support VST3. What about DX(i) based hosts? What about AU based ones?

[mbncp]

To mbncp: Being no programmer at all, I obviously don't know whether such features are easier (or more efficient) to implement in a host or in a plugin, but looking at it from a users point of view, a host-implementation would be *way* better because it'd take care of the issue instantly - *all* my plugins would all of a sudden work a lot more efficiently, not just those being re-coded to follow the new "standard".
In addition, other host makers than Steinberg are somewhat f**ked as well, as they'll have to implement VST3 compatibility.

Well, assuming you have 200 channels and an audio buffer of 256 samples.
Now, what is faster, checking 200 values or 51200 (200*256 ), no need to be a dev I guess, given that this may have to be done for each fx in the chain, and on each sub-mix.
And if all plugs are working this way, the host doesn't even have to care about it at all, except for internal plugs, mixing,...
Bypassing a plug is not a good solution, it's far better to let the plug know that these channels are empty, and the plug decides if it still has to process something or not.

All this is only good stuff, it should have been done a long time ago. Now the only thing left is to declare MIDI as deprecated

[stag]

Okay Sascha. IMO Steinberg feels like they want to free Cubase from all junk(no disrespect for developers, that's their own "fault") and bring Cubase to a new level of functionality and performance.
I don't know how the VST3 implementation is going to be the "thing" in the real world, nevertheless Steinberg crew was at the lab for the past two years concentrated on the new standarts.
I guess this is very troublesome to all software engineers.
however i don't think Steinberg is asking from them anything they were not willing to deliver, in terms of energy, time and economics, before.
I guess Steinberg aim to be dominant on the pro-audio market, can we blame them for that?! They seem to be working very hard on pursuing those objectives, which i think they'll fail if the outcome doesn't match their effort... well at least they tried to bring new standarts on the meantime.

Evolution is not all about continuity, sometimes...

these are the halfassed conclusions of an hobbyist, I guess pros see all this on another perspective, time=money vs time=fun(sometimes)

However this changes are not so dramatic as we've seen on the past, ditching support for an entire branch of Windows users eg. So i dance to the music, i just don't dance them all.
I guess the same happens with you. I wish you many sucess with your new weapons of choice.

[jasonsantiago]

I was waiting for Sascha to show and bitch about something when Cubase was released. We know you love Logic, go use logic and stop bashing cubase.

[Josmoker]

I was waiting for Sascha to show and bitch about something when Cubase was released. We know you love Logic, go use logic and stop bashing cubase.

To be fair, to me Sascha likes to point out flaws in all hosts. I find it a bit strange to argument that Steinberg should stop further development of their (cross-platform) VST-standard just because other companies feel they need to create a new (platform-specific) standard.

Yeah, it's an "official" way for VST3 compliant hosts - that have to be rewritten anyways to support VST3. What about DX(i) based hosts? What about AU based ones?

Why do you think Steinberg has to care about those? (btw which DX based host is there left?) I would think that VST3 makes things a bit easier for VST-based host developers once support has been added for it.

Cheers, Jo