Clap sounds interesting. Any more info about that? I guess it’s to get away from VST?*
U-he: A safety net, an opportunity and something possibly a lot better in many ways than the status quo. Even if it never picks up, it will still be useful for us.
Also, what’s not to like about an open standard which does not require a vetting process, a law degree or learning a new language to get started?
I think this is a really nice intitiative. The more DAW vendors jump in, the faster we could all enjoy benefits. Some well known developers already jumped in: The surge guys, Bitwig, Radium dev, and U-He of course.
…On the other hand, regarding CLAP, what are the real benefits for the end users? Can’t see any. There is not even preset managing and plugin separated, which would make a lot of sense (no more annoying “wrapping” vst hosts-in-hosts like NI does). It might be very good for developers though.
So do you understand, what the technical benefits would be for the end users? Maybe only a single plugin format in 10 years? I doubt that, due closed-source-fetishists like Apple, Avid etc.
I guess more weightful commercial OS or host vendors need to jump in first. Ok, but somewhere you need to start, or nothing will ever change. But again, what is the benefit for the musician?
Well, the only real standards are vst2 and vst3, all others are niche or lock-in products. Sadly Steinberg messed up vst3 in so many ways that almost every developer now hates it (and also tries to destroy vst2). So to have a proper standard, and being independent from crazy companies like Steinberg, indeed there needs to be a new one.
I only doubt that exactly Uhe + bitwig are the right motivators here, because both companies are not known for doing stuff the quick way. On the other hand, once Uhe published something, it is very solid and stable.
“Bitwig and u-he are excited to announce CLAP (CLever Audio Plug-in API), the new open standard for audio plug-ins and hosts. CLAP offers modern features, innate stability, and rapid support for plug-in and host developers. And since it’s open source and liberally licensed, CLAP is a safe bet for the future.”