are you suggesting that VST3 is less buggy than VST2 ?
You don’t know how progress works in iT, better ask what’s new in C++ and C# and why there is no updates for VST2
Steinberg created VST2 and VST3. Your favorite plugin developer always had alternative ways.
Go and ask your favorite developer to update VST2 Plugin to VST3, there is so much Ego with your old projects that you will NEVER EVER OPEN AGAIN 
I think you may be mistaken - but you are welcome to believe what you want.
you do know that VST2 supports Atmos just fine ?
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I have worked as a developer for many years and I think I have a fair degree of insight into maintaining multiple versions of code and supporting legacy protocols.
For instance, the code in Cubase for supporting VST2 must of course have been written many many years ago, so that code does not have to be rewritten. Sure you would have to test both VST2 and VST3 support before each release of Cubase but VST2 is the simpler of the two protocols. I highly doubt it could cost that much money to make it a big problem if you do it in a clever way.
Also, regarding those arguing that the VST2 standard is old. What does it really matter if the standard is old if it works? It works. And it works very well. The Win32 API is also old, but I don’t see Microsoft abandoning it anytime soon. Do you intend to stop speaking English anytime soon, just because it is old? Software does not age the way a car ages. Just because you have done something for a long time in a certain way, it does not automatically mean it can no longer be done and must be abandoned. I hope you get my point.
I can understand perfectly well why Steinberg wants to promote the VST3 standard and demand that all new commercial VST-products be based only on the VST3 standard, but I think that is already how it is. We are already there. That seems reasonable. But to stop all old VST2 plugins from working is a different thing.
The fact that a lot of really good VST2 plugins (I own several of the ones mentioned in this thread) won’t work anymore in Cubase means people will start to look for workarounds and alternatives. In my own humble opinion, VST’s are far more important than the DAW itself. I would rather switch DAW than be forced to stop using my favourite plugins. To expect ALL customers to stop using plugins they find really useful seems a little bit naive and maybe a little overconfident. I don’t think it will happen, except of course in a few special cases - as we have seen confessed here.
One thing Steinberg could do for their users would be to create an official VST2-to-VST3 wrapper plugin. That way all VST2 plugins could continue to work inside a VST3 plugin and Cubase (for instance) would not even know it was running VST2 plugins. Such plugins already exist and are made by other companies, so why not make an official Steinberg wrapper plugin? Seems like a fair thing to do.
An even better thing to do would be to continue to support VST2 in their DAWs, even if they drop support in all their plugins. My suggestion for Steinberg would be to keep VST2 support in DAWs forever, but stop supporting it in their plugins.
Some VST2 plugins made by other developers years ago are not maintained anymore. Some because the developer has died or retired. Who is supposed to convert that plugin? Should they come back from the grave?
I would not be surprised if Steinberg loses more in sales than they save in developer costs with this move.
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Why you act like you already have problems? You got fake pregnancy but how this happend with a man using VST2 in his projects? You already crashed by an announcement? Calm down you have 24 months!!!
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^^^ you’ve said the much better than I have
thanks for your insight - I shall certainly take your comments onboard
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Tell me, what’s important, host or indie-developer with plugin that your friends never used?
Host or Plugin? The answer is Host. Everything else is just an addition and this is not Steinberg problem they give you 24 months to migrate from VST2 to VST3. Take a time!
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That it works well is ‘obviously’ not the point. The point is that because it is very old and because VST3 has been around for many years and because there now is another 24 months before VST2 is dropped developers have had a lot of time to move their software to VST3. That is I think the point.
Whether or not plugins are more important than the DAW is highly dependent on the user. I use Nuendo for a living for post production mainly for TV, and the only time I buy plugins is when they provide something that Nuendo doesn’t. There are a ton of things Nuendo (and therefore Cubase) does extremely well. The EQs, compressors and limiters are all great for the work I do and I don’t need 3rd party software for that.
Now, for everything else once I decide to buy something I have to ask myself what company I’m buying for and if it’s a good investment. The truth is that some are better than others. And part of a good company to me as a working engineer is that they’re responsive to changes and update their software accordingly. So if I was using a VST2 plugin and the maker of it doesn’t intend to port it over to VST3 within these 24 months then I’ll just find something else. Porting it over shouldn’t be that big of a deal and the company has had plenty of time to do so.
As for switching to another DAW; honestly, I really don’t see how the net value of switching is going to be positive. At this point there doesn’t seem to be any DAW out there that is better than Cubase/Nuendo. Different yes, better no. So it means that apart from possibly having to spend money to switch I’d also have to learn a new DAW, and time is money. So how is this a net positive compared to just getting a 3rd party wrapper or picking a different plugin moving forward.
And lastly, I don’t think Steinberg is expecting all customers to stop using plugins that are VST2, I think Steinberg is expecting a lot of current companies to finally make their VST2 plugins available as VST3. Until now they haven’t had to. Moving forward their best option might be to update them.
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hi Ismail - hope you don’t mind but I’m just going to pop you on my ignore list if that’s ok ?
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Hope you will find alternatives for your favorite plugins
Would you be terribly unhappy if they kept support for VST2 in Cubase?
In all seriousness this is a question that’s virtually impossible to answer if there are tradeoffs. Because if we assume that what Steinberg said is true, that there are benefits to leaving VST2 behind, then how would you know if you’d be more unhappy or happy?
Because if Steinberg keeps VST2 for all time then you won’t know what the benefits you would have gotten were. And if they move ahead as planned and get rid of it then again we won’t know how much worse it would have been with VST2 left in.
So we can’t answer the question.
If ditching VST2 makes Cubase and Nuendo more stable or Steinberg’s development of new features faster or better then I’m fine with replacing any VST2 plugins I currently use (I don’t think there are any).
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That it works well is ‘obviously’ not the point.
I think it is relevant to this discussion if it works well. If it didn’t work well nobody would care to defend the continued support for it.
I understand they have given 24 months notice. My point is that I think it was a bad idea from the beginning - regardless of how much notice they gave.
I don’t expect my opinion to likely change anything. Steinberg will do as they please. Maybe they will reconsider though if they start losing customers, but by then it could also be too late.
Take a look at these statistics:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0236w8
If I had a company with these statistics I would try to do something to increase interest in my products and not the other way around.
I use Nuendo for a living for post production mainly for TV, and the only time I buy plugins is when they provide something that Nuendo doesn’t.
I can understand your point of view very well then. If you were a producer or songwriter using that special third party synth VST to create some special sound you really like maybe you would feel differently though.
Of course, it would be great if all those VST companies started supporting VST3, but for as long as they don’t… I don’t know. If 80% of Cubase users would have to stop using several VSTs they have depended on for inspiration for years, will that really be appreciated by these users? I think not. And then, as I mentioned, you have those products where the company who made the VST no longer exists. You cannot just replace a VST-synth with any other VST-synth. Maybe you have synth patches that you could no longer use if you switch synth.
Just because Steinberg decides on something does not automatically mean it is the best thing for their customers. I can absolutely empathize with the fact that many users will be negatively affected by this decision. The enforced restriction of choice is usually not something people appreciate.
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ouch
Many times Steinberg has asked is users what it wants in their product and 99% of the time that has been ignored.
Steinberg isn’t a democracy but if it alienates it’s long term user base then I can’t see that being beneficial to the company as a whole ?
We all well aware that VST2 is older technology in SBs eyes, like analog synths or valve compressors - but we have software that works well - better than the alternatives in many cases- and Steinberg is removing that functionality. It seems to me there are ways to deal with this situation that doesn’t impede continued tech innovation or spoil the experience for users that don’t use VST2 plugins - let’s see if they care enough to listen.
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Of course, but what I was responding to was why people pointed out how old VST2 is. One doesn’t exclude the other.
Ok, so the same applies to:
Apple/Logic (22% of peak interest),
Avid/Pro Tools (22%),
Cockos Reaper (5%!!!) and
Presonus/Studio One (25%).
They all have trendlines that drop. . It really tells us virtually nothing.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I’ve seen people still on Cubase 9. So let’s just say that it’s a decent guess that 5 years is how long a version of Cubase can function. Roughly wo years from now we’d see the last version of Cubase with VST2 support then.
That would bring us from 2022+2+5= the year 2029.
I think it’s another fair guess to say that if users can still use their old VST2 instruments and plugins in 2029 we’re not in a bad spot here. Add wrappers and who knows, they may function until they kick the bucket.
We really should see this in a perspective of who we’re talking about. For hobbyists I get that this is a nuisance. For creators that really are artists or professionals different standards need to apply. You have to protect your work in a reasonable manner. If you’re a content creator then freeze the workstation one way or another. If you treat VST instruments as vintage synthesizers then treat the whole computer that way. The risk is obvious. But if you choose that path it is what it is. And we’ve known that to be the case for at least two decades now.
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This is not at all a meaningful measurement.
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See above.
But let’s think about this for a second… take Steinberg as a company and consider how many people work there. Add up all that programmers have to work on, from OS compatibility to security to bug fixes to improved functionality to new functionality. That’s a pretty wide range of work they need to address.
Now take the number of Cubase users out there that make feature requests. Take all of those requests and consider just how many can be addressed within any given ‘cycle’. Say you have 10 programmers and 1,000 user requests, that’s 100 requests per programmer - in addition to all the other things I mentioned. If each programmer can create one new feature per cycle then that’s 1% of all requests.
I don’t necessarily think that’s the case, but I also don’t think “99% of the time that has been ignored” is true either.
And let’s be honest - I’ll take myself as an example - sometimes we complain about things more than is reasonable - and we might even find out that we were wrong about it. I whined and moaned about the new Control Room look because in my mind it looked wrong and was just annoying. Steinberg basically said “nope” and that was that. They listened to me and disagreed. I happen to think that they were right and I was wrong, and in the process I was pretty damn annoying (sorry).
Then there was VCAs in Nuendo. I caused a big stink again and most of the issues (not all) were resolved. That time what I said made more sense, so they fixed it (mostly). It is now usable.
And then there was the time when I suggested user profiles that stored a bunch of preferences etc. so that a multi-user setup could be more personalized. It was a quick request, I didn’t push it, I forgot about it, it wasn’t that important to me, but all of a sudden it appeared. I said virtually nothing about it when it came out.
So there really is a wide range between complaints and requests and then positive feedback, and between what’s reasonable and unreasonable. I just don’t think that it’s as bad as you make it out to be considering how great Cubase and Nuendo are today.
No company is perfect.
Steinberg surely isn’t bad though.
in what sense isn’t it meaningful ? Obviously it doesn’t tell the entire story but it’s certainly an interesting statistic
to give context