Steinberg announces "VST2 is coming to an end"

[Guy Rowland]

https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandeve ... -4727.html

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.

[catsass]

Ha! I was about to share this info. Thanks for posting.

Any thoughts on this, Guy?

[Guy Rowland]

Ha! I was about to share this info. Thanks for posting.

Any thoughts on this, Guy?

Well, I'm not entirely clear on what it will mean in practice. For the moment, they say that VST2 support in hosts will remain. I suspect it will cause some grief, and be like the 32/64 bit thing all over again when it really bites.

Oh, one other bonus thought - I suspect some enterprising soul will make a VST3 wrapper for VST2 hosts, if they haven't already done so. Still like the idea of that nano-VE Pro style wrapper were were knocking about a few months ago - have the efficiency of VE Pro but all on a plugin-by-plugin basis, and sorta invisible in use. That would be nice to keep hosting VST2 once the DAWs stop supporting it.

[wst3]

It has been a while since I looked at the VST3 SDK, but I believe that wrapper/bridge piece is already part of VST3. We certainly do not need another migration problem!

[tack]

Still like the idea of that nano-VE Pro style wrapper were were knocking about a few months ago - have the efficiency of VE Pro but all on a plugin-by-plugin basis, and sorta invisible in use. That would be nice to keep hosting VST2 once the DAWs stop supporting it.

I haven't forgotten about this, but I do hesitate to start something new I'll never finish. I have a shocking number of those projects already.

The EoL for VST2 was a long time in coming. Hopefully this will incentivize all the main DAWs work out any remaining VST3 niggles, and to bolster support for the new features of VST3.

[EvilDragon]

It'd be nice if Steiny didn't butcher certain good things VST2 had, like MIDI learn and support for Program Change etc.

[Guy Rowland]

Is mid learn not in VST3?!! How come I never came across that....

[tack]

I've seen MIDI learn in VST3 plugins, but I suppose ED means that it's made more inconvenient to implement in VST3?

[Daryl]

Program Changes have been replaced by Program Lists. However, nobody seems to know how to use Program Lists...!

[EvilDragon]

There's no MIDI learn, you have to announce each MIDI CC as an automatable parameter in order to "hack it in". Which, for something like Zebra, is kinda horrid, because Zebra recognizes the originating MIDI channel, so you'd need to reserve 16*128 automation parameters JUST for MIDI learn. This is not progress, Steinberg.


Quote from Urs: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 0#p7073770


"We spoke to Steinberg several times and each time we were discouraged to do this. As we had trouble with VST3 in the past, we wanted to stay "on specs". Hence, no MIDI Learn, even if Steinberg's own offerings violate their own rules."


Heh.

Program Changes have been replaced by Program Lists. However, nobody seems to know how to use Program Lists...!

Maybe documentation is lacking? I remember when Cockos guys were implementing VST3 into Reaper (which wasn't that long ago), schwa said that while VST3 supports sample-accurate automation, there was not a single example in the SDK on how to actually implement it plugin-side (so majority of VST3 plugins released up till then didn't even support that, including Steinberg's own!!). Truly marvellous.

[KyleJudkins]

I suspect reaper users wont be too bad off.

hope other daws are as friendly with those kind of features >.>

[EvilDragon]

Yeah I think all the non-Steinberg users are not going to be too bad off. Hell, Reaper and Sonar still support DirectX plugins, haha. VST2 is not going anywhere. Kinda like MIDI.