I think the big fear seems to be a combination of things.
It’s not just phasing out VST2 that has some people nervous. It’s the ‘combination’ of a new licensing system happening at the same time.
If a few releases under the new licensing system still support VST2, then everyone has a way to upgrade, but also roll back (dongle free) to a point where all of our stuff works. Archivists will be fine then (even when dongles start to wear out and no longer work). People with thousands of hours of elaborate templates for older VST2 stuff that lags behind in getting a fully featured VST3 plugin still have a way to keep working, while also continuing to ‘update/upgrade’ and ‘migrate’ a workflow that doesn’t depend on old VST2 plugins.
Personally, I think Steinberg has us covered, they always have in the past, so why would they stop now? Communication on this has been kind of blunt though. Then the rumor mill kicks in and people start wondering if they’ll be able to update to 12, or be stuck here with 11, and in the realm of HALion 6 for years to come. Questions come to mind like, “How long can I keep using HALion with Sibelius, and still take updates/upgrades?”
I’m assuming that’s directed at me - considering the times you have banned me ? You’ve already made it clear to me that you don’t appreciate criticism of ANY kind - even when it is well founded. I defy anyone to look through my posts and see when I have said anything unreasonable.
Personally I don’t believe anything I have written isn’t constructive or respectful - but bear in mind this is a user forum so we are going to give our own opinion.
I’ve been with Steinberg since the very beginning - I have licences (multiple !) for more or less your entire product range. I’ve paid to upgrade EVERY version of your software since the Atari days. I believe that entitles me to an opinion. Even if it’s one you don’t like.
Steinberg are not infallible - they make mistakes, like we all do.
Ditto, Pro 24 or whatever it was called on Atari ST.
I didn’t see anyone get sarcastic, non-constructive, nor personal.
We just get a little passionate about a decade or more worth of templates and project archives. It really is representative of thousands of hours of work. We want to salvage as much of that work as we can, while ALSO taking updates and having access to new tech.
We can always ‘stick with what works for us’ and stop taking the updates, but someday the dongles won’t work anymore (they might even stop putting ports on the computers that can take them), and at some point the servers that hold dongle related keys will come down as well?
As well as the stability improvements with VST3 only, are there any other benefits in regards to DAW functions?
It seems a lot of the core MIDI functions within Cubase relate to MIDI CC mappings, such as MIDI Inserts and the Piano roll lower controller lanes.
Does moving to VST3 only improve the chances of those areas being updated to support VST3 parameters in the future? i.e. so we don’t have to rely on first mapping a CC message in a plugin to control it via either source.
Mac users will need a PC. or an old Mac with dated OS, and a dongle to get into their old projects now? They should get at least ONE solid release under the new dongle-free licensing system that can still do VST2. Or, a good bridge of some sort that’s good enough to at least get things open and write down the dials and numbers on a piece of paper. After that point, sure, phase it out.
If it were not for the licensing scheme change, I wouldn’t be here typing and making so much noise. The phase out of VST2 would be no big deal. It’s easy enough to moves some things around on the drive and roll back in order to work with old projects.
I say ‘solid release’…if that means just making 11, and whatever the last one was that can open the old ALL format songs (SX?) compatible with the new licensing system…that’s better than nothing, and it would be enough for me to keep taking paid updates on Steinberg goodies.
On the plugins like HALion and Groove Agent. I think it’s a mistake to cut out VST2 releases just yet. Hosts like Sibelius and Finale have barely entered the 64bit realm, let alone VST3. Their small staff spends 90% of their time just hacking things so it will work with APPLE products. We might get one or two features a year, the rest of their time is devoted to fixing everything APPLE BREAKS.
With that I’ll stop posting for a while on this thread. I never meant to ‘hijack it’, but things kept coming to mind that I didn’t say ‘before’ already.
I think it’s covered now.
I love Steinberg, want to keep progressing with them. Just need those back-doors to still get into and use ‘old projects’ until I can ‘learn the new stuff’ and ‘migrate things where possible’.
That can take a LONG TIME when we start considering 600 line expression maps that go with a VSTi that might not get ‘full’ VST3 support (back to the level that we currently are with VST2) anytime soon.
We are definitely looking into several direction for improving the overall DAWxPlug-in experience in Cubase. Of course, sandboxing is an interesting topic. But it’s not something that can just be switched on considering the impact on the performance when dealing with projects with 1,000+ tracks like some of our customers in the composers community.
The whole concept of MIDI Inserts or CC automation is also interesting in a broader context of “Event” handling in Cubase and we have a lot of ideas in that direction.
There will be still VST2 support in the Rosetta 2 mode on Apple silicon systems. It just won’t be available in the native mode.
Again, I think from his perspective this may be valid, but you have to keep in mind that it’s a different situation for plug-in manufactures that deal with a couple of hosts and DAWs that have to deal with hundreds of different plug-in manufactures and thousands of plug-ins. And as a matter of fact Cubase is not the only DAW that appreciates the benefits of VST3 over VST2.
What worries me is the problem mentioned about midi out handling. I use SD3 midi out all the time so it would be a massive thing for me if they have to drop this feature because vst3 doesn’t support it. In fact why doesn’t vst3 support this as vsti midi out is requested in plugins from lots of people. Surely this alone is a retrograde step?
I think it should be possible. No idea if your particular plugin of question will retain it, but should be doable?
Groove Agent 4 and 5 do MIDI out when hosted as a VST3.
I.E. The output for each kit can be routed into MIDI tracks and then sent wherever you like, or directly to instrument tracks. Examples: Send it to a different plugin. Record the output. Route what it’s doing to fancy lit MPC pads that’ll flash along to what’s being played. Send it to a virtual MIDI port to get it into some other APP.
I also have at least one VST3 plugin where I can directly choose a physical or virtual MIDI port from inside the plugin and send stuff. In this case, MTC time code (I use it in Dorico to sync up with Cubase).
VST3 actually supports MIDI Out. The functionality is there but its implementation is quite different from VST2. Here is a list of my VST3 instruments supporting MIDI Out:
I just want to reiterate one thing so it’s really clear in case others don’t understand it. Manufacturers supporting VST3 is most cases does not mean you can open your older projects using the VST2 version of that plugin with a host that only supports VST3. And this is because the majority of companies are doing a completely independent version of their plugin in VST3 (with different UIDs) which won’t automatically take over when the VST2 plugin dissappears.
I’ve just gone through my setup and here are the manufacturers that have created completely independent verisons of their plugins for the VST3 format:
Access Music
Spectrasonics
u-he
Cableguys
D16 Group
DMG Audio
FabFilter
MeldaProduction
Voxengo
I think there are only 2 - 3 manufacturers for plugins that I use which managed to replace the VST2 version with VST3, Native Instruments is the main one that comes to mind.
This is easy to spot. If you see both a VST2 and VST3 version of a plugin listed in Cubase, then they are completely independent and in those cases, the VST3 version will not take over when VST2 plugin support ends.
Now, whether that’s the manufacturers fault or not, I’m not sure, but whether we like it or not, the first version of Cubase that only supports VST3 will not be capable of loading older projects that use such plugins.
I’m grateful that we will move to the new licensing system before VST2 is dropped so we have some assurance that older projects can be opened in a non-dongled version of Cubase, but there will be a cutoff point where you will need to use an older version of Cubase to open older projects.
I’m really hoping that Cubase 12 also retains ReWire support even though Reason Studios dropped it, because I have heaps of projects that use ReWire and am worried that there will come a day I may not be able to open them again (if my dongle dies and the eLicenser system has been decommed).
There seems to be some confusion on this topic in the context of the VST 2 announcement. Here are some links to the documentation of the SDK with details and examples:
That was going to be one of my back-doors to get unreplaceable VST2 plugins working. If that goes away too, one less option to get into archived sounds.
Also add PSPaudioware and Softube to that list. Some PSP VST 3s are still very problematic, and can make Cubase crash when using several instances (NobleQ for example).
These ones can be included here too:
Eventide
Waves
TAL Togu Audio Line
Tokyo Dawn Labs
I’m also confident that Soundtoys will make it right when they release the VST 3 versions of their plugin catalog they announced a couple of months ago.
