VST3 Support!

Share what you’d like to see added to Ableton Live.
damien6
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2009 7:52 pm

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by damien6 » Fri May 18, 2018 2:04 pm

Steinberg is doing away with VST2 completely.
Late 2013 we announced that the Software Development Kit (SDK) for VST 2 would no longer be maintained and would only be available as subset of the VST 3 SDK. Five years down the line and this transitional phase is now also coming to an end.

From October 2018 onward we are closing down the second version of VST for good. While the VST 2 SDK has been unavailable, and so have maintenance and technical support, the subset within the VST 3 SDK will also be omitted.

VST 2 compatibility with Steinberg VST hosts will remain, however, we recommend to root for the latest version of VST. VST 2 was introduced in 1999 and since then the technology has evolved dramatically. Since 2008, the SDK for the third iteration of VST, VST 3, has been available and since then efforts are focused entirely on the further development of VST 3.

“We appreciate that developers and users alike gravitate strongly toward the VST 3 interface that comes with many technological advancements. By bidding farewell to VST 2, we hope to offer everyone a clear direction,” comments Yvan Grabit, technology lead at Steinberg.
https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandeve ... -4727.html

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Stromkraft » Fri May 18, 2018 3:15 pm

damien6 wrote:Steinberg is doing away with VST2 completely.
I think this means very little in practice. I think mostly Steinberg are to blame for the slow adaption of VST3. They should have made it an open standard instead.
Make some music!

Sleeper0013
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 12:17 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Sleeper0013 » Mon May 28, 2018 8:01 am

Seriously...yes.. aside from 5.1 surround sound this just makes sense.

ohthepain
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:06 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by ohthepain » Sat Feb 02, 2019 11:30 am

Stromkraft wrote:
damien6 wrote:Steinberg is doing away with VST2 completely.
I think this means very little in practice. I think mostly Steinberg are to blame for the slow adaption of VST3. They should have made it an open standard instead.
What this means is that nobody can develop new plugins for Ableton unless they downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available.

pottering
Posts: 1800
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:41 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by pottering » Sat Feb 02, 2019 5:32 pm

ohthepain wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:
damien6 wrote:Steinberg is doing away with VST2 completely.
I think this means very little in practice. I think mostly Steinberg are to blame for the slow adaption of VST3. They should have made it an open standard instead.
What this means is that nobody can develop new plugins for Ableton unless they downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available.

Every dev that has a VST2 version of their plugins (pretty much all of them) already downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available, obviously.

Most new devs without a released product also downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available, signs point Steinberg was overloaded with license requests and couldn't even keep up with demand.

Mac users (about 50% of the market) can use AU, which is pretty much guaranteed to become the Mac plugin standard if VST2 on Mac really dies off.

You can load VST3 plugins inside Max For Live already.

There are VST3 wrappers like DDMf Bridgewize, Blue Cat's PatchWork, and SigMod.

People can make Max For Live devices instead of VST2.

New developers can simply ally with another developer that has the VST2 license and SDK.

Steinberg may not even enforce the license, as it could be really bad for their reputation depending on who they try to shut down.

Steinberg is NOT even "doing away with VST2 completely", their hosts (Cubase, Nuendo, etc.) still load VST2, they don't have the guts to remove it from their hosts, another sign VST2 will remain the real standard for a while.
♥♥♥

ohthepain
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:06 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by ohthepain » Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:18 am

pottering wrote:
ohthepain wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:
I think this means very little in practice. I think mostly Steinberg are to blame for the slow adaption of VST3. They should have made it an open standard instead.
What this means is that nobody can develop new plugins for Ableton unless they downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available.

Every dev that has a VST2 version of their plugins (pretty much all of them) already downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available, obviously.

Most new devs without a released product also downloaded the VST2 SDK while it was still available, signs point Steinberg was overloaded with license requests and couldn't even keep up with demand.

Mac users (about 50% of the market) can use AU, which is pretty much guaranteed to become the Mac plugin standard if VST2 on Mac really dies off.

You can load VST3 plugins inside Max For Live already.

There are VST3 wrappers like DDMf Bridgewize, Blue Cat's PatchWork, and SigMod.

People can make Max For Live devices instead of VST2.

New developers can simply ally with another developer that has the VST2 license and SDK.

Steinberg may not even enforce the license, as it could be really bad for their reputation depending on who they try to shut down.

Steinberg is NOT even "doing away with VST2 completely", their hosts (Cubase, Nuendo, etc.) still load VST2, they don't have the guts to remove it from their hosts, another sign VST2 will remain the real standard for a while.
I don't understand your points here. Making Max For Live devices instead of VST2, to "simply ally with another developer", to expect your users to use a wrapper doesn't fix anything.

I want my DAW to support new developers. I paid a lot of money for this DAW and expect it to support new developers. That's perfectly reasonable. It's up to Ableton of course what they want to support. But they should (and do) know what many people will not be happy that they have decided not to support the latest standard. I don't know why they made this decision. But as a user I am pissed about this new fragmentation. I have never used AU don't want to spend my time switching and then switching back when Ableton does finally support VST3.

Phende
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:29 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Phende » Wed Feb 06, 2019 12:13 pm

VST3 is in 10.1 beta. Yeepee !

Jrel
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:17 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Jrel » Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:37 pm

**cries tears of joy**

Machinesworking
Posts: 11408
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Machinesworking » Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:18 pm

The beta adds a lot of cool stuff, downloading!
I'm curious, about VST3 and it's supposed ability to relinquish CPU back to the host when not being used.
If that works as advertised it's a great things for DAWs like Live, Bitwig and MPC2 which all use a lot of CPU.
8)

Machinesworking
Posts: 11408
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Machinesworking » Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:19 pm


torbenscharling
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:29 am

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by torbenscharling » Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:31 pm

Sorry but can I say something?

THAT WAS ABOUT GODDAMN TIME.

Machinesworking
Posts: 11408
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:41 am

torbenscharling wrote:
Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:31 pm
Sorry but can I say something?

THAT WAS ABOUT GODDAMN TIME.
We will see. VST3 came to my other main squeeze DP10, and almost none of them pass plug in evaluation, which Live doesn't really do, or at least not as strenuously.

U-He reports that their plug ins will not take MIDI learn, until something changes in the VST3 spec, whenever Steinberg get around to it.. this is a 10 year old tech. Anyway I'm about to mess around specifically in Live 10 with VST3's on my system that failed DP10's evaluation, just to see what's up.. :arrow:

Machinesworking
Posts: 11408
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:43 am

So most that pass in Live are working, but a lot of the holy grails of VST3 aren't there. No fault of Ableton's.

VST3 was supposed to bring resizable GUI's which happened in VST2 anyway, but any GUI not resizable in VST2 is not getting it in VST3. At least here.

VST3 is supposed to release CPU back to the host when a plug has no MIDI or audio going through it. There's still a significant 'resting CPU use' to VST3's no less than the similar plug in as VST2.

Finally manufacturers that made only AU and VST3 versions would allow someone who wanted to only use VST could use the VST3 version.
That's kinda true for me, Cakewalk VST3's are half working, Rapture Pro is hard crashing Live 10 every time. Z3ta+2 seems to work fine though.

I haven't tried it in Live yet because Live doesn't have a plug in manager, but in DP10 anyway, VST2 and VST3 are note compatible to the host, i.e. if you disable the VST2 version DP10 does not find the VST3 version and use it instead.


I think it's pretty obvious from all this why there wasn't a rush to adoption on VST3, but hopefully that changes in the future if/when the promises to us and developers (VST3 coding was supposed to get almost all the way there to AU AAX etc.), finally emerges.

[jur]
Site Admin
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Re: VST3 Support!

Post by [jur] » Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:46 pm

Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:43 am
I think it's pretty obvious from all this why there wasn't a rush to adoption on VST3, but hopefully that changes in the future if/when the promises to us and developers (VST3 coding was supposed to get almost all the way there to AU AAX etc.), finally emerges.
I 200% agree! And now we're good for mountains of users complains for the next few years. You guys wanted vst3 so hard...
Ableton Forum Moderator

Machinesworking
Posts: 11408
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: VST3 Support!

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Feb 25, 2019 6:31 pm

[jur] wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:46 pm
Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:43 am
I think it's pretty obvious from all this why there wasn't a rush to adoption on VST3, but hopefully that changes in the future if/when the promises to us and developers (VST3 coding was supposed to get almost all the way there to AU AAX etc.), finally emerges.
I 200% agree! And now we're good for mountains of users complains for the next few years. You guys wanted vst3 so hard...
Yeah, to be fair though, if you didn't have any VST3 hosts before you wouldn't know that a VST2 plug in using 5% CPU just sitting there instantiated is going to still use 5% CPU just siting there as a VST3. According to the specs it's not supposed to, but it seems following specs on VST3 is a big plate of pain and suffering for any host besides Cubase, and all plug in developers.
To me it's a stark reminder of the problems that you run into when standards are not an effort developed by a community. MIDI is horrible and wonderful at the same time, but it works the same across the entire range of plug in and DAWs, nothing about it is proprietary. What we have in universal plug ins is AU made by a specific computer company and VST, made by a specific DAW developer. There's also AAX, developed for one DAW..
VST2 is the most universal, but VST3 came out the door with issues that have developers like FXPansion refusing to ever support it. We're in a Limbo, VST3 seems fine, just not any better than VST2, barring some catch up with AU.

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