CLAP: The New Audio Plug-in Standard (by U-he, Bitwig and others)

[liquidsound]

Using the new CLAP betas of ACE, Diva and Hive in Bitwig 4.3 is fantastic. Now Diva has unlimited per voice modulation. Want 3 or 4 Envelopes instead of 2? Sure! Same with LFO's, parameter sequencing, randomization and so on. It's like a whole new version of the synth!

It’s just insane! How am I going to go back to Ableton now?
Btw where is Spectrasonics?!!! That’s the only one I’m using beside “all” of the u-he jewels (Ok, Vital is always in my projects too).

And I had to cleanup my signature!

[noiseboyuk]

So is this going to replace VST or did I misunderstand and it's more like a shell format for the VST's to play nicer within hosts and offer better modulation options ?

It's an alternative. A choice.

Oh right, I didn't pick up on that, I thought it was a wrapper for existing VSTs, AUs and AAXs. So this is a new cross-platform format? I'm really surprised Avid is interested if so...

[EvilDragon]

Yes it's a new cross-platform format, that can ALSO be wrapped into other formats. With an unencumbered license.

[ThomasHelzle]

BTW. Dexed was mentioned as using CLAP, but I can only see a relatively old version on their Github - any infos on that?

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

I guess the main benefit will be for those simpler synths with not much modulation right? I’m thinking diva and repro mainly. Will be nice to be able to modulate pw in the eco osc! And repro needed more mods anyways. And replacing bazilles sequencer with one that has swing in Bitwig! Or Tal synths getting more more mpe mod destinations would be great.

But when it comes to modulation monsters like vital or classic style synths with lots of additional modulation like arturia, is there much advantage in Bitwig? I’d generally rather use the modulation in the synth itself as it’s more obvious you don’t have to find it in the parameter list. I guess there is the voice stacking but I’m not huge into unison sounds anyways.

Vital has more than enough modulation already and it is exceptionally capable. Being able to use Bitwig modulators per voice in Vital wouldn't add much. Vital is pretty unique that way though. Lots of synths would benefit.

I agree, I would generally choose first to use a synths own modulation. On the other hand, now that per voice modulation from Bitwig is possible, what's nice about Bitwig's modulation is that all the modulators and their targets are visible in the Inspector and can be edited there without opening up a GUI. Bitwig modulation is a great workflow! I'm still exploring to see where and when I would use it.

ACE, Bazille, Diva, Hive and RePro will all benefit from Bitwig's modulation and they are my most used synths. So good for me

[noiseboyuk]

Yes it's a new cross-platform format, that can ALSO be wrapped into other formats. With an unencumbered license.

Still confused... so there will be a .clap format alongside .vst .au and .aax. But it can alternatively load those other formats inside a wrapper?

And oh yeah, Native Instruments are another surprising omission from the interested list at the moment.

[trackbout]

I think a lot of the benefit lies outside of specific plugin features, although features are great. That fact that it's an open source project, requiring license grants to developers from neither Steinberg nor Apple, subject to horrible API decisions by neither Steinberg nor Apple, and requiring approval for new features from neither Steinberg nor Apple, will be a massive win for developers and users over time.

[EvilDragon]

Still confused... so there will be a .clap format alongside .vst .au and .aax. But it can alternatively load those other formats inside a wrapper?

No it doesn't quite work like that.

Consider this: vast majority of plugins out there are based on a single plugin format that is then wrapped into other formats. That format is usually VST2 or AU. We know what happened to VST2, so this is a liability for plugin developers. This is where CLAP comes in. It is entirely possible to refactor the build pipeline to work based on CLAP instead of VST2. You'd still get those other formats (when wrappers to those other formats appear). But this is developer-facing, not user-facing.

This all sums up to: simpler development, license-unincumbered development (no chance of Steinberg pulling a rug under plugin devs like they attempted a few times already).

And oh yeah, Native Instruments are another surprising omission from the interested list at the moment.

They're still too busy making their portfolio VST3, first...

[EvilDragon]

BTW. Dexed was mentioned as using CLAP, but I can only see a relatively old version on their Github - any infos on that?

No official release yet, but debug builds are available in GitHub Actions pipeline here. Note: debug builds run slower than release builds. Oftentimes, much slower!

[Trancit]

I think a lot of the benefit lies outside of specific plugin features, although features are great. That fact that it's an open source project, requiring license grants to developers from neither Steinberg nor Apple, subject to horrible API decisions by neither Steinberg nor Apple, and requiring approval for new features from neither Steinberg nor Apple, will be a massive win for developers and users over time.

This!!!

I am very happy that some clever developers now have built a really really interesting alternative to break the Steinberg/Apple monopoly...
And featurewise it blows the traditional formats already out of the water right from the start...
I can only hope and pray that most if not all plugin developers will jump on the bandwagon and present the "big guys" their middle finger with a big smile...

[ThomasHelzle]

BTW. Dexed was mentioned as using CLAP, but I can only see a relatively old version on their Github - any infos on that?

No official release yet, but debug builds are available in GitHub Actions pipeline here. Note: debug builds run slower than release builds. Oftentimes, much slower!

Ah I see - thank you!

[pdxindy]

I think a lot of the benefit lies outside of specific plugin features, although features are great. That fact that it's an open source project, requiring license grants to developers from neither Steinberg nor Apple, subject to horrible API decisions by neither Steinberg nor Apple, and requiring approval for new features from neither Steinberg nor Apple, will be a massive win for developers and users over time.

This!!!

I am very happy that some clever developers now have built a really really interesting alternative to break the Steinberg/Apple monopoly...
And featurewise it blows the traditional formats already out of the water right from the start...
I can only hope and pray that most if not all plugin developers will jump on the bandwagon and present the "big guys" their middle finger with a big smile...

I am also quite impressed with how stable the u-he CLAP plugins are in Bitwig, even though CLAP support just came to both u-he and Bitwig. And how quickly it all came together and new and useful changes being added in days and they just work! This speaks to how well CLAP is designed.

[paulmatthew]

I'm guessing this is based on a similar architecture to Bitwig's plug in hosting feature.

[noiseboyuk]

Consider this: vast majority of plugins out there are based on a single plugin format that is then wrapped into other formats. That format is usually VST2 or AU. We know what happened to VST2, so this is a liability for plugin developers. This is where CLAP comes in. It is entirely possible to refactor the build pipeline to work based on CLAP instead of VST2. You'd still get those other formats (when wrappers to those other formats appear). But this is developer-facing, not user-facing.

This all sums up to: simpler development, license-unincumbered development (no chance of Steinberg pulling a rug under plugin devs like they attempted a few times already).

Thanks Mario - so from a user perspective, we load .clap, or, say, a .dll with a wrapper?

[EvilDragon]

Huh, no. If host supports .clap you just load it outright. Like any other plugin type. But it is likely that in the future you could be loading, say, a VST2 or VST3 or AU, but it's actually a CLAP plugin served to you through a wrapper that you don't see in any way. It's completely transparent.

A lot of VST3s out there are just wrapped VST2s, in fact.

I'm guessing this is based on a similar architecture to Bitwig's plug in hosting feature.

There's nothing special in hosting plugins out of process. Reaper does it too. This doesn't dictate how the plugin should be internally.