Free/open source VST3 hosts

[Basslint]

Hello,

how many libre and reliable VST3 hosts are out there? I only know about Carla, and it doesn't seem that any of the major free DAWS (Ardour, LMMS, MusE, Qtractor) support it, while some of them do support VST2.

VST3 is GPLv3 and VST2 is deprecated, it'd be a huge step up for GNU/Linux if VST3 gained widespread support at least by the most popular free DAWs - if only to stop relying on something that gets people DMCA'ed like VST2.

[Basslint]

VST3 might be GPL (and GPLv3 at that, not GPLv2+ as a few projects are), but it is nonetheless a format driven by a market with the need to sell stuff as fast as possible. It is not a community project, a company dictates what is on it, which features get worked on and what gets priority. And being managed by a company means it will focus on whatever produces the most money at the current time.
That could still work out, sometimes what the market wants is what is good for the user, but VST3 is such an awful plugin format that I personally recommend people to NOT use it.

Hello falkTX, and thanks for all your work by the way

There are some reasons for which in my opinion VST3 support on GNU/Linux is important:
1) Increase the adoption of DAWs such as Ardour. The reality is (and you know about it since you work so extensively on GNU/Linux audio) many people want to use plugins that are only available in the VST format. Now that VST2 is discountinued and Steinberg sends DMCA's to people who distribute it, more and more developers will move to VST3. Being unable to use popular plugins puts DAWs such as Ardour at a disadvantage, and proprietary DAWs which do support VST3 such as Bitwig Studio at an advantage
2) Increase the number of libre plugins available in distro repositories. There are more developers with VST skills than with LV2 skills, and all these developers can contribute to free software, but their contributions would go unappreciated without proper support on free DAWs. There already fully working VST3 plugins out there on code hosting sites like Github.
3) Related to 2, some frameworks like JUCE (and I know you've had issues with them in the past, since IIRC it was you who contributed the LV2 port years ago) are probably never going to support LV2. This prevents a lot of free software which uses JUCE and similar frameworks from being used by GNU/Linux users. Again, a search on a code hosting site like Github returns many JUCE-based free plugins

Now, all these elements are in favor of free software users. I don't even use VST and for my hobby development I'm adopting LV2, so I don't think I am biased; the fact that Steinberg controls VST3 is not that big of a deal in my opinion, since it's GPLv3 and many similar projects such as Qt in the long run became more and more community-oriented.

[skei]

i will soon release a new version of my c++ plugin framework/library, which makes it very easy to create vst3 plugins for linux.. (plus ladspa, dssi, lv2, vst2, standalone exe.. but no gui for the linux-only formats).. working on vst3 hosting..

[Linuxmusician01]

PS: Carla (will) support VST3 in 2.1/develop but only for macOS and Windows, and this is because of the framework behind the scenes doing the work for me.

Thank you for that information. So am I right in assuming that if I download a VST3 plugin that it will not work with Carla on my Linux PC? I'm afraid that I have to agree w/ @Basslint that at a certain point in time we have to be able to use VST3 plugins (that were made for Windows) on Linux. I can fully understand your point that VST3 has no added value for developer or user though... Bummer that VST2 is phased out by Steinberg!

By the way, are you willing to work on enabling VST3 support in Carla for Linux in the future? Just because you're such a nice guy? I for one would really appreciate that because I have no programming skills whatsoever and you do.

[Basslint]

vst3 is not evil or anything like that, but it is also really not needed.
please dont try to make it a thing, LV2 is way more than what we need.
we should push for better formats please, not corporate old crap.
thanks

Well, I frankly don't have anything against corporate code as long as it's released under a FSF-approved license. We should stop this dichotomy and if anything, encourage corporations to free their code.

The argument for VST3 being buggy is only true because nobody is forking it away from Steinberg, which is perfectly possible and legal. VST3 is also a standard, not just Yamaha/Steinberg's own implementation.

If LV2 is superior, most developers who make libre plugins will pick it anyway. But this would make a difference for everyone else, especially those who've been writing exclusively VST code for years (yes, they are different, but it's likely that many VST2 developers have moved or are moving to VST3 due to VST2's discontinuation).

Edit: I'm actually pro-LV2 (and pro-falkTX, since you've done a lot of great work for our community, and I respect you), I never used any version of VST, since I've been using GNU/Linux for years and only used DSSI/LADSPA/LV2 so far. Let me clarify that I am speaking because I believe that attracting users with features that don't harm anybody's freedom is a good thing.