VST2 & VST3 coexistent ok? whats better?

[Caine123]

yeah i never really cared about VST3 but i see it is like 64bit plugins that many companies state a little bit extra VST2? so i wonder how long it will still exist?

and if i do new projects, shall i use VST3 if possible rather than VST2?
how compatible are both coexisting?

many thanks!

[Blaster]

Vst3 can have more abilities so you would want to use them when available.

They can happily coexist with vst2.

[Caine123]

Thx a lot

[Googly Smythe]

I think it's down to the plugin id - if they are the same, only the vst3 will be visible. Waves, for example, installs both, along with the 32 and 64 bit versions. I only ever see the vst3.
Maybe different daws handle that differently?

[chk071]

Yeah, that's my experience as well. In Studio One, some plugins show up as VST2 and VST3, and some only show up as VST3, even though both are installed.

I consider most VST3 plugins as stable as the VST2's, so I just use the VST3.

[Caine123]

In fl studio you can select what you want. Seems fl studio is more clever than i thought and customizable

But ok if you say vst3 is no prob then i dont care which is taken from the daw.

[chaosWyrM]

as mentioned in another thread like this...

theres virtually no advantage to vst3. most devs dont bother with the vst3 features...so mostly all vst3 does is take up extra space. also...you cant choose an installation location, all vst3 stuff has to get dumped in the same place.

personally i never install vst3...theres just no reason to.

[jancivil]

Here are the _actual_ advantages to VST3 (one or two of which may not be anything outside of Cubendo):
A VST3 (this is going to be part of AU3) may have more than one MIDI port. So now instead of being limited to 16 channels, you will have that multiplied by the number of ports. So I'm running the VE Pro 6 as VST3 with the preference 16 ports. Besides the sheer number of channels, I like having a port for a particular 'family' of the orchestration. Port 5 for drums and percussion, for instance.
256 I think is the limit for VE Pro.
Also note that Kontakt has 4 actual MIDI ports; 3 of which cannot be used in the plugin because it is not VST3.

Note Expression is part of the VST3.5 description. I use note expression albeit I didn't come to it until recently. It's meaningful. It means applying control per note. In a polyphonic part, each note may have its own whole control setup, not affecting the rest. So, while leveraging MPE can be done with VST2.4 instruments, the workflow is less to think about with VST3; and our more usual discrete methods are immediately accessible per note here. Thus a certain and perhaps new way of thinking about an arrangement is opened up.

In Cubendo, VST3 plugins may be suspended until audio gets to them, which obviously is a resources-saving measure.

Then it allows for direct side-chaining in Cubendo, whereas VST2 needs some workaround. This doesn't mean anything to me especially.

[zvenx]

I think it's down to the plugin id - if they are the same, only the vst3 will be visible. Waves, for example, installs both, along with the 32 and 64 bit versions. I only ever see the vst3.
Maybe different daws handle that differently?

This.
rsp

[zvenx]

as mentioned in another thread like this...

theres virtually no advantage to vst3. most devs dont bother with the vst3 features...so mostly all vst3 does is take up extra space. also...you cant choose an installation location, all vst3 stuff has to get dumped in the same place.

personally i never install vst3...theres just no reason to.

Slowly over time they won't have a choice.
And a standard location cuts down on a lot of unnecessary support.
For a Cubendo user the advantages are very significant.
rsp

[chk071]

While it's true that most devs don't bother with the additional features VST3 offers, I'd say you could also argue that there is no need to install VST2, when a plugin offers to install both. The VST's I have installed, which also installed VST3 versions, all run flawlessly. The only VST3 which I recall has some issues was Novation V-Station. But then, the same applies to its VST2...

[chk071]

Slowly over time they won't have a choice.

Exactly. VST2 will vanish eventually. Especially with developers not even being able to license VST2 from Steinberg anymore.

[jancivil]

The way Cubase or Nuendo has it, if there are two versions it shows both. VST3 is indicated by three slashes next to the plugin name

I have one case which may be peculiar where I tend to insert VST2: Vienna Suite Master EQ. It doesn't overwrite what you've written during playback, while the VST3 version does. So with VST3 it's a matter of turning Write on and off a lot (or maybe one of the other modes would change its behavior here, however I'm using touch for reasons). If there's a lot to be done I'd prefer not. Although on the weak machine I might have because of the suspend processing until audio hits the plugin. I wouldn't find it acceptable to not see both.

[lfm]

A couple of years ago at least - Waves had issues when using both their VST2 and VST3 side by side in same project. Something with gui and freezes and such.

So if both are visible, or loading old projects that had VST2 inserted - think about that a bit.

[chk071]

The way Cubase or Nuendo has it, if there are two versions it shows both. VST3 is indicated by three slashes next to the plugin name

Yep, same in Studio One.