Bitwig & u-he co-develop new plugin format: CLAP

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

New CLAP plug-in format

As for the new CLAP plug-in format, Urs Heckmann himself had this much to share:

It’s a new open-source plug-in format we are co-developing with Bitwig and some other collaborators. It’s still very much work in progress right now. We hope to have a working beta version available in the coming months. Stay tuned. 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?

source (at the end of the article)

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The BITWIG Thread
#2

oh, they seems to have forgotten to mention LV2 :wink:

(though in fairness, so does pretty much everyone outside the linux community)

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#3

ugh - another ‘standard’

why don’t they jump on board with LV2?

would be nice to see what real issues they have with existing formats…

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#4

Hey now, a new standard that shares its name with an STD is bound to have staying power.

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#5

Doctor, “How do you think you got the CLAP?”
Patient, “Hrmmm, probably from this new Plug-In I’ve been using…”

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#6

Totally ignorant on the subject–is there something wrong with VST that we need a new plug-in format?

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#7

From VST to STD! What can go wrong?

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#8

You certainly can’t tell what “CLAP” is supposed to do from the description, or what the acronym stands for. Highly unlikely it is just a copy of something already existing. I picture something more in the sense of the Celemony Presonus ARA interface, that provides more capabilities to software.

Both these companies are highly innovative, so good things are most definitely possible.

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#9

I didn’t realise vst etc were a closed format .

Is it just to share the source code ?
Why can’t that be done with vst ?

I don’t get it. As a general user of plugins ( buy / download , install and use ) I don’t see the point , I won’t notice any difference … ???

#10

as a user you shouldn’t notice any difference

but overall the more plugin formats there are the more difficult it is for everyone
PlugIn Devs need to port their code to all the formats - or they miss out on customers
Users have DAW A, on mac - plugin only exists for DAW B on PC etc etc

VST is owned by Steinberg - so they control it, new features, fixing things etc
LV2 is open source - but not many people support it…

#11

VST is an open standard.

Do not get confused between open source and open standard.

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#12

I’d understand if developers have to pay Steinberg to release a plug-in , I’m not aware if they do or not

Perhaps this allows the plug-in system to be updated by the community ( avoiding the need for a company like steinberg) plus availability of plugins with source code

Maybe bugs get fixed quicker and features added more quickly
Perhaps I’ll never notice … I’ll need ableton etc to adopt before I see anything tangible.

Good luck to them.

#13

I presume anything designed with the CLAP in mind will be naturally riddled with Bugs which will compromise your System…and it will never be Immune from any sort of Viral attack?

:rofl:

This stuff writes itself HAHAHA!

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#14

Pure fantasy on my part. Do not apply much reality to this idea, it is pretty flimsy / thought only.

Common Language Application in Python.

Python is open source.

This is Bitwig and u-he’s way to provide Max like functions inside Bitwig. So there is tight binding on the back end into Bitwig internals, and a graphical front end that is part of Bitwig. You can create “plug-ins” that run in Bitwig.

This idea has a lot of holes, but it at least fits the loose description.

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#15

Not really sure if world needs another plugin standard. But there is some licensing scheme for VST/VST SDK, right?
I remember some cool VSTs were closed due to license complications… my memory fades, it was probably PaulStretch VST version or Hourglass granular synth.

#16

“Plug-in” is a generic term.

Here’s the Wikipedia page for plug-in.

A VST is a plug-in, but a plug-in isn’t necessarily a VST.

#17

This post is a lot more substantial than that weird gearnews write-up: About CLAP - u-he Forum - KVR Audio

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#18

Scanning for STDs…

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#19

Yeah, played about with one of their Divas once, now I’ve got the CLAP.

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#20

yeah its a little tricky…

so the vst code is owned by Steinberg,
for VST 2, you needed to have an account with them to use , and build from.
so this was contradictory to some open source licences that might use it (notably GPL)

Steinberg changed this for VST3, which now has a dual license.
importantly one of those is GPLv3, so can be used on GPL projects.

so… its not really an issue.

a bit like AU (Audio Units) owned/controlled by Apple, but is GPL compatible.

I guess some of the thoughts or an open source plugin format is to have something that is not controlled by a company… though even here it would appear u-he/bitwig would be large stakeholders, so not sure how independent it’ll be.
and as I mentioned we already have LV2.

or perhaps the thought is the existing plugin standards don’t meet their needs , they have better ideas, so they want to develop their own ( I’d suspect this is a big driver personally)

the issue is for developers to have to support ‘another’ standard.
I think for this format to be adopted, it would be important that JUCE would also add support for it, this would help many devs.

of course, I still think it needs to ‘add’ something…
as I think for many, now that Steinberg sorted out the GPL for VST3, its not really a big issue…
Id probably be only interested in CLAP if it brings developers and users something new?!

EDIT: ooh, kvr thread has some interesting info… definitely the threading and polyphony aspects are very interesting to me…
and if the wrappers allow it live alongside AU/VST dev, as appears to be the intention… whilst not perfect, its makes it viable.

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