KVR Audio

fisherKing · Post by **fisherKing** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:35 am

https://www.gearnews.com/clap-new-plug- ... nd-bitwig/

i know some companies are on board, but... not sure i get it. there will still be vst, aax, au, vst3.. and some big players are not there (yet).

logic users (myself for example) depend on AUs. so, is another plugin format necessary, useful?

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:12 am

It's all politics

dayjob · Post by **dayjob** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:20 am

there's a bunch of threads here that flesh out all these thoughts and ideas. a couple old ones that are still on going and quite long and worth a look.

also, today is the very first day. i mean, it was just launched.. of course it's not taking the audio world by storm in its first 14 hours available or whatever.

here's some links.

viewtopic.php?t=574861&hilit=CLAP

viewtopic.php?t=583140

people said "oh another DAW? why?" when bitwig and studio one were announced.. but those seem to be popular and have features and workflows that people like.

i'm not a developer but have read enough to know there's a lot of hurdles and lack of features w/different plug in SDKs and CLAP addresses a lot of that and is open source so not beholden to whatever steinberg decides to do w/VST3... which isn't popular is it? i mean.. it was announced in 2006 or something and here it is 2022 and many developers see no benefit in making their products compatible except that steinberg is dropping support for VST2 and forcing devs to jump on board.

so, i think possibly because CLAP is open source and seems to offer a lot more capabilities for producers that it's a possible way forward out of the trap of various plug in formats that don't allow for devs to do what they want to do w/their products when it comes to features and compatibility.

i guess we all just wait and see.. but for all the nitty gritty details check the long thread above.

pough · Post by **pough** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:23 am

fisherKing wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:35 am logic users (myself for example) depend on AUs. so, is another plugin format necessary, useful?

Is anything necessary or useful for those who can't use it?

tony10000 · Post by **tony10000** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:40 am

Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

melomood · Post by **melomood** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:43 am

What I've been reading about it so far is impressive

zvenx · Post by **zvenx** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:48 am

tony10000 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:40 am Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

Ftr there is no fee to use vst3.
And i do wonder what is the onerous part of the license.

https://steinbergmedia.github.io/vst3_d ... eement.pdf
Rsp

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:50 am

tony10000 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:40 am Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."

And yet no one—including u-he—is going to drop VST, AU, or AAX support. So they'll all still be doing all of those things. Like I said, it's all just politics.

cthonophonic · Post by **cthonophonic** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:56 am

Not "just" politics; politics with extended functionality...

dayjob · Post by **dayjob** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:09 am

or it could be a better mousetrap at some point and cause other formats to adopt the features of CLAP w/say.. VST4 or VST19 or whatever. or maybe it becomes intwined with some DAWs in deep ways and becomes part of the ecosystem of those DAWs..

no reason to be so cynical. it could be something really good down the road for users who get more functionality and pushes the other formats forward.

we'll see. i wish them luck with it. i can see how CLAP in ableton with max4Live would be interesting w/all that 'per note modulation' and stuff. could be awesome.

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:12 am

It really just looks like Bitwig is trying to upgrade their market position and they found a few useful idiots to wave their flag.

RobGee · Post by **RobGee** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:34 am

It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference for me right now…

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:42 am

dayjob wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:09 am or it could be a better mousetrap at some point

Already is a better mousetrap. I have useful new functionality today with the u-he CLAP plugins that I did not have a week ago. So it is already a win for me!

U-he also said that even if no hosts were to support CLAP, it is still advantageous for them as a development platform as it means less work and greater long term security. Obviously Bitwig already supports CLAP and some other hosts will follow.

fese · Post by **fese** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 5:14 am

zvenx wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:48 am
tony10000 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:40 am Urs of u-he gave the primary reason: "The main reason we (u-he, others may have other reasons) try to bring forward a new plug-in standard is very simple: It's liberally licensed. No one needs to pay fees, hire lawyers or go through vetting process. No need to sign weird contracts or NDAs that may turn into future risks of investment."
Ftr there is no fee to use vst3.
And i do wonder what is the onerous part of the license.

https://steinbergmedia.github.io/vst3_d ... eement.pdf
Rsp

There isn’t a fee for vst3, but I am not sure about e.g. AAX…
And imho the problematic part is §9. It gives Steinberg the right to terminate the agreement if they want to. Say if A VST4 SDK gets released and for whatever reason a dev wants/needs to use that, the VST3 agreement gets terminated within 6 months, and then you could be not allowed to distribute VST3 anymore. Even without a new version, they can terminate the agreement within two years.
This is clearly something Steinberg “learned” from the VST2/VST3 debacle and I think what Urs referred to with “future risks of investment “.

ReleaseCandidate · Post by **ReleaseCandidate** » Thu Jun 16, 2022 5:16 am

dayjob wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:20 am i'm not a developer but have read enough to know there's a lot of hurdles and lack of features w/different plug in SDKs and CLAP addresses a lot of that and is open source so not beholden to whatever steinberg decides to do w/VST3... which isn't popular is it?

The VST3 SDK is open source, it uses dual licensing with the GPLv3, so it is even free software (as is CLAP, which uses the MIT license or LV2)
https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk
https://forums.steinberg.net/t/vst-3-sdk-license/201637
So the problém with the VST3 license is that the GPL is 'too free' - because they'd had to open source their sources too (at least for their customers) - for the developers and they like to use the proprietary Steinberg VST license.
Or, in other words, the argument, that CLAP is open source is an argument made by people that actually don't like free software - they only want to profit from the work of others but not contribute. Don't get mé wrong, wanting to make money is fine, but just don't tell mé it's about open source then.

There _are_ many problems with VST3 and Steinberg, but regarding the license it's about money, not 'freedom'.

CLAP... thoughts?