CLAP experiences

some years ago I was sick of Cubase. After trying a few other DAW’s I was happy to return to Cubase. So I don’t really have an interest in other DAWs at this time, but I am very interested in plugins. After the shift to mainly VST3 plugins now I am getting kinda annoyed with the endless number of times Cubase scans my plugins and the time it takes. Especially in the early Cubase versions which have crashed a lot in v11 and v12 it’s been annoying.

So I have been a big fan of U-HE for a long time, I really respect their company, their products, and what they stand for. Now they are doing their new plugin format CLAP (together with some other companies that seem to get a lot of support), I am curious if anyone here has personal experiences with this new format and the actual use of the CLAP plugins that are available?

what do you guys think? I guess Steinberg would be rather cold toward getting into this tech? the makers of CLAP are saying all the correct things for me, and they most certainly seem to have captured the interest of some major players to develop CLAP plugins.

Cubase scans the VST3 plugins just once here, right after I install them and then not anymore.
Seems you have another issue?

As for clap plugins, thanks for the info, I am going to read into it!

I think it would be very unlikely for Steinberg to support CLAP since they’re the creators of the VST3 format. It does look interesting though.

That was fixed years ago … what version of Cubase are you running?

I’m curious. Am I to understand that, with the CLAP format in place, DAWs no longer have to scan plugins on startup?

No DAW rescans all plugins on every startup. If that is the case, you’re having another issue.
A plugin only gets scanned when it is the first time installed. Also CLAP plugins need to be scanned the first time, the creators only claim, that it will be faster, when doing that.

A plugin format should be a standard. I hope it will end up being adopted by AES or IEEE as a real standard.

Rescans are triggered for a variety of reasons - remember the old one when it scanned when daylight saving stated/ended ?

Yes indeed! Around this time of the year (a few days before the last Sunday in October, when the clocks used to go back, and again a few days before the last Sunday in March, when they would go forward an hour) I would wait for a quiet moment and then trigger the rescan manually … it seemed to help.

But again, this was fixed years ago and no longer happens in Cubase.

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It seems we are all happy with Cubase and haven’t tested CLAP yet :smiley:

My Cubase scans VST3 when I update plugins most of the time, I guess there have been a lot of updates in the last few months. Also, I get some scans when Cubase apparently has crashed on the last closedown (even if I don’t notice it when closing).

So I spent quite a few moments since Cubase 12 where my screen told me “VST3 scanning” - I think it is normal, maybe I have just updated like crazy lately.

They could have chosen a more distinctive name.

Naming a music plugin format after a form of percussion seems a bit silly?

Not as silly as naming it after a venereal disease. This has been noted before :wink:

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Hence we always turn off summer time clock adjustment , i don’t mind my clock running an hour behind for six months

To reiterate, this was fixed years ago and is no longer an issue.

Old habits die hard

I definitely see the phrase “Scanning VST3 plugins” each time I start Cubase Elements 12 up. But it is for less than a second.