Is VST3 worth it?

[DarkStar]

OK, so VST3 is a new improved (and still improving?) plug-in specification.

For VST3 to be of any benefit to users:
(a) the DAW host must support its functionality,
(b) the plug-ins must make use of that functionality.

So my questions are:

• Q1: what aspects of the VST3 new / changed functionality does (<insert name here> DAW support?
• Q2: what aspects of the VST3 new / changed functionality does (<insert name here> plug-in implement?

After all, a developer could take a VST2 plug-in, build it into the VST3 format, without adding any support for the new /changed functions, but it would still be a VST3 plug-in.

Or, have I missed the point?

Please reply only with specific answer to Q1 or Q2 or both, to avoid clutter.
(Also posted in "Instruments" viewtopic.php?f=1&t=527114).

[PeterP_swe]

Not that new really. VST 3.0 came out in 2008.

Q1: Steinberg list what they feel are new additions in version 3 here: https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/te ... /vst3.html

Any host that support version 3 supports everything listed there, as far as I know.

[Burillo]

a lot of the "new" stuff was already possible with VST2, it's just that Cubase didn't support it properly. they had to invent an entire new standard to avoid fixing their own fking DAW.

[AnX]

to me, its of no value

[Tj Shredder]

It would be of great value if developers would understand the benefits. Bitwig does, but most plug-in devs don‘t. Namely expressions. For example in a VST3 DAW, the pitch variation can be assigned to a note as pitch. Modulating the pitch with Midi pitch bend creates a trap. The instrument has to be set to a corresponding range, which can and will be easily mismatched. A proper VST3 just listens to the pitch curve, no missmatch possible... The resolution of expressions is way higher than 7/14 bit...
As long developers just wrap their VST2 into a VST3 nothing is gained...

[Daimonicon]

And if you use Cubase 9.5 at least it will black list vst2 plugins automaticly.

[jancivil]

• Q1: what aspects of the VST3 new / changed functionality does (<insert name here> DAW support?
• Q2: what aspects of the VST3 new / changed functionality does (<insert name here> plug-in implement?

What I use and would never want to go back from is Cubase/Nuendo supports VST3 while Vienna Ensemble Pro's VST3 plugin provides for up to 48 MIDI ports. That is 48 x 16 channels if unclear.

VST3 plugins may be suspended as to resources used when not called on, additionally.

Non-VST3 hosts would tend to not be able to apply CC or pitch to individual notes in a part. (Cubendo applies this to VST2.4 instruments, which seems to be largely unknown around here.)

[jancivil]

"Modulating the pitch with Midi pitch bend creates a trap. The instrument has to be set to a corresponding range, which can and will be easily mismatched."

I don't understand you. The instrument may be restricted to, eg., two semitones +/- by design. Some are restricted to no pitch bend possible, for that matter. In this case, pitch bend is the very same 14-bit, 8192 +/- as anything else.
So you do the division, the instrument which does 12 wouldn't match the one which does 2 by definition in pitch bend lane or any other format, pitch wheel on a controller or hardware synth. There is no setting it differently in the DAW, there is just different math in sending the instructions. If the instrument can only ever do +/- one tone, there is no help for that thru VST3.5. What am I missing
Bitwig does have this one advantage, it tells you the range you're doing in semitones in the display (doesn't mean much to me, I'm entrained to see '4096' and know, and I do a lot of subtler things). But, in one part you have one instrument with its actual defined range in the instrument so I'm unable to grasp this magic, let alone of extra-MIDI pitch bend which I never heard of.
In Note Expression, it's MIDI Pitch Bend.

Pitch bend lane vs pitch bend via Note Expression is literally trapped, however, such as stretching it is terribly restricted in the former and not in the latter.

[reggie1979]

to me, its of no value

Ditto, mostly. SOME vst's require the 3 to have presets. Though I think this is lame, MCDSP and others I can't remember are this way. But by and large I don't care about sidechaining and just save the presets in host fashion.

Also, it's kind a PITA when you have both vst2 and vst3, though sometimes it's necessary when one or the other doesn't work.

[reggie1979]

BTW, 2008? 11 years later and there are only a few hosts that truly support this standard? What a mess.

[AnX]

its not a standard tho, its just a poorly implemented interpretation

[Scotty]

And if you use Cubase 9.5 at least it will black list vst2 plugins automaticly.

I think you are thinking of 32 bit plugins.... VST2 plugins are not black listed in cubase 9.5 or 10 only 32bit plugins are automatically black listed which would then require a 64 bit wrapper like jBridge in order to work.

[reggie1979]

Yeah, when I used 9.5 I didn't have anything blacklisted.

[jancivil]

its not a standard tho, its just a poorly implemented interpretation

If what you want to say is VST3 is a poorly implemented interpretation of VST2, it is actually not that thing; there are features which do not otherwise exist. VST3.5 Note Expression is a standard.

People use the features. Some plugins - 3rd party - behave oddly in my experience. They broke their own Frequency as far as showing spectrum in audio editors somewhere along the line, which is very irritating. It was implemented fine at first

At one point Vienna Suite plugins would do nothing to ranges in the audio part editor [VST 2 or 3], my primary use of such, but I kvetched about it and a couple months pass and they fixed it.

[Forgotten]

Pretty much all major DAWs support it now (obviously excluding those that don't use VST format at all), and while uptake has been slow, at some point it will become the de facto VST standard, especially as Steinberg has now deprecated VST2.