CLAP... thoughts?

[10bd01]

So what incentive do these companies have to port their combined hundreds of essential industry standard plugins to CLAP?

My takeaways on incentives:

-New functionality
-Midi 2.0 support
-MPE support
-Thread handling
-Open licensing and source, i.e. not beholden to Steinberg
-Faster development futurely
-Intermediate wrapper replace current VST2 per Super Piano Hater 64's post

[pdxindy]

awesome! But still a no-go from my standpoint.

Logic is my backup DAW and I cannot even imagine it ever supporting CLAP. I suppose it is possible to imagine AU getting some new functionality to level up if CLAP become widely supported.

Here was what I have been exploring this afternoon. ACE, using Bitwig per voice modulators to mod some parameters that cannot be directly modulated in ACE (like Ring Mod amount).

https://dandelionaudio.com/sound/CLAP-Ace-4.mp3

[jamcat]

[fmr]

that means a 50% increase in resource allocation, which translates to fewer new plugins, more bugs, and longer wait times between updates for your preferred standard, whatever it may be.

Seems you are using a Mac, right? How much resources have been wasted over the years because of Apple policies and decisions? Yet you are still using a Mac. And even changed to an M1

Again - if FabFilter were to implement 100 new formats we may see delayed bug-fixes, delayed updates, delayed responses to customer support tickets because the heavy workload is putting a general strain on their business. Are those 100 new formats to blame for those "effects"? Indirectly, yes, they are. If implementing CLAP was to produce these types of "effects" it would also be indirectly responsible, and it WOULD have an impact on end-users.

However, Apple forced developers to basically stop developing to concentrate in coding to support their new platform, and I didn't see many concerns raised about that. And that for the only benefit of Apple and a bunch of users that ran to buy M1 laptops.

So the answer to the bottleneck created by Apple’s move to ARM (and the moves to VST3 and 64-bit before them) is… to create another bottleneck?

No... because THIS isn't a bottleneck. This is AN ALTERNATIVE and, as has been explained, perhaps the best way to circumvent the need MANY (probably the majority) of developers will feel if/when they will be forced to abandon any trace of VST2 code in their plug-ins. Having to recode everything IF their plug-ins are, in fact, VST2 plug-ins wrapped as VST3/AU plug-ins will be a burden that will be much easier to overcome with something like CLAP, which will then be wrapped as VST3/AU.

[jamcat]

So what incentive do these companies have to port their combined hundreds of essential industry standard plugins to CLAP?

My takeaways on incentives:

-New functionality
-Midi 2.0 support
-MPE support
-Thread handling
-Open licensing and source, i.e. not beholden to Steinberg
-Faster development futurely
-Intermediate wrapper replace current VST2 per Super Piano Hater 64's post

None of these things are incentives to port VST3 plugins that already exist, do everything they need to already, and were coded competently and correctly from the start.

That would include most every plugin that any of us already own from top-tier developers.

And that still hasn’t been (and can’t be?) addressed by anyone here so far.

[10bd01]

None of these things are incentives for VST3 plugins that already exist, do everything they need to already, and were coded competently and correctly from the start.

Considering the amount of criticism I've read about VST3, I think - even if developers already have a working implementation of VST3 that is not a wrapped VST2 plugin - that the experience of working with what appears to amount to a broken-ish proprietary standard forcibly pushed by what is now an arm of a multinational corporation is enough to give them pause before moving forward with Steinberg.

Maybe they'll pass on CLAP for the time being, but will they when VST4 arrives?

[EvilDragon]

were coded competently and correctly from the start.

That would include most every plugin that any of us already own from top-tier developers.

That's reaching quite a lot, considering what a mess VST3 is and its idea of "correct" is extremely, shall we say, open to interpretation.

[10bd01]

As I'm engaging in this thread Cubase won't open and is hanging on "Scanning VST3 Plugins...". Go figure.

[10bd01]

Maybe CAPS (Clever Audio Plugin Standard) instead of CLAP?

[liquidsound]

Maybe CAPS (Clever Audio Plugin Standard) instead of CLAP?

That’s nothing compare to what “Corona” beer went through

[BenfordLaw]

Maybe CAPS (Clever Audio Plugin Standard) instead of CLAP?

I totally agree - 'CLAP' is incredibly difficult to search for, when using 'audio' or 'DAW' or any other word that you can think of that might help you find it, because it comes up with what the word 'clap' has meant for the past 1,000 years.

CAPS is a perfectly good acronym, can't it be changed now before it's too late?

[jamcat]

None of these things are incentives for VST3 plugins that already exist, do everything they need to already, and were coded competently and correctly from the start.

Considering the amount of criticism I've read about VST3, I think - even if developers already have a working implementation of VST3 that is not a wrapped VST2 plugin - that the experience of working with what appears to amount to a broken-ish proprietary standard forcibly pushed by what is now an arm of a multinational corporation is enough to give them pause before moving forward with Steinberg.

Maybe they'll pass on CLAP for the time being, but will they when VST4 arrives?

I’d point out that you’ve read heaps of criticism but it’s all from the same small band of developers and their torch-bearers. How widespread is this discontent, really? Any of it from major top-tier developers?

My point all along has been this: for years we heard the reason some developers chose not to support VST3 was because every DAW supported VST2, so there was no good reason to (despite all of the improvements like sample-accurate automation, GUI resizing, dynamic multiouts, etc.)

Only after Steinberg played hardball and cracked down on VST2 and dropped it completely in Cubase 12 did the holdouts finally start doing the work to port to VST3.

So without a tangible incentive to port to CLAP, such as a major DAW going CLAP-only, the way Logic went AU-only (and Cubase went VST only before DX finally died hard), why would retroactive CLAP support have a different fate?

I think that if Bitwig and u-he really believe in CLAP this much, and are so opposed to the draconian practices of Steinberg and Apple, and are so sure they’ve got the audio industry on their side, then they should drop VST and AU support completely. That’s the only thing that will force a change. Of course, the industry may also shrug at Bitwig and u-he, which is what I think is stopping them.

[jamcat]

were coded competently and correctly from the start.

That would include most every plugin that any of us already own from top-tier developers.

That's reaching quite a lot, considering what a mess VST3 is and its idea of "correct" is extremely, shall we say, open to interpretation.

Oh come on now. That may be clever and snarky, but really you’re impugning the work of the leading audio software developers, which is neither fair nor credible.

[EvilDragon]

It is no secret many, many devs had issues with VST3 implementation. And you can read a bunch of such commentary right here in the developer subforum. Many from "leading audio software developers", too.

[GNXT]

I don't believe either u-he or Bitwig want to force anything, and it's not a crusade.
It's an alternative, it comes to give solutions, and improve things, plus to build a community for developers to exchange ideas, and a place that they can be heard.

Developers didn't adopt to VST3 for so long because it was a mess, and not easy to do, some still struggle with it look at NI, and many of them they are just wrapping from VST2 or AU versions.
Again, it's an alternative, it's a medium to help developers, and try to move things forward, and open new possibilities.