Clap Plugin Format

[ThomasHelzle]

1.) I didn't know that 8-track needs to be updated with a paid-for update.
Since it's basically free with gear, I'd thought it's always the latest version...?
Did you check your user account?
Needs to be 4.2.
How much do they ask for the update of 8-track? Or do you mean the update to the full version?

2.) Yes you can have multiple licenses of Bitwig in one account. I don't think this is different for 8 track.

4.) None. MFM 2.5 beta comes with a clap version, but that isn't working ATM in Bitwig. Clap support for all u-he plugins will come, but no timeline. So right at this moment Surge XT nightly is the only serious plugin that runs as clap, other than the test plugins from the reaper guy that Moss mentions in his video.

But it's super early days, the specs change a lot and there is no official clap release yet. Surge.clap runs exactly the same AFAICS as Surge.VST3 and as baconpaul wrote, it's not specifically optimised for clap yet and doesn't support any of the special features, I'm sure that only will come with time, when the API stabilises and devs start to investigate the deeper stuff specifically.
Most VST3 plugins don't use all the deep stuff either.

Cheers,

Tom

[] Peter:H []

I am not a developer myself so I am sure what you say has merit if you talk from a developer's perspective.
But from a user perspective, I am struggling to see why a format that has been around for so long and offers brilliant possibilities (again, with real-world plugins that fully support it) hasn't been celebrated and adopted already.

And from a user's perspective, I am dreading the thought that we will have another format that could introduce more incompatibilities, more work for developers to support it while taking time and resources from well-established formats like VST3 and AU.

I am all about progress, but a new plugin format has to offer some REALLY big benefits to the user too apart from the developers So I'd like to know what else does CLAP offer apart from polyphonic expression which has been around for over a decade.

Have you read the CLAP thread in the u-he forum? It is very informative and answers all your questions in depth.

Urs said CLAP will save them time and be less work for them.

VST3 is a problematic standard and is developer unfriendly. The reasons why are also explained in that thread.

I actually haven't thanks for pointing this out!

Well, you'd expect that Urs would have said that- he is pushing this format, on his interviews, it sounds like his big "project".

I will be impressed when big names start to catch up - just to be clear, I am talking from a professional producer/mixer/mastering engineer perspective (not a developer or modular synth enthusiast/YouTuber). There is no room for tests and experiments in this arena - hell some people are still using PT9 refusing to upgrade to AAX let alone go to a brand new unknown standard.

What's the plan and how is the format going to be pushed? You have to convince all big companies to adopt it (Apple? ( ) Ableton? Steinberg?). Is this feasible?

I personally have been using VST3 for over a decade now, phasing out VST2 plugins gradually and from a user's perspective, I have nothing complain about, I've been enjoying:
1. polyphonic midi control
2. multi sidechain inputs for plugins
3. VST Expressions for libraries

But again- this is all from an end user's perspective.
I am going through U-He's post over here at the moment, an interesting read. I especially like the prospect of faster scanning and more stability.

First: Faster scanning - don't know how he measured that. Faster Scanning is a property mostly influenced by the DAW and your system doing things in an efficient manner.

Second: Stability!? How can he promise? Stability is again something DAWs have to do and provide for isolation. Who could he have tested with a viable setup if there's no valid set of clap plugins nor a selection of DAWs ... Hm...nice promise.
A plugin format can not fix ill behaved plug-ins. That's why each and every DAW introduces isolation mechanisms, like bitwig does.
How can he promise more stability? Does he know plugin vendors will release less erronuous plugins in the futur by switching to clap?

Third: And even more funny, the standard is supposed to open the door for ill behaved plugins. They plan to introduce a "DAW provided thread pool" and let the plugins use the DAW thread pool. That will kind of counter isolation levels...
Any ill behaved plugin that corrupts this one thread pool by long running tasks or whetever will kill your DAW.
It's kind of funny that the DAW calls the plugin to do some work and the plugin calls the DAW back an tells it: Here's the work to do.

Third: Thread pools not tend to control CPU cache coherency in placing similar tasks to the same CPU.

If you plan for a new plugin format clap is only an "evolution" but not the "next level". A revolutionary plugin format would support DAWs to internaly compile and optimize a processing graph of all plugins in a chain even taking unison voice into consideration and then process these processing graphs in an optimal way.

Imagine all these different plugins that today to "Upsampling/Downsampling on their own: Plugin A does "Upsampling - Processing A - Downsampling" only to go into the next plugin B that does "Upsampling - Processing B - Downsampling".

An intelligent algorithm (like those used in computer language compilers) would optimize this graph to "Upsampling - Processing A - Processing B - Downsampling"...

That would kind of transform the approach of grid or reactor atoms to a daw level.

[ThomasHelzle]

@ Peter: If you read the main thread, the main issue for u-he is Steinbergs deprecation of VST2.
Many plugins developers use VST2 as their main codebase and create all other formats from that.
As I understand it, Steinberg will revoke the right to use VST2 at all or even have it in your codebase.
So Clap is - as I understand from that thread - a format that can be used as a base-format from which you can securely, without some entity making erratic decisions about what you can or can't do, create all the needed formats.
So it's also mandatory to make it easy for devs to port their plugins, which seems to be the case.

I think it makes more sense to discuss your concerns on that thread, since Urs is there and can address them. This thread here is just bitwig users talking about it.

Yes it's an evolution.

Again, as I understand it as a non-plugin-developer, the faster scanning comes from the scanner not needing to instantiate a plugin to scan it, but the plugin giving it's specs away without that. Sounds clever to me, the current scanning times are absurd for many plugins.

Honestly, these days, plugins are really stable to begin with. I can't remember the last time I had any serious issues.
The threading approach sounded good to me and seems to work well in their internal tests.
But again, your energy is wasted here IMO. I found Urs comments in the main thread quite relaxed and interesting, so maybe it can answer your points already.

As to your proposed solution for a revolutionary plugin standard: Yes, that sounds awesome, it's what many of the better node based applications do, but that would mean a complete shift in architecture for every part of the chain - which I can't see happening any time soon. I think "Soul" tried to do something like that - not sure what happend on that front.
And it would be interesting how copy protection would work in such a scenario.

Clap - again as I understand it - is a solution to a problem mainly and has new features secondarily.

Not sure why it brings your blood to boil...

[ghettosynth]

1.) I didn't know that 8-track needs to be updated with a paid-for update.
Since it's basically free with gear, I'd thought it's always the latest version...?
Did you check your user account?
Needs to be 4.2.
How much do they ask for the update of 8-track? Or do you mean the update to the full version?

Hi, thanks for the response. Yes, I checked my account before posting, it specifically states that I need to upgrade and gives me a download for Bitwig Studio 3.something.

"Bitwig 8-Track 4.2 is available but not covered, please renew your upgrade plan."

I believe that I just use studio and give it my 8-track license and it limits my features accordingly. That said, I haven't installed bitwig since about 2017, so I'm just guessing. It's not the only DAW that I have some cheap/free license for and don't really use.

So, I took the five minutes to install to confirm this. Yes, you just install studio and it tells you that you have an 8-track license. In fact, you can't really upgrade support for 8-track. It's a gateway drug. You can upgrade to 16-track for $99 or the full version for the full price. So, AFAIK, 8-track is limited to the version at time of registration and whatever becomes available within one year of registration.

2.) Yes you can have multiple licenses of Bitwig in one account. I don't think this is different for 8 track.

Ok, I'll probably punt on this and report back whether or not it works. Given what you say below, it might be too early for my own experiments and it's not like I don't have plenty of other stuff to do.

4.) None. MFM 2.5 beta comes with a clap version, but that isn't working ATM in Bitwig. Clap support for all u-he plugins will come, but no timeline. So right at this moment Surge XT nightly is the only serious plugin that runs as clap, other than the test plugins from the reaper guy that Moss mentions in his video.

But it's super early days, the specs change a lot and there is no official clap release yet. Surge.clap runs exactly the same AFAICS as Surge.VST3 and as baconpaul wrote, it's not specifically optimised for clap yet and doesn't support any of the special features, I'm sure that only will come with time, when the API stabilises and devs start to investigate the deeper stuff specifically.
Most VST3 plugins don't use all the deep stuff either.

Cheers,
Tom

Ok, well that's even better, open source for the win. Thanks for your quick response. Thinking about this, maybe I'll just install the latest version in demo mode. I have no interest in using it, I just want to follow the progress on this format.

[ghettosynth]

Update: It seems that 8-track users don't have access to beta/pre-releases, or at least I can't find the downloads anywhere. While I definitely found the linux distribution to be very smooth, I'm not quite ready to get on board with Bitwig. I'll give it this though, it looks great and doesn't have the fugly font problems that Reaper does.

[Kypresso]

Ok, well that's even better, open source for the win. Thanks for your quick response. Thinking about this, maybe I'll just install the latest version in demo mode. I have no interest in using it, I just want to follow the progress on this format.

The Computer Music Magazine Bitwig 8-track freebie still seems to be active.
https://futureplc.slgnt.eu/optiext/opti ... dZBNf64KbS

[ThomasHelzle]

Update: It seems that 8-track users don't have access to beta/pre-releases, or at least I can't find the downloads anywhere. While I definitely found the linux distribution to be very smooth, I'm not quite ready to get on board with Bitwig. I'll give it this though, it looks great and doesn't have the fugly font problems that Reaper does.

Bitwig 4.2 is released and can be downloaded here:
https://www.bitwig.com (scroll down).
That is the latest version and it supports clap (see above), it's out of beta for a couple of days now.

Good idea to try the demo first, should be fully functional, you just can't save...

Didn't know that 8-track can't be updated, weird.
Ableton Live Lite for instance is always the latest.

But yeah, 8-track comes with many controllers and often can be had for free, so even just asking in the bargains thread would probably allow you to find somebody willing to part with a license code.

Cheers,

Tom

[ThomasHelzle]

The Computer Music Magazine Bitwig 8-track freebie still seems to be active.
https://futureplc.slgnt.eu/optiext/opti ... dZBNf64KbS

Did it work for you?
I tried the page, but didn't get an email (yet).

[pdxindy]

Have you read the CLAP thread in the u-he forum? It is very informative and answers all your questions in depth.

Urs said CLAP will save them time and be less work for them.

VST3 is a problematic standard and is developer unfriendly. The reasons why are also explained in that thread.

I actually haven't thanks for pointing this out!

Well, you'd expect that Urs would have said that- he is pushing this format, on his interviews, it sounds like his big "project".

Actually, Urs is not much involved. And u-he does not need to push CLAP.

Various developers use VST2 as their plugin development platform. Steinberg is doing away with VST2 such that developers will not legally be able to keep using VST2 for that purpose. VST3 is not a suitable replacement as a development platform (as explained in depth in other threads) so companies like u-he need to find a replacement for VST2. Thus CLAP, or something like it.

Besides VST3 not being a good development platform in and of itself, companies like u-he do not want to end up in the same position in the future where they are forced to change their code base. Thus they want an open standard that is not controlled by the interests of a single company.

[pdxindy]

Update: It seems that 8-track users don't have access to beta/pre-releases, or at least I can't find the downloads anywhere. While I definitely found the linux distribution to be very smooth, I'm not quite ready to get on board with Bitwig. I'll give it this though, it looks great and doesn't have the fugly font problems that Reaper does.

Yeah, just use the full Bitwig Studio 4.2 demo.

[pdxindy]

Not sure why it brings your blood to boil...

2 minutes... like 1884

[ghettosynth]

Update: It seems that 8-track users don't have access to beta/pre-releases, or at least I can't find the downloads anywhere. While I definitely found the linux distribution to be very smooth, I'm not quite ready to get on board with Bitwig. I'll give it this though, it looks great and doesn't have the fugly font problems that Reaper does.

Bitwig 4.2 is released and can be downloaded here:
https://www.bitwig.com (scroll down).
That is the latest version and it supports clap (see above), it's out of beta for a couple of days now.

Ah, ok, thanks. I'll play with it again later. Perhaps that's why I can't see the pre-release. The drivenbymoss video goes over some details. I'll download some of the demo plugins and make sure that I can get it all to work.

[ThomasHelzle]

Ah, ok, thanks. I'll play with it again later. Perhaps that's why I can't see the pre-release. The drivenbymoss video goes over some details. I'll download some of the demo plugins and make sure that I can get it all to work.

There is no pre-release anymore...
They remove it after the release.

But yeah, one needs an active update plan to get pre-releases/betas.

You basically just need to create that config.json file like in Moss video and install the latest nightly build of Surge XT, then it should show up. If not, check the plugin paths in Bitwigs preferences.

I'm using Windows 10 BTW.

Cheers,

Tom

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Second: Stability!? How can he promise? Stability is again something DAWs have to do and provide for isolation.

This is related to the way it uses concurrency. The actual problem is a little involved, so bear with me for a minute.

Developers don't necessarily have a good intuition for how concurrency can break their plugins (or the DAW). Even veteran programmers make really boneheaded mistakes when dealing with an error-prone API. VST3 is particularly obnoxious on this front. There are even a number of cases where the documentation says the host will behave one way, but Steinberg's testing host (I forget the name) does something else, and Cubendo does something altogether different — never mind what happens in Waveform, Ableton, and so on. Some developers have spent years trying to navigate this mess.

CLAP is in large part a response to this situation, with a lot of input from developers who were burned by VST3 in the past. They designed CLAP's concurrency model to be compatible with VST3's, but they've been careful to document what operations are appropriate during each processing step, and what functions are allowed to be called on each thread. (Not all of this documentation seems to be available to the public right now, but it should show up when they're ready for a 1.0 release.) Furthermore, they're able to build a test harness that analyzes a plugin's use of the API while it's running, and reports concurrency-related problems as soon as they occur.

This might not sound like much, but there are three benefits worth highlighting. First, it's an easier migration path from VST2, especially for developers who aren't writing in C++, or who aren't experienced with COM. Second, it results in better-behaving VST3 plugins (by targeting CLAP and then building with a VST3 wrapper). Finally, it adds VST3 features like note expression into the "least common denominator" feature set, without sacrificing MIDI functionality.

Anyway, CLAP's stability claims are not guarantees, but they are improvements. Process isolation is still a good idea, and it's still up to the host to take care of that. The concurrency benefits of CLAP are complementary to process isolation, and will be most useful in hosts that can't (or won't) implement such a thing.

[] Peter:H []

Second: Stability!? How can he promise? Stability is again something DAWs have to do and provide for isolation.

Anyway, CLAP's stability claims are not guarantees, but they are improvements. Process isolation is still a good idea, and it's still up to the host to take care of that. The concurrency benefits of CLAP are complementary to process isolation, and will be most useful in hosts that can't (or won't) implement such a thing.

I make my living since more than 20 years as a sw engineer... if you say seasoned, I expect that concurrency concepts like wait/notify/mutex/semaphores, workbench pattern or map/reduce like work patterns etc. are known and understood. But I know what you mean when thinking about GUI thread vs.processing thread... in Fathom synth you can even configure it.

The concepts are not complementary:
* Book end "Isolation Setting All In Bitwig" --> There's probabaly one DAW thread pool. Ill behaved plugin which either passes in a.) erronous task, b.) long running task, or spamming the pool with way too many to little tasks will kill bitwig. A plugin that passes in 3000 tasks will block others from doing stuff.

* Second Book End "Isolation Setting Individual per Plugin" --> There's then a Pool per Plugin Process? Or do you want to cross process isolation passing things from one process to another.

So the "claims" that come as "is better than" ... is kind of a missleading promise. Because it does not make things better if "seasoned" programmers have hard times today, they will have hard times tomorrow