Keni

Yes! It's true!

They are accepting applications for doing Sonar Beta!

This just opened. This is not the beta for Next.

I signed up as fast as my typing would allow! It's coming!!!

? Happy camper... Excitment rising...

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

The headquarters of both companies is in a tiny town just outside one of the entrances to Yosemite National Park here in California.

Having participated in their beta program enough to get my name in the credits for the Mixcraft 7 release,  something I can tell you about Acoustica is that they are one of the most quality-minded software manufacturers that I've ever dealt with. So please report your experience and findings about this performance issue to them. They will likely want to know about it and work with you and the BandLab Cakewalk engineers to fix whatever is.

Good question, and one that I can't really answer. Without being able to read the minds of the folks at Steinberg, there's only speculation. It could be that there were starting to be too many extensions to the VST spec that weren't controlled by Steinberg, and they feared losing their grip on it.

Maybe they thought that being able to announce a shiny new technology that their own DAW's would be the first to support would be good for marketing.

Maybe the Cubase/Nuendo developers were having a hard time working out sidechaining support in their apps and wanted to force that work onto plug-in developers.

Whatever drove the move, as far as I can see it backfired. Other manufacturers (correctly, IMO) saw little advantage to supporting the new format. Rather, it only increased their coding and testing burden. Adoption was slow. When they finally applied their legal muscle to force new developers to adopt the format by refusing to issue more licenses to develop VST2, it served as an alert to participating vendors that Steinberg had too much of the wrong kind of control and that a more open and flexible spec might serve the industry better. So now there is CLAP, a competing plug-in format.

As for CLAP, as long as Steinberg continues to play nice, I don't think it will become the dominant format. But I'm glad it exists, because it serves to show Steinberg that if they do try any more funny business, the industry has other options

My suspicion is that if you ask anyone in the business of developing plug-ins or hosts for them about VST3, they'll tell you that the canonical DLL location is the only thing that they benefit from. I'm sure it eliminated a LOT of easily resolved support issues. However, I was so used to using custom locations for my VST2 plug-ins that I initially tried doing the same with VST3's, which of course didn't work too well....

Is it that VST3 doesn't support it or is it that plug-in and/or host manufacturers stopped supporting it?

Communication between host and plug-in regarding presets in general seems to have gotten lost along the way. Where it seemed like most VST2's relied on the host for preset management, and reported their own presets to hosts' preset managers, in the VST3 era, this isn't the case. Now it's unusual for a plug-in to use that part of the spec to report their presets, and every plug-in has its own proprietary preset manager. Which can be hard to find and quirky to navigate, depending on the developer.

The VST3 spec does call for a canonical location for .vstpreset files, but few plug-in companies use it and Cakewalk's support for it is clunky. That's a drag, because I like using the host's preset manager more than the ones within the plug-ins, which have to be learned for each different manufacturer.

Interesting stuff...

Clap, huh? I've managed to avoid that one these days. ?

Funny, but I always use Cake's preset mgr. so much easier to me than a dozen different systems.

I guess Microsoft is determined not to upgrade WDM to pick up the slack. It always worked fine for me.

Oh, and I did contact Cherry about their latency issue. The did improve that considerably not long after. If I use the vst2 versions I can operate at 128/256 which is ok with vsynths most of the time.

We're really due a major improvement in digital audio processing speed (latency). It’s truly a severe roadblock.

Only one day and I'm already happier...

Switching back to vst2 is working great for many things here... I'm so glad this came to light!

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm probably the deflator of VST3 hype that John is thinking of. To recap my usual points:

1. VST2 plug-ins that support sidechaining do so just fine on every DAW except Steinberg's. The "VST3=sidechaining" stuff is only true for Cubase and Nuendo.
2. PreSonus came up with a widely-used extension to the VST2 spec (so widely used that it was incorporated into the VST3 spec and hyped as being new) that allowed for plug-in UI resizing.
3. The "plug-in goes to sleep when no audio is being passed" is a nice idea in theory. In practice, it's not that big a deal because just like any processing, plug-ins usually only eat resources when they're actually processing something other than silence. Also, implementing that part of the VST3 spec is not mandatory. No part of the VST3 spec is mandatory; it's a spec, not a law. There is no authority enforcing compliance. Of my VAST plug-in collection (Cakewalk has it at almost 500 FX), there is only one manufacturer I have seen implement silence=sleep, and that manufacturer, MeldaProduction, also implemented the feature in the VST2 versions of its products. Think about it: how many projects have you ever done that would benefit much from turning off a couple of plug-ins when they were idling?
4. Due to slow uptake of VST3, most plug-in manufacturers still provide VST2 versions of their products. Since they are less likely to want to code two separate versions, that results in their VST3's being restricted to a VST2 feature set.
5. The one single big advantage of the VST3 spec that I perceive is that it has a canonical location for the DLL's. But even that isn't without issues, as anyone with a 256GB SSD for their C drive and a large plug-in collection can tell you. Yes, you can circumvent this with sym links, but relatively few people have the knowledge and skills to implement that.

Regarding Cherry Audio's products not working so well in VST3 form, this, unfortunately, is less of a surprise than it should be. Cherry Audio shares staff and management with Acoustica, makers of Mixcraft. When Mixcraft first started supporting VST3, the otherwise rock solid Mixcraft was so crashy and buggy with VST3's that I gave up on VST3's for over a year waiting for the next version of Mixcraft, which worked fine with VST3's. It appears that even now, they may not have cozied up to the VST3 spec?

It's been a long time since I've run into VST3/VST2 issues, but one notable exception is Acustica (not to be confused with the DAW manufacturer) Multiply, the excellent freeware chorus. From its initial release, the VST3 version of Multiply will not work in CbB.

Thanks Starship!

That was some good info and observations. I didn't know about Cherry's association with Acoustica. Not that it would have mattered to me as I have no 1st hand experience with them... The dll location is of little importance to me between the vst2/vst3 systems and with what you said about the sidechaining not being restricted to vst3, what then is the point of the vst3 "update"?

1 hour ago, John Vere said:

This is supposed to be the way it is but one regular member here has said this is just marketing hype and is not true. Possibly it was @User 905133

just an immediate thought is that no demand when audio not passing may save something, but that doesn't mean the plugin will perform better. Needing to constantly turn on/off may have it's own issues. All the calls needed to do this may actually increase the system demands. But I'm not a programmer. I don't know...

What I do know is that repeatedly if I replace my vst3 devices with vst2 equivalents, My system runs leaner/better...

1 hour ago, John Vere said:

Interesting observations. This might be distantly related to why I am struggling to get my new system running smoothly.  
Its W11. 
Mostly everything went OK but as always installing all my plug ins is slowly becoming a nightmare. 
At the heart of the issue is Cakewalk simply crashes if I try and open any project with a missing plug in. 
So I’m forced to use safe mode and sort it out. 
Then the mysteries start as most of the errant plugs are actually already installed?  
Turns out they need to be in the exact same pathways are old system or Cakewalk crashes. 
I thought I sorted 90% of this out. 
But now after reading this topic you have given me another reason it might happen.  
My last system I almost always installed both VST 2 and the VST3 versions. This time thinking why bother with the VST 2 and I focused on only installing the VST3 versions. Idiot . 
I now see why Cakewalk is crashing when it seems it shouldn’t.

I guess I’ll go back and re install the VST 2 versions and see. I personally have never seen the difference in the way a plug in works. 
 

You gotta realize the company responsible is Steinberg. A very Mac eccentric company. And they just like Mac love to force you to keep spending money if you want stuff to be completely compatible. 
 

I think I’ll stick with the VST2 versions for now too.  
 

Oh and I work at 256 buffer for last 15 years. I never change it.  Because I use my interfaces direct monitoring I never notice any latency when recording.  

Yeah... I hear you!

I too use direct monitoring when recording via mics, but I now use virtual guitar/bass amps which lay in the demands and increases latency.

I've often wondered about what changes there are between vst2/vst3. The only feature I know of is side-chaining which is something I rarely do these days. I don’t remember the last time I did. So what else fhanged causing them to be so much more resource hungry?

I've switched back to all vst2 except the few items that now are vst3 only.

3 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

sounds consistent with my experience as well. however, in W11, i'm using almost VST3 exclusively and maybe it's the CPU etc but even with stuff that didn't run reliably on W10 on an older machine, the usage meters barely move with either VST2 or 3... that said some products (i've found the Cherry Audio VST3 to consume more resources, not an issue on the new machine, and the Waves Abbey Road Chambers, unusable on W10 & older laptop, now, virtually no resources appear to be consumed on W11 and new machine). so most times, my latency is done to 64-128 samples for recording, sometimes 256, and some old 32-bit ones need 512. mix is still always 2048...

Interesting...

My usage meters hardly light yet I get problems relieved only by increasing the latency. I'm running 12 cores with multi-threading which Cake shows as 24 cores. Mine barely show any height.  A nudge up from none. So it's not my processor having the difficulty. I'm believing it's the audio interface itself. Mine is somewhat old, but claims a latency of 5ms peak. I can run very little at 64 but run normally at 128 for most things. Some of the new Synths coming out are proving to be very vst3 resource hungry so that's changing things. I'm very happy with running the vst2 versions instead where available. I have no known need of the vst3 features such as side-chaining very often if ever...

I freeze all my tracks prior to mixing so I mix most of my stuff at 128 as well. Only some of these new issues spoken of have begun upsetting that but now knowing to default to vst2 when possible, I should do better... I hope. This latency dancing is just too much constant fidgeting!

57 minutes ago, Jimbo 88 said:

I thought the exact same thing that everyone has said.

This new version of Sonar must be some unbelievably great DAW with it taking this long.

I'm guessing AI has a lot to do with the wait.  AI can help the Bakers write code, help all of us mix better...so I'm kinda really excited to see what comes next with Sonar(pun intended!)... 

 

We already KNOW what a great DAW it is!

...simply finding it's way back into the mainstream.

......but Ai, Ai, Ai!

It's all too much!

OK... Blindsided me...

I thought about it on occasion but somehow let it pass...

It seems there's a huge difference in resource demands of VST3 and VST2 plugins.

For a long time I've been having a lot of trouble with a number of plugins resource hunger and others tell me they aren't seeing that...

I don't know if this is the reason, but I just realized that when I upgraded to this win10 (from win8.1) system I decided to start using vst3 versions of everything when available. Not for need, only to be more current...

Now I'm discovering many, if not all vst2 versions operate much more efficiently... MUCH more.

Previously work running Cherry Audio's VST3 Memorymode I was forced to 512 or 1024 latency for even simple operation all by itself.

Just now I loaded the vst2 version into a song with Session Drummer 3 (active) and 4 frozen tracks (still live feeding some bus fx etc.) and I can cleanly play most of it's presets at 128!

The light is finally on in my brain again?

Addendum...

Just found that monophonics play fine at 128 in above scenario, but polyphonic reqiores changing that to 256.

Not fabulous, but way better than the vst3 version!

18 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

I started feeling forum withdrawal symptoms creeping in last night.  Feeling better now ..  

I was thinking along those lines as well...

I even tried some of the temporary forums setup during the Gibson dumping. Of course long closed down... I left a post of the Cakewalk Community page on Discord, but ...

3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Same time I was getting all the 502 Gateway errors for this forum I kept being pushed to a page that talked about Next and New Sonar-no prices that I saw-explained some features- had lots of graphics also. etc, etc.

Ah. Now I understand.

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Yes me too! Finally just got in. Well, new add page looks cool at least   ? 

"Add page"?

What did I miss? I don’t see such...

Yup...

I guess many of us were thinking/wishing/hoping this was the case.

Now it’s just gonna be another sad Monday tomorrow...

1 hour ago, Skyline_UK said:

Stop giving me palpitations guys!  Just when I'd resigned myself to never seeing anything new this side of Christmas 2025.... ?

......Simply keeping the dream alive!

4 hours ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

2017

 

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/plugin-boutique-cakewalk-sonar-exclusive-sale-starting-from-15-19-39165

Wow! Amazing that’s still online!

52 minutes ago, HOOK said:

When I talked to the guys at Sound Toys, they were quick to send me links to the previous version installers.  You might keep that in mind as an option as well.

Thanks.

I'll remember that if a need for the vst3 arises. As far as I remember, the only really significant difference is the side chaining which I rarely use.

17 minutes ago, John Vere said:

I had no problem with that web site. It’s for creating movie soundtracks. Just yet another sound library.  Space farts I call them. 
See Keni. It’s already at 86 views.  Bet you by tomorrow it’s in the hundreds! 

Absolutely!

I love it! (The response)

As for the software? I’m not a big user of sample libraries these days.

3 hours ago, John Vere said:

Interesting especially that it seems to me for music creation as well.  Looks like the Company Fallout Music Group is very small and specializes in Movie soundtrack creation tools. It mentions Made for Kontakt Player.  

It would have been funnier if your thread title was

Sonar on Sale Now for $15.

That would have gone viral.

there's a small possibility that  Bandlab  didn't register the Brand Sonar yet?  After all it's Cakewalk not Sonar right now.  The other possiblility is these guys are unaware that SOnar ever or will exsists and Bandlab is also unaware that they are using the name. 

What you say staff.?  @Noel Borthwick @Jesse Jost @msmcleod

Good one John...

I'm gonna change the thread title right now! ?

Yeah, I'm learning this with Little Plate too...

I've gotta increase the latency more than ever before to use this plugin...

I'm gonna look/see if I have both vst2/3 and try the vst2 if it's there as I typically defer to the vst3... Maybe that'll be a little better?

Edit:

Wow! Massive difference. Switching to the vst2 version instead of vst3 and my system is back to normal able to run clean at 128!

I have no particular need of the vst3 version to begin with!

Thanks for the tip!

Edit 2:

With this thought in mind, I just tried this same "trick" on one of my most resourse hungry plugins... Cherry Audio's Memorymode...

Running the vst2 instead of the vst3 again totally change the situation and the plugin runs clean as a whistle at 128!

I think I'm swearing off on all vst3 versions of plugins for the time being. I see very little need for the vst3 versions (for me)

Not sure if this matters to anyone, but I just stumbled upon this.

A product called Sonar (not related)...

https://audioplugin.deals/product/sonar-pings-and-signatures-by-fallout-music-group/?utm_source=APD+Subscribers&utm_campaign=57c9ccceb1-Blog_IK_Multimedia_MixBox&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_766211a9e5-57c9ccceb1-39509537&ct=t(Blog_IK_Multimedia_MixBox)&goal=0_766211a9e5-57c9ccceb1-39509537&mc_cid=57c9ccceb1&mc_eid=22fd0c11f1

Any problems arising?

54 minutes ago, HOOK said:

I built a dual with a couple Xeon 5060's on Server 2003 in 2007 and it ran for several years.  Just a killer setup for the time.  Allowed me to do everything I ever wanted for soooo long.

Edit...ohhh. I see you're using a Mac.  Price prohibitive, for sure...lol.

Yeah, a trashcan gift. I really never use the Mac side. My previous machine (I still have) is also a Mac Pro dual xeon 6 core with 64G. Also a beauty. Each of these machines was over $10k!

Just now, HOOK said:

Hasn't that always been the case?  Starting with the Pentium Pro 200 machine I had in 1995, every machine I've ever built as an "upgrade" has been because of plugins and not Cakewalk.  Luckily, for the last 15 years or so, I've been able to build machines that go years without having to freeze anything for the most part.  When the plugins start choking the processor I upgrade.

Wish I could afford to... but a dual xeon 12core with the trimmings is over $10k away...

It seems to me that more plugins are turning up with heavy resource demands these days.

Most fx are reasonable, but Instruments are another story. Often hard to work if more than one virtual instrument is active (frozen not an issue). So constant freeze/unfreeze/clean drive required. ...and I’ve got a reasonably powerful machine (xeon 12-core multithreaded, 128G)

The anti is raised again!

33 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Be careful with that. It is been said a few times here that too large a buffer size can cause issues in some systems. 

Yup. I ran into that with Amplitube 5 crashing CbB at 512 but fine at 128/256...

29 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

yeah, as a general rule - low latency during live recording w/ monitoring via the DAW (typically not necessary if using virtual instruments, or using the direct monitoring from the IO), and high latency when mixing/mastering to allow maximum resources for the processing.

I’ve always followed that idea, but never before actually needed it!

My difficulty frequently arises when I need to record guitar using a virtual amp etc. but even then I’ve never before been forced to do these things. The Little Plate being the first to put me in this position. Though the Cherry Audio excellent synths frequently give me grief too! ?