Steinberg discontinues support for VST2 plug-ins

Discussion in 'Software' started by Deceptive, Jan 20, 2022.

  1. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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    Steinberg abuses its market power. It's like Facebook if you don't agree to the terms and conditions you stay out.
     
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  2. hackerz4life

    hackerz4life Audiosexual

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    The arguments about costs of maintenance. There are always maintenance costs.
    Coders get paid by the hour, its not like they have to reinvent VST2, they just put in there, a code that either enables or disables it.
    Everyone has maintenance costs in every business.
    VST2 is not even that old in DAW years. Bicycle has been around for more than 150 years and still functions on the same principle.
    I want progress but not on the acount of flexibility.
     
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  3. Ad Heesive

    Ad Heesive Audiosexual

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    Even though there is beautiful creative engineering design work going on within companies like Steinberg, it is sobering to think that it's also part of the company's planning to figure out how to make what you're currently using obsolete.
    The phrase planned obsolescence was coined during the 1920's and has been regarded as an ethically acceptable commercial imperative ever since. That crap idea is forever being refined, e.g., from 'practical obsolescence' that consumers simply can't contest (stuff that's designed to break sooner than it needs to) into 'perceived obsolescence' for consumers as fools (stuff that's no longer fashionable). You either choose your treadmills carefully, or run like a dumb hamster.
     
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  4. twoheart

    twoheart Audiosexual

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    OK, thanks for the heads up :like:

    Than I won't buy any updates of Steinberg host Apps in the future. In my Case Cubase and Wavelab.
    Its that easy.

    Cubase 11 and Wavelab 10 contain everything I need at present and for the foreseeable future. Major improvements in the workflow are no longer to be expected from Cubase/Wavelab, since Steinberg have successfully avoided real innovations in the UX in the past.

    What I will really need in the future are VST plugins and instruments. But there is no guarantee that all manufacturers will switch to VST3 in the foreseeable future. And some manufacturers can no longer do that, because they no longer exist.
    We had to accept in the past that 32 bit versions of our VST were no longer supported.
    Once again I will not let Steinberg destroy my investment in plugins. Without any real need in this case.

    So if indeed in 24 months no more VST2 are supported, I will "freeze" Cubase on version 11 and Wavelab on Version 10.
    No Cubase 12 or Wavelab 12 here especially on online auth for me. :no:
    And those are versions that can do everything I need, including VST2 and VST3.

    P.S.: Steinberg thinks it can play the monopolist market leader here. But there are plenty alternatives. And if truely needed even an old horse learns new tricks. :bleh:
    I'm curious if they'll keep this up or introduce a compatibility mode in 23 months.
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2022
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  5. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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    The bicycles of that time were not built to wear out and you could repair them yourself. Today there is the concept of planned wear and tear. The owners of Steinberg don't want their investment to make the world a better place, they want a return. How do you achieve high returns? By reducing staff and costs. In India, a software programmer is cheaper and taxes are lower.
     
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  6. hackerz4life

    hackerz4life Audiosexual

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    Steinberg has been ripe for years now for a massive cleanup from Yamaha.
    They will become the CNN of daws.
     
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  7. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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    Yes exactly @hackerz4life, I checked again, not that I miss the next purchase.
    Maybe Google will buy Steinberg and add a search engine to get user data.

    In January 2003, the Steinberg brand was taken over by the US company Pinnacle Systems, where Steinberg
    was able to continue to maintain its Cubase product range largely independently. At the end of 2004,
    Pinnacle announced the sale of Steinberg to Yamaha, which has remained the parent company to date.
     
  8. Xupito

    Xupito Audiosexual

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    I would prefer a new no-nonsense VST4 but seems Steinberg is going like Windows versions.
    Just to be clear, VST3 is Windows Vista :rofl:
     
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  9. demberto

    demberto Rock Star

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    The VST division of Steinberg does this kind of shit all the time. That's why people use JUCE. I just hope CLAP gets more and more successful. If it does, it would very simple to make plugins in any language.

    This might be helpful for wrapping VST3 in VST2
     
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  10. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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    Finally something to laugh about...!

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  11. Deceptive

    Deceptive Audiosexual

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    Guys , with or without VST 2 (The Show Must Go On ):rofl:

     
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  12. dl65875

    dl65875 Kapellmeister

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    Having used Cubase for the whole of my working life (many decades) I am wholly against this for many reasons.

    A lot of small developers simply can not afford to put out VST2 & 3 versions.

    I will stick with Cubase Pro 11 and will not be updating, its that simple for me.

    As a company Steinberg have gone down hill anyway.
     
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  13. 2poor2

    2poor2 Producer

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    As I repeated several times,
    Steinberg keeps on adding more and more products to their catalog, they acquire stuff like spectralayers, etc etc
    ... meanwhile, the number of devs remain the same.
    Devs must code new products... new versions... do the tech support... code/debug alphas... debug betas...have to do 32 bits... 64bits... vst2...vst3... have to support older versions... they have to support different windows versions... Mac versions... aax versions... 32bit...64bit... all that, with dozens of products... and they need to invent new features.
    Dorico...spectralayers...wavelab... halion... cubasis for mobile...groove agent.. cubase.. nuendo...new instruments for halion... etc etc etc. And there's also the hardware support... drivers...the elicenser.... everything must work flawlessly... with everything else.

    Tons of work... but the number of devs has barely changed, since the last 10+ years ! And the eternal Mac updates... the Mac alone must swallow over 60% of all resources, time, etc... and at the end, the Mac sales don't even account for 20% of the overall sales. Such precious wasted resources...!

    Steinberg were able to even release 2 versions of cubase, per YEAR !

    But because they didn't hire many new developers...or maybe NONE,
    they have been trimming the fat...which means less upgrades... less features... less everything.. but higher prices !
    They have been removing all they can, to save resources !
    -only win 10 support (won't be surprised if the Dec 2022 cubase version only supports win11...!!!)
    -no 32bit support
    - only 1 version of cubase per year
    - no resizable guis( funny... vst added the resize option... almost every serious dev has resizable interfaces.. but the inventor of the vst... doesn't ! )

    Is it normal, to have to wait 2..3..4 years, for a new halion upgrade... or groove agent...

    Steinberg brags about 'millions of customers around the world use steinberg products"...
    When the next cubase will be released, they're gonna sell at least 200k upgrades, at an average of 100 euros, that makes 20 million euros.
    Let's say a dev costs steinberg 75k a year. With 1.5 millions, they could hire at least 20 extra devs !
    With those devs, they could release wavelab..halion...groove agent, etc etc upgrades MUCH MUCH FASTER... and make everything more money.

    Can someone please explain this obsession with steinberg, to not hire new coders ? Is it so complicated?
    With the new licensing system, steinberg will probably/ surely acquire another 1 or 2 products.. or companies. Currently, steinberg, and apps like cubase, have 0 AI code. Maybe spectralayers use a bit of AI.. but that's all.
    The future of audio (and pretty much everything else) will intensively use AI. If steinberg don't want to be 10 years behind everybody else, like izotope, etc, they need to invest on the AI... and have 5 or 10 scientists fully dedicated to it.
    Then, there is the gpu processing. A Swiss company, I think, have/are developing vst solutions 100% based on gpu rendering.
    By acquiring such company and tech, steinberg would be several years ahead of the competition.
    With over 10'000 cores, a graphic card like the rtx3090, and clever programming, such card could probably be more powerful , like 5... 10.. or even 20 times more powerful than a modern 16-core cpu...with its 24GB of gddr6x memory, much faster than any ddr4 !

    Again, i don't understand why steinberg doesn't hire many more devs...

    What are they going to remove next ?
    No vst2.4 ? Is it just me, or, most of the time install a vst plugin, VERY OFTEN, there only is a vst 2.4 version... but no sign of vst3...?

    What could they do next, to save resources, money, etc ?
    Release a new halion/groove agent upgrade every 10 years ?
    Stop supporting the ultra expensive, doomed-to-fail CMC controllers ?
    What about stopping the french... Spanish.. Italian.. etc localizations... and only release their products in English, German and Japanese?
    What about only supporting one monitor size and one single resolution?
    What about only supporting the 2 latest versions of cubase? For example, the upcoming v12 pro can only open v11 projects...?

    Meanwhile, a product made and maintained by only 2 guys, called Reaper... can support up to windows xp.... 32bit OS...64bit...vst3... vst2.4... vst2... even DX plugins.... can natively support 32core cpus... can support all kinds of audio interfaces... USB devices... and the list could go on and on and on.

    When we see that, we have the right to ask... steinberg... what the hell is going on ? !!,
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2022
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  14. vuuru_keg

    vuuru_keg Platinum Record

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    hmm abuses its market power? how is it abusing it?
    thats like saying microsoft is abusing its market power when they stop offering updates and support for Windows 7

    name one other globally used plugin format that is cross-platform and cross-daw... there is none.
    its not market power - its literally being the only existing one, and thats not steinberg's problem...
    no one is stopping a developer to develop new plugin format, but he will have to convince everyone else to adapt, which is useless effort

    dont wanna use VST? use pro tools only aax or logic AU lol...
    i dont see the problem with steinberg well known and established VST format in any way possible
     
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  15. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Audiosexual

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    They kept VST2 long enough supported, they removed the SDK around 2016, but developers kept using it.

    I mean VST3 has still not solved how to create a pure MIDI plugin in a very easy way. Simply because Steinberg refuses to touch this object and just has the opinion that the DAW should handle this. But this was also the case with VST2.

    I dont get it why not allow three types of structures:

    FX: Audio to Audio
    Instruments: MIDI to Audio
    MIDI: MIDI to MIDI --- the last one is not alone and you can only get around with cheating abit.

    So its not possible to have cthulhu before a VSt instrument, it just occupies one MIDI channel without any direct MIDI output on that channel.


    thats why we have to create such weird routing for xfers cthulhu.
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2022
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  16. lxfsn

    lxfsn Platinum Record

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  17. grabme

    grabme Kapellmeister

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    Wish they would leave it as it is, been using Cubase for decades and don't want to have to change yet again, last time I had to mess about was 32bit to 64bit which was a PIA.
     
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  18. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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  19. Arabian_jesus

    Arabian_jesus Audiosexual

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    They stopped maintenance of the VST2 SDK and signing of new licenses all the way back in 2013, so this is isn't new. The only thing that has changed now is they removed support for VST2 plug-ins in all of their product range.
     
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  20. BEAT16

    BEAT16 Audiosexual

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    I'm curious about the next few years, Reaper, Studio One and FL Studio will certainly come out on top for engaging the users.
    I believe Steinberg will suffer massive losses in customers.
     
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