FOfoxhill·Jun 26, 2022
quite some time ago, i used to write audio plugins. i'd started by using WDL-OL[1], but quickly ended up re-writing most of the front-end code to use Direct2D/Cocoa + OpenGL, as i began to run into limitations with the rendering capabilities. in time, i ended up rewriting most of the framework in order to take advantage of VST3 and AAX's more.. separated APIs.
Steinberg did some really good work with the design of VST3, and it's frustrating that it never really took off. it's the only plugin API that can actually guarantee sample-accuracy. the initial design required UI and processor separation.
it turns out that latter point seems to unstick many developers. contrasted with AAX (which i'm also keen on), AAX allows for even more modular architectures (which you'd need to operate around, if you wanted to use their DSP hardware), however, A
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VID - perhaps learning from VST3's mistakes - made "singleton" architectures allowable straight away.
a subsequent release of VST3 allowed for singleton architectures, given that so many people seemed to be put off with the (imo slightly) increased complexity, but it was too late. at least until recently, people are still writing VST2 plugins, and VST3 support across DAWs is not as extensive as VST2's.
EDIT: ah! it looks like CLAP has delivered something i've been after in an audio API for some time: it appears to allow for dynamic parameters. i'm surprised it took this long! overall it looks well written too. i wonder if this will gain any traction in the DAW space.
[1] - https://github.com/olilarkin/wdl-ol