Just like old hardware, some of these old VSTs take on a new life over time.
I hope there is a chance Steinberg can bring them back into the fold - especially for Mac users!
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Seems a very good idea to me.
Loopmash was pretty unique. I really don’t understand why they decided to kill it, much like I don’t understand why iZotope decided to kill Breaktweaker rather than fix the glaring UI problems in version 1 (that 3/4 of the timeline visible only thing was straight unbearable and phenomenally stupid).
I do not think we need 100,000 compressors and channel strips and such. There needs to be space and support for unique tools regardless of sales. Just like the mighty 303 was abandoned quickly by Roland, they could’ve never foreseen what it would end up being once people finally understood it. So too with software: some brilliant ideas are way, way ahead of their time and they need to be allowed to percolate for decades sometimes to be properly noticed and appreciated.
Companies should always allocate budget for maintaining compatibility for these tools, as we can still buy a 303 from the '80s and it’ll still work, but we cannot do the same with software. It should be an altruistic, pro bono thing for them: recognize truly novel ideas and subsidize them till they can be fully appreciated.
In other words, believe in things. Have the courage to believe in things that merit it regardless of what the almighty “market” has to say. The market is often wrong. Way more often than capitalist apologists would like to admit.
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I agree with this in principle, but where do you draw the line? Should every VSTi that Cubase has had still be in Cubase? I think not. However, it shouldn’t be too hard, surely, to make them available as extras, downloadable from the website for those who need them for old projects, or for just-curious noobies.
I agree in spirit as well, but the practicalities of this are … difficult.
One wonderful option is to open-source the code, instead of abandoning it. All it takes is one passionate programmer to keep such old code alive, and there’s basically only upside to the vendor (they get free maintenance labor)!
None of these plugins “belongs” to Steinberg. They were all removed because of licensing issues with their original owners (copyright holders) or because the original owner discontinued the plugin.
The chances of a comeback are close to zero. Of course, Steinberg does not have the right to publish the source code for those plugins either.
The current plugin set of Cubase Pro includes, as far as I can see, only one 3rd party plugin - Voxengo Curve EQ. Loopmash FX might be another one, not quite sure.
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You can load them from the backups of old harddrives. If you’re on OSX you need to run in rosetta mode.
Getting the old presets to load is a huge PITA. It can be done but it aint’ easy.
I hope Steinberg can re-introduce the four instruments, possibly as part of a “retro” suite with the original presets + a couple of surprises.
The current aesthetic drive to make everything super efficient/hardcore, an aesthetic which I think has driven the changes to the interface for Cubase over the last two updates, is at times, exciting. However, it can also sometimes seem a bit ruthless.
Be that as it may, having avenues to challenge the prevailing zeitgeist, especially in the arts, is important.
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They would have to re-license them (SB didn’'t write them) and possibly update them as they’re on a old code base.
So probably not.