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Congrats for making it but it feels like being pushed to do it since CLAP was brought forward quite successfully [1] [1] https://u-he.com/community/clap/ https
by keyle 1y ago
Congrats for making it but it feels like being pushed to do it since CLAP was brought forward quite successfully [1]
[1] https://u-he.com/community/clap/ https://u-he.com/community/clap/
- Polarity 1y agoclap is way better
- codedokode 1y agoClap doesn't allow describing plugin in a manifest (like VST3 and LV2 do). This allows to scan for plugins faster. Also, CLAP uses 3 or 4 methods to represent MIDI data (MIDI1, MIDI1 + MPE, MIDI2, CLAP events). This requires to write several converters when implementing a host. But, CLAP is much simpler and doesn't use COM-like system (VST3 resembles a Windows COM library with endless interfaces and GUIDs). Also, VST3 interfaces in SDK are described as C++ classes with virtual functions (example: [1]), and I wonder how do they achieve portability, if the layout for such classes (vtables) is not standardized and may differ across compilers. [1] https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3_pluginterfaces/blob/31d6eeba6daaa3e2a8bfbe3e7a90ca0b7fbfbc1c/vst/ivstaudioprocessor.h#L259 https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3_pluginterfaces/blob/3...
- Zoadian 1y agothey are com classes. the vtable layout for them is specified.
- debugnik 1y agoNot really, VST3's COM-like API just uses virtual methods, they don't guarantee layout to the same degree actual COM does with compiler support. They simply rely on the platform ABI being standardized enough.
- codedokode 1y agoI don't think GCC has a special case for handling COM classes. However, I found that GCC uses "Itanium CXX ABI" on Linux which specifies vtable layout which accidentally might match the layout of COM classes. However, it is not guaranteered (for example, by C++ standards) that other compilers use the same layout.
- duped 1y agoThe ABI is stable everywhere VST3s are used. It has to be or nothing would work.
- codedokode 1y agoEverything would work except for VST3, if written according to standards.
- duped 1y agoThe ABI isn't covered by C++ standards, it's target and architecture dependent. For the purposes of this discussion that ABI is stable for C++ vtables on the targets and architectures that VST3 supports. If a compiler and linker don't follow those ABIs then it would also be close to useless for compiling or linking against shared libraries. So in the wild, all useful compilers do target the same ABIs. gcc in mingw on windows is the odd duck, but most production software does not support it anyway.
- codedokode 1y ago> If a compiler and linker don't follow those ABIs then it would also be close to useless for compiling or linking against shared libraries. I guess in C++ you are not supposed to link libraries produced by different compilers? Maybe you should use C-compatible interfaces in this case?
- duped 1y agoYou are, you can, and people do. Sure you should use C interfaces, that's what CLAP does, and it's easier to understand as a result. The C standard similarly does not specify an ABI.
- duped 1y ago>Also, CLAP uses 3 or 4 methods to represent MIDI data (MIDI1, MIDI1 + MPE, MIDI2, CLAP events) Contrast to VST3 which doesn't support MIDI at all, unless you count cresting thousands of dummy parameters hardcoded to MIDI controller numbers "support."
- codedokode 1y agoVST3 uses proprietary events for things like note on/off and note expressions. As for MIDI controllers, the host is supposed to convert them to parameter changes. This makes sense if you want to map a controller to a plugin parameter in a DAW. However, if you want to write a "MIDI effect", which transforms incoming MIDI data for controllers, it would be difficult. Also it is interesting that VST3 has an event for note expression, and separate event for polyphonic pressure although it can be considered a note expression.
- duped 1y ago> As for MIDI controllers, the host is supposed to convert them to parameter changes And nearly everyone except Steinberg considers this to be a mistake. MIDI messages (CCs, pitch bend, and so on) are _not_ parameters.
- codedokode 1y agoAs I understand it is better because it gives more freedom in routing parameter values. The parameter values might come not only from a MIDI controller knob directly, but from an automation curve, or from other plugin output, or from an automation track output. For example, you might combine 2 automation curves through a multiplication plugin and route the output to a plugin's parameter input. Or you could have an automation curve that produces a sine wave, and have a MIDI knob to modulate its amplitude, and send the result to an LPF "cutoff frequency" input, so that you can control amount of modulation with a knob. So VST3 (and CLAP) treat each parameter as an additional plugin input, which can be routed arbitrarily. If a plugin would instead have a single MIDI input and extract controller changes from a MIDI stream, then the scenario above would be more difficult to implement (you would need to convert an output of multiplication plugin into a sequence of MIDI controller changes and combine it with other MIDI events). Am I missing something here? Never developed a single plugin.
- wrl 1y ago> Clap doesn't allow describing plugin in a manifest (like VST3 and LV2 do). This allows to scan for plugins faster. VST3 only recently gained the `moduleinfo.json` functionality and support is still materialising. Besides, hosts generally do a much better job about only scanning new plugins or ones that have changed, and hosts like Bitwig even do the scanning in the background. The manifest approach is cool, but in the end, plugin DLLs just shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting until they actually need to create an instance anyway. > Also, CLAP uses 3 or 4 methods to represent MIDI data (MIDI1, MIDI1 + MPE, MIDI2, CLAP events). This requires to write several converters when implementing a host. I've not done the host-side work, but the plugin-side work isn't too difficult. It's the same data, just represented differently. Disclaimer: I don't support MIDI2 yet, but I support the other 3. On the other side, VST3 has some very strange design decisions that have led me to a lot of frustration. Having separate parameter queues for sample-accurate automation requires plugins to treat their parameters in a very specific way (basically, you need audio-rate buffers for your parameter values that are as long as the maximum host block) in order to be written efficiently. Otherwise plugins basically have to "flatten" those queues into a single queue and handle them like MIDI events, or alternately just not handle intra-block parameter values at all. JUCE still doesn't handle these events at all, which leads to situations where a VST2 build of a JUCE plugin will actually handle automation better than the VST3 build (assuming the host is splitting blocks for better automation resolution, which all modern hosts do). duped's comment about needing to create "dummy" parameters which get mapped to MIDI CCs is spot-on as well. JUCE does this. 2048 additional parameters (128 controllers * 16 channels) just to receive CCs. At least JUCE handles those parameters sample-accurately! There's other issues too but I've lost track. At one point I sent a PR to Steinberg fixing a bug where their VST3 validator (!!!) was performing invalid (according to their own documentation) state transitions on plugins under test. It took me weeks to get the VST3 implementation in my plugin framework to a shippable state, and I still find more API and host bugs than I ever hit in VST2. VST3 is an absolute sprawl of API "design" and there are footguns in more places than there should be. On the contrary, CLAP support took me around 2 days, 3 if we're being pedantic. The CLAP API isn't without its share of warts, but it's succinct and well-documented. There's a few little warts (the UI extension in particular should be more clear about when and how a plugin is supposed to actually open a window) but these are surmountable, and anecdotally I have only had to report one (maybe two) host bugs so far. Again, disclaimer: I was involved in the early CLAP design efforts (largely the parameter extension) and am therefore biased, but if CLAP sucked I wouldn't shy away from saying it.
- pjbk 1y agoYou would have thought they learned from their mistakes implementing VST2, but they doubled down going even further basing VST3 on the Windows Component Object Model. I guess it was a decision to avoid reinventing the wheel, but you can quickly realize it is a very bad model for real time audio plugins and audio host support. The API just exploded in complexity, and testing was a nightmare. In contrast you can tell the U-He developers have all the experience from the trenches.
- p0nce 1y ago> it is a very bad model for real time audio plugins and audio host support COM is just 3 predefined calls in the virtual table. CLAP gives you a bunch of pointers to functions, which is similar.
- jsmith45 1y ago> COM is just 3 predefined calls in the virtual table. COM can be as simple as that implementation side, at least if your platforms vtable ABI matches COM's perfectly, but it also allows far more complicated implementations where every implemented interface queried will allocate a new distinct object, etc. I.E. even if you know for sure that the object is implemented in c++, and your platforms' vtable ABI matches COM's perfectly, and you know exactly what interfaces the object you have implements, you cannot legally use dynamic_cast, as there is no requirement that one class inherits from both interfaces. The conceptual "COM object" could instead be implemented as one class per interface, each likely containing a pointer to some shared data class. This is also why you need to do the ref counting with respect to each distinct interface, since while it is legal from an implementation side to just share one ref count for it all, that is in no way required.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- debugnik 1y agoNote that VST3 doesn't implement the COM vtable layout, their COM-like FUnknown really is just 3 virtual methods and a bunch of GUIDs. They rely on the platform's C++ ABI not breaking. You're right that QueryInterface can return a different object, but that doesn't make it significantly more complicated, assuming you're not managing the ref-counts manually.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dsp_person 1y agohow has CLAP adoption been? do the popular plugins out there generally provide a CLAP version nowadays?
- rebolek 1y agoI see more and more brands not only adopting CLAP but also offering Linux versions of their plugins. The adoption is slow but that's expected with a relatively new format but it certainly grows.
- itsgabriel 1y agoThere is a list of software with support here https://clapdb.tech/ https://clapdb.tech/
- bandrami 1y agoAll the commercial ones I've bought in the past year or so do, and ever since I think JUCE 7 there have been good libraries for open source projects that want to add the format. I think there's still a lot of bad feeling about the fact that there are many VST2 plugins that are open source but nonetheless illegal (or at least tortious) to build.
- stuaxo 1y agoHopefully this provides a path for those VST2 plugins.
- codedokode 1y agoNo. VST2 has nothing in common with VST3 despite similar name.
- conradfr 1y agoWhy? In Juce isn't that a matter of choosing multiple build target?
- stuaxo 1y agoVery useful for all the existing plugins though, especially if any want to become open source.
- alterom 1y agoWow, didn't realize u-he grew so big. I remember them from Zebra days.
- yahoozoo 1y agoThey make a lot of great virtual instruments nowadays. Diva being a big one.
- 1313ed01 1y agoI like my old ACE, but people with better ears than me say that the sound engine is not as good as some other U-He synths but it was more in my price range and I wanted something good enough but without DRM. U-He was (is?) one of the few makers of audio software that did not rely on some online registration or USB dongles (plus Linux support as a bonus).
- cbzbc 1y agoThey aren't big - but they are bigger than when it was just Urs and a couple of guys turning out plugins. They becoming popular on the back of Diva, and Hans Zimmer using Zebra (he's very fulsome in his praise whenever mentioning u-he in interviews).
- alterom 1y agoI guess big as in widely impactful. Making a new plugin standard that is gaining wide adoption is big in my head.
- pier25 1y agoMaybe Steinberg is getting ready to add CLAP to their software?
- artdigital 1y agoI do a fair bit of music and have never seen a CLAP plugin in the wild
- Jorchime 1y agoI use FabFilter plugins all the time.
- pdntspa 1y agoA lot of open-source plugins include CLAP builds. u-he's stuff (Diva, Repro, Zebra) has CLAP builds. As another comment mentioned, I guess FabFilter plugs support CLAP now? It is niche but I am watching it closely as I would love to get off of Windows or MacOS and CLAP plugins often have linux support. https://cleveraudio.org/hosts-and-plug-ins/ https://cleveraudio.org/hosts-and-plug-ins/
- botanrice 1y agowhat kind of music? I'm looking to connect with other musicians and just so happen to also be a techie on here :)
- jcelerier 1y agoyep, having gone through implementation of pretty much every plug-in api in existence in https://ossia.io https://ossia.io there's no question that the whole world should just drop VST3 and move on to CLAP
- dmix 1y agoCan you give us the highlights of why it was easier to use?