How Steinberg failed with VST3

Steinberg Lounge
21

I think personally, that VST3 is a great plugin platform, especially VST 3.5. And yes, it was released without consulting mayor plugin developers…But the main problem is, that there´s almost no other DAW supporting VST 3. We have Cubase/Nuendo/Wavelab (all Steinberg), Studio One (Presonus), FL Studio, N-Track, and that´s about it.

Besides there are plenty of plugin formats used by only one plattform, like ProTools (RTAS, TDM), Ableton (their Instruments), FL and MAS plugins for Digital Performer.
What am I trying to say? In the days of VST 2 there were only very few formats on the market, and a lot of programs adopted VST 2 because of being free. Now the tendency is to stick the user with their propietary plugin format. Business has changed. VST 3 is going forward, just not as quick es VST 2 did. Besides, VST 2.4 has been very successfull, it´s not easy to replace that.

Just my two cents.

Roger

22

Bear in mind that that FXP still haven’t, and say they never will, update BFD2 to 64bit, despite it being originally released after 64bit OS were beginning to get popular. So his opinions on what is “forward thinking” in software development might not be worth as much as you might think.

If it was down to companies like FXP we’d still be on win3.1 :laughing:

23

Doing a quick filter search on KVRAudio.com lists these companies providing VST3 plugins -

Algorithmix, Brainworx, DMG Audio, Elysia, iZotope, MeldaProduction, MOTU, Novation, SPL, Synchro Arts, Vienna Symphonic Library, Virsyn, Waves, Yamaha.

Not included in that list is Fabfilter and Softube are releasing VST3 versions of all their plugins, the CL-1B compressor is already available.

I wouldn’t call that no 3rd party support.

24

Richard Herbert, awesome post! roger-s, agree. dr, absolutely, Win 3.1 rules, lol.

That all sounds good but take a look at the web browsers “following” W3C’s standards.
Yet, each browser has their own “complementary”, either proprietary, or it follow some obscure “standards”, every last one of them.

Sometimes it takes one company to move the industry forward, and usually it makes the “other” parties peeved, because they didn’t make it happen. Steinberg is one such company, another is Microsoft. The “others” always bitch about these two and what they do, yet somehow, they appear to be the “groundbreakers”, or the ones making sure things happen. Sure the others stir the pot every now and again, but at the end of the day, their intent is most always only to be king of the hill, not move past it, advancing to the next.

BTW, as a side note: In school and corporate wise I was raised UNIX, however, I moved to Windows 95/98 in 1996, never looked back. Microsoft has been the one that did the world a favor, sure it wasn’t free, but you can see and talk to anyone on the planet, at any time. You have access to basically any kind of software, except AppleWare, of course.

Think about how things could’ve been if Apple would’ve made it instead. Locked OS (Mac) so MUST use Apple “approved” hardware, locked trading (iPad, iPhone, iPod) so MUST use AppleStore or other Apple “approved” stores, etc. Oh, the Internet, would have been AppleNet, running on FireWire, that for obvious reasons do not exist on some computers, lol. Seems to me, and my sympathies to Steve Jobs on his illness, that Apple never left the garage. And these people have the audacity to talk about “open source” and “standards”… LMAO, what a wonderful world.

What is really amazing, and rather a powerful tool a lot of companies use these days, is that a lot of consumers believe that these “others” have The answer. Mates, they are just competitors trying to do one up on the competition. People will go on crusades on behalf of them. Some will not support VST3, just because! :wink:

And again, I have digressed beyond the topic, LOL! I beg your pardon, all.

Anyways, I’ve been a Steinberg customer since Atari ST, so one might put me in the “Steinberg loyalists” category, I suppose. And, apart from a few years (seem to be corresponding around the Pinnacle years), Steinberg has done awesome things for me. As long as they do this, I will use Steinberg. It’s rather comfortable knowing that I am in good hands. And yes, there are alternatives out there, that I can switch to at any time, so can you.

Loving Cubase 6 and impatiently awaits HALion 4! :smiley:

25

Have you ever used a modern controller? With motors, displays, feedback etc?

26

dr wrote

Bear in mind that that FXP still haven’t, and say they never will, update BFD2 to 64bit, despite it being originally released after 64bit OS were beginning to get popular. So his opinions on what is “forward thinking” in software development might not be worth as much as you might think.

I couldn’t agree more. Arrogant and short sighted. They’re out to extract another £99 (just a guess) from existing BFD2 users for an unnecessary and unwanted upgrade to BFD3. Can anyone recommend an alternative?? :imp:

27

Offtopic but toontrack’s sd2 is still the best IMO

28

Thanks dr, I’ll check it out.

29

nonsense - in the time BFD2 has been out Fxpansion have extracted £0 from users whilst in the same period we’ve had 3 Cubase versions!

At a guess you’re looking at over £400 for all that 64bit support AND that wasn’t really stable to begin with, and C6 STILL possesses a very flaky VST bridge that does not even bridge other Steinberg 32bit VST’s properly nevermind anything else!

Steinberg could do with taking a leaf out of Fxpansion’s book - I raise an issue with Cubase and it’s hard to get any sort of response. Fxpansion is a totally different story, if the community cannot help then the developers etc will.

And I would rather pay to upgrade to BFD 3 because I know Fxpansion will nail it - rather than they try the approach by “some” companies who would re-hash BFD2 with 64bit, give it a new GUI look, sell it as BFD3, correct all the things that should have worked in the first place 6mths later in BFD3.5, then rollout BFD4 18mths after that. Sound familiar?

BFD2 has been out so long, simply, cos it rocks.

30

I respect Angus. He makes 2,4 VST adapters to everything else et al.
Nevertheles there was a very embarrassing problem regarding 2.4. CPU scaling.
At low latencies, using VST2 with multicore CPUs, Cubase start to cack like the CPU was at 99,999% usage but the CPU meter was at 65% or less, With VST3 things are a lot different. VST3 takes more juice from all the CPU cores.
Everyone can make a stress test. Set the buffers at 32 samples and compare the cacking with VST3 and legacy, then came back to this thread.
I, as user, that´s the things i care about. The rest is politics, principles and al that righteous BS that increase post count and bore the hell out of a common songwriter wanabee.

31

vladivostok said

And I would rather pay to upgrade to BFD 3 because I know Fxpansion will nail it

BFD2 is unusable in Windows 7 / Cubase 64 bit (without JBridge) so FXpansion have hardly “nailed it”. BFD2 has given me more problems than any other plugin. It’s fantastic - I love it to bits and I don’t want to upgrade - I just want it to be compatible with my o/s and DAW. An upgrade should be about choice, not functionality.

32
  • MR816 is Steinbergs new firewire I/O interface
  • Yamaha Vintage Plug-in Collection supports VST3
  • CC121 is Steinbergs new controller
  • HALion 4 will be an over-worked sampler
    …

There are many developers worked out great tools over years that beat all the Steinberg stuff in quality and usability. The one and only pro point of these Steinberg stuff is that it beats the compatibility and integration to Cubase that a third party programmer could hardly never realize without those insider informations that Steinberg hold back.

It´s a bummer that Steinberg does not support them well with informations.
How great would it be if melodyne could be integrated and used as variaudio.
…

33

Yes. And exactly for motors, displays and feedback, you have a MIDI out option in the Generic Controller, to send those informations to the controller.
Using the USB connection makes no difference with “real” MIDI ports, as the MIDI protocol in both USB and MIDI remains the same.

All the best.

Roger

34

It´s a bummer that Steinberg does not support them well with informations.
How great would it be if melodyne could be integrated and used as variaudio

They do. Look up SDK. It’s a shame that so many VSTi developers save money (and still charge the same prices or even increase them) by not employing any staff to program into new software standards.
I have issues with some of my stuff but I know it’s useless to blame Steinberg when it’s not their issue. I try and waste my time in the right place.
I’m sure Melodyne would charge a lot for the privilege of using software that has also taken a long time, about two years (?), from “release” to a working product.

And maybe third parties are not writing for VST3 because the present incarnations of Cubase FX would show them (agreed not all of them) up. I have known hearing to be affected by higher prices. :mrgreen:

35

Seriously doubt it.

Maybe people are overlooking one part of this. How many hosts mfg’s have adopted VST3 in total? 2? Plugin devs kinda follow host devs don’t they? You can’t use a VST3 plug in a host that doesn’t support VST3?

Some plugin devs apparently don’t see the value in using resources coding something that can only be used in 2 hosts when what they already make can be used across the board in any DAW? When (or if) more hosts become VST3 hosts, I think you’ll see more VST3 plugs. The world doesn’t revolve around Cubendo.

If or when Sonar, Samp, Logic, PT, Reaper, SAW, DP, and similar become “VST3 capable” hosts I think you’ll see more VST3 plugs from the smaller vendors. If not, probably not.

So… say I’m a sharp coding guy who is gonna start writing some new plugs, my first plugs. Why would I waste time on a format that can only be loaded into 2 companies products when the other loads into them all?

If VST3 is failing it’s because 3 years later major hosts still haven’t adopted it?

Put it this way… if Steinberg removed all of the dongle protection from all their stock VST3 Cubase instruments and audio plugs… where else would you be able to use them?

36

I doný agree with AudioCave reasoning.
First, there is alot of VST3 plugs already. Second, how many hosts support RTAS and AU? Third, how long took to some of the mentioned hosts to adopt VST2 directly?
IKM , NI, Line 6 and UAD are the only major brands i miss to port their plugs to VST3.

37

When you develop a VST3 plug-in you get the VST2.4 and AU version automatically. This is a pretty big point in this whole discussion, which a lot of people seem to miss or not understand.

So, by supporting VST3, the older formats could very easily be available automatically.

Not the world, naturally, but VST is governed by Steinberg.

What does the “dongle protection” have to do with where you can use a plug-in?

38

I fully agree with Audiocave.

A lot of small developers don’t even bother about VST3, and they won’t do so until VST3 becomes the new standard protocol in the market. And one cannot deny VST3 is not as widely spread as VST2.4 is.

PSP, Voxengo, Stillwell, Cytomic The Glue, Soundtoys and many small developers that do great sounding plugins at a fair price or even for free (Sonimus, Sknote, Variety of Sound, etc.) don’t use VST3 protocol and don’t plan to do so until more DAWS use VST3.

Steinberg had a schedule to release VST3 format, but obviously lots of developers didn’t had the same schedule.

So it’s up to Steinberg to intensify there communication / marketing / information towards the market, because a lot of developers don’t see any advantage in porting to VST3 plug ins that already work fine in VST2.4 format. And a lot of DAW manufacturers don’t see any advantage neither.

So what’s the advantage of VST3 ?

Using sidechain ? Developers will answer that there plug ins already do the sidechain thing, it’s only SB that hasn’t implemented this feature for VST2.4 plugs in Cubendo.

So what is it that great about VST3 ? The way Cubase displays the plug in list in Cubase’s ‘inserts’ menu ? Is that supposed to be the reason the market is going to massively move to VST3 ?

I heard that VST3 is more CPU efficient but is that really a huge step forward regarding what’s going on with VST 2.4 ?

What are the reasons that would motivate developers and DAW manufacturers to adopt the VST3 format? It’s up to Steinberg to bring the answer.

39

:slight_smile: It was just an analogy to having to (for example) plug in your dongle to use something like “Test Generator” from Cubase in another DAW… which you have to do. To say… as an analogy…

“If Cubase’s VST3 plugs had no protection at all most people wouldn’t be able to use them outside of Cubase anyway since there aren’t many VST3 hosts.”

That’s how small the market is. Devs can make all the VST3 plugs they want but without a VST3 host they’re useless to the vast majority of the market… the VST3 versions… since (afaik) there’s only 2 VST3 hosts, Cubendo and Studio One?

So I assume some devs just think, “why even bother at this point”? I mean, shouldn’t the hosts go first in this case?

40

I heard that VST3 is more CPU efficient but is that really a huge step forward regarding what’s going on with VST 2.4 ?

Yes it is.
Everybody can do the test on a multicore CPU.
Set your soundcard to the lowest latency available and start loading any vst2, then listen to when you start hearing artifacts such as crackling. Read the CPU meter.
Do the same with any VST3 plug. It starts to go crazy a lot later. It doesn’t hit 99,9% CPU usage but perhaps 85. With VST2 at 32 samples you get lucky with 60%.