About CLAP

[prokoudine]

@dawhead:

I offer a friendly useful challenge. Get X42 and any other dev you trust, to create a new useful plugin from ground up, in three versions, lv2, vst-2-or-3, and then clap, and post their honest opinion of the workflow

(comment deleted)

[EvilDragon]

There would be an awful lot of "scheisse"s thrown around, that's for sure!

[moss]

Meanwhile, over in Steinberg land:

"within the next 24 months, Steinberg’s host applications and plug-ins across macOS and Windows will offer VST 3 compatibility only"

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/vst-2-di ... ued/761383

[glokraw]

Welcome to KVR! We need all the help we can get

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Meanwhile, over in Steinberg land:

"within the next 24 months, Steinberg’s host applications and plug-ins across macOS and Windows will offer VST 3 compatibility only"

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/vst-2-di ... ued/761383

Does anyone know what Steinberg actually gains by pushing VST3 as hard as they have been? I just don't get it. Do they figure it will somehow get them more Cubase users? It's clearly the inferior format (between VST2).

There's a base of hardcore Cubase users who'll bitch to no end about developers who didn't transition to VST3, or abandoned VST2 plugins that they love and will have to start living without, but they'll stick with Cubase no matter what. I think some percentage of DAW users will factor in "which DAW supports the tools I use" and suddenly Cubase will look LESS attractive. I'm certainly done with Cubase upgrades - wasn't my primary DAW anyway, but things like this leave a bad taste in my mouth. I can't imagine Cubase being a one plugin format DAW like Pro-Tools is going to increase their marketshare when other hosts don't follow suit.

I get the impression some head-honcho over at Steiny was pushing for VST3, spent a lot of money doing it, doubled down on it time and time again, and instead of just admitting there are real problems, decided that they sunk so much effort and money into VST3 that they were going to throw their weight around to try to force adoption. But again, what could they possibly gain? Is it just the "sunk-cost fallacy" in effect? If so, someone at Steinberg should Google that term. Seems like one miscalculation after another and just bad leadership.

...Unless their plan is to start charging devs for VST3 support (e.g. $100 a year, or x% of sales) once they crush the competing format (that they themselves created no less).

[zvenx]

I do believe they do believe it is a superior platform to vst2.
Clearly you disagree.
rsp

[Dewdman42]

Steinberg is doing this because VST3 Is better FOR THEM. They architected Vst3 however they did it for reasons they had and also transformed cubase to work around that new architecture. At this point it must be a nuisance and a cost for them to continue to have to support vst2 or any other format. Internally it will be architecturally cleaner to be pure Vst3 all the way. At some point they are simply saying cubase is only Vst3.

It is highly debatable about whether vst3 is better or worse then vst2. Let’s please not go there here it has been debated to death already. But if steimbwrg’s hosting products are all built fundamentally around the vst3 architecture then you can see how they would want to end vst2 support sooner or later. It is engineering idealism based on some team’s notion of what “ideal” is. Aka, ask Arne.

From a strategic marketing standpoint it’s left to be seen how this move will affect Steinberg. I personally don’t see it helping them in any way whatsoever from that perspective but they must feel that there is enough critical mass with vst3 that they can do this without losing cubase/dorico customers.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

From a strategic marketing standpoint it’s left to be seen how this move will affect Steinberg. I personally don’t see it helping them in any way whatsoever from that perspective but they must feel that there is enough critical mass with vst3 that they can do this without losing cubase/dorico customers.

Yeah, that's the part I find fascinating. I mean, lets imagine the following hypothetical (though not unlikely) scenario: three years from now you've got a DAW landscape that looks like this...

Reaper - supports VST2, VST3, LV2, CLAP, AU (Mac)
Studio One - supports VST2, VST3, Clap, AU (Mac)
Bitwig - supports VST2, VST3, Clap
Live - supports VST2, VST3, AU (Mac)
Pro-Tools - supports AAX only
Cubendo - supports VST3 only
Logic - supports AU only

...the value proposition for Cubendo and other one-platform DAWs drops against competing DAWs. I don't get it. I wish them the best though (and by that, I mean, I hope they retreat from this position after realizing it was a bad idea to handicap their own DAWs and make things worse for end-users ).

Steinberg is doing this because VST3 Is better FOR THEM.

And that may be exactly what they think/hope, but they may be misreading the room.

[zvenx]

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but do people buy DAW's based on the number of plugin formats it is compatible with?

rsp

[Dewdman42]

They won't retreat, that is pretty clear. What is left to be seen is whether the rest of the industry will continue to develop and maintain VST3 or not in a few years from now. They are betting on yes. its not a stretch. A lot of plugins ship in AAX today used in only one DAW. Cubase has a lot of committed users. VST3 will live on for the sake of Cubase if nothing else.

[digitallysane]

Yeah, that's the part I find fascinating. I mean, lets imagine the following hypothetical (though not unlikely) scenario: three years from now you've got a DAW landscape that looks like this...

Reaper - supports VST2, VST3, LV2, CLAP, AU (Mac)
Studio One - supports VST2, VST3, Clap, AU (Mac)
Bitwig - supports VST2, VST3, Clap
Live - supports VST2, VST3, AU (Mac)
Pro-Tools - supports AAX only
Cubendo - supports VST3 only
Logic - supports AU only

Or you see other DAWs dropping VST2 as well, once Steinberg themselves did it.
Any DAW developer would prefer supporting less plugin formats.

[Dewdman42]

I don't see that happening no. But time will tell. It will be a competitive advantage to continue supporting VST2.

[zvenx]

I would imagine, Samsung would not have readily dropped headphone jacks if they Apple didn't first do it with the iphones and people did not seem up in arms about it.
(So many other examples of stuff Apple on SJ dropping and the industry soon followed for the most part).
Indeed it is possible that other DAW makers may follow Steinberg's example.

rsp

[Dewdman42]

Steinberg is doing this because VST3 Is better FOR THEM.

And that may be exactly what they think/hope, but they may be misreading the room.

I don't think they care about the room. They architected VST3 for their own internal purposes and made the API publicly available so that they could convince third party developers to create plugins that will run in their DAW. Nothing else. They don't care about how good or bad VST3 works in any other DAW's nor the ramifications on third party plugin developers that are trying to support all known DAW's.

[digitallysane]

It will be a competitive advantage to continue supporting VST2.

It might looks so to you as a user, but:
1. Dropping it makes life easier for a dev;
2. Devs know that if enough of them do it, plugin maker will be forced to convert their plugins (and so, strengthen 1.)
3. DAWs like ProTools and Logic seem to have no problems with supporting a single plugin format.

If I'd be a DAW developer, my first thought would be: "Finally!!!"