What are the best reasons to use VST3 over VST2? or should I just use CLAP?

[Urs]

Simply put, I do not like VST3. I may rant about it like mad, but won't do it. This will not change anything and I will only feel bad next time talking to Steinberg representatives.

I think the main issue with VST3 is the lack of support from Steinberg. They killed the mailing list and replaced it with a hard-to-access forum where many valid questions remain unanswered after weeks.

They used to be very quick on the mailing list, but in my percepetion they decided to reduce their communication with 3rd party developers to a bare minimum. And that is what IMHO turned VST3 into the least beloved platform in the first place.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I think the main issue with VST3 is the lack of support from Steinberg. They killed the mailing list and replaced it with a hard-to-access forum where many valid questions remain unanswered after weeks.

In programming, asking for third party's support is the last resort. It's the code foremost. I'm not a novice in being an "upstream" as you maybe know - several popular projects on GitHub, and almost no issues.

[Urs]

Well, not everyone is a natural genius. Whenever I can't work out badly documented part of an SDK, I ask the maintainer of the SDK for clarification.

[gExpectations]

Very good News, Aleksey.

Well, at the moment demand is very low. As you may know, we accept User Survey replies all the year round. So far it's almost crickets regarding CLAP. I'll be monitoring it.

i think this has it backwards. no one will ask for CLAP. CLAP success will be determined by devs thinking it is worth their time/money to switch from vst3 to CLAP. Users might ask for it, if they learn CLAP plugins provide some features VST3 dont but this will take a long time. To me as a user i dont really care if I get vst3 or clap or whatever other format, as long as (a) price is the same and (b) i can run it with no issues.

the question would more be, if the devs provide clap plugins will there be enough users for it and when. of course its an interaction between both but a change in an industry standard will never be driven be users first.

[gExpectations]

if you ask me to get demand for clap some very visible company needs to do a smart marketing move like release a small plugin as clap only and maybe for free, call it experimental so not everyone gets butthurt if they cant run it.

[Urs]

Yeah, we have plans for that. Unfortunately we're stuck in other things atm.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

the question would more be, if the devs provide clap plugins will there be enough users for it and when. of course its an interaction between both but a change in an industry standard will never be driven be users first.

I can only talk from my perspective. Other developers may adopt earlier than me, it's a wave-like motion, various parties and considerations are involved.

[FapFilter]

i think this can hopefully happen automatically, but more by a big chunk of new developers who don't have granted access to VST2 anymore and might find that CLAP is simply the better solution over VST3 for them.
also, while Bitwig might not have the largest user base, it's user base is quite frankly one of the best to start such a new standard. and also, other "smaller" developers will follow.
Reaper is almost ready too and those users aren't known for their restraints praising it's "cool" features either

in the end, we might have a situation not too dissimilar to the hardware world, where the big, inflexible dinosaurs like Roland or Yamaha won't budge and continue releasing new accordeons* instead of innovate, while the small(er) devs are actually making what the majority is craving for.


* not trying to discredit accordeons, someone has to make these too, of course

[ghettosynth]

Reaper is almost ready too and those users aren't known for their restraints praising it's "cool" features either

triggered!

[SeBaer]

Reaper is almost ready too and those users aren't known for their restraints praising it's "cool" features either

triggered!

It's in 6.71rc3, so it's bound to happen in mere days.

if you ask me to get demand for clap some very visible company needs to do a smart marketing move like release a small plugin as clap only and maybe for free, call it experimental so not everyone gets butthurt if they cant run it.

I'm pretty eager to try the plugins by nakst, which are CLAP only. Admittedly, it's not a big company...

[FapFilter]

It's in 6.71rc3, so it's bound to happen in mere days.

I know, I’m also one of those Reaper users!

[EvilDragon]

They pale compared to the big 3: Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools.
That’s practically the entire audio industry right there.

They don't pale, not really, no, if we're talking purely about number of users. There's more people using Live and FL together than people using Logic, PT and Cubase together, I am pretty sure (and actually NI has some hard numbers on this). There is way way way way more hobbysts than the pros in the audio industry, and people just starting out that would sooner reach for something like Live or FL than bloody PT or Cubase.

[gExpectations]

They pale compared to the big 3: Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools.
That’s practically the entire audio industry right there.

They don't pale, not really, no, if we're talking purely about number of users. There's more people using Live and FL together than people using Logic, PT and Cubase together, I am pretty sure (and actually NI has some hard numbers on this). There is way way way way more hobbysts than the pros in the audio industry, and people just starting out that would sooner reach for something like Live or FL than bloody PT or Cubase.

i think its fair to say you can see that ni has these numbers, when looking at what they focus their development on. the last years releases were mainly play series instruments, which, in the end are fun and easy to use romplers that are also priced appropriately. if their main money would come from industry veterans, theyd focus on something else.

[gExpectations]

just to be clear, this is not supposed to be a dig at ni and you can see it in many other examples as well.

[EvilDragon]

Yeah, it is quite evident where the userbase focus is for a lot of plugin developers, more and more younger audiences are being targetted.