VST2 vs VST3 - what are the differences?

awol9000

Now that Maschine is VST3, what are the differences vs VST2?

D-One

Performance might be a bit better but I haven't had the time to test it.

A plus for me personally is I can now disable VST2's on my DAW since all plugins I own have VST3 versions, MAS and KK are the last ones in the party, this means a few gig's of VST2's are going to the bin and browsing in DAW is less cluttered.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is the VST3 version does not support MIDI Change via Program Change, only MIDI Notes. (@Matt_NI perhaps this should be added to the "removed" release notes / update thread op?? Someone must have forgot); feels a bit like a downgrade but I guess most people won't care about this.

VST2:

VST3:

D-One

Performance might be a bit better but I haven't had the time to test it.

A plus for me personally is I can now disable VST2's on my DAW since all plugins I own have VST3 versions, MAS and KK are the last ones in the party, this means a few gig's of VST2's are going to the bin and browsing in DAW is less cluttered.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is the VST3 version does not support MIDI Change via Program Change, only MIDI Notes. (@Matt_NI perhaps this should be added to the "removed" release notes / update thread op?? Someone must have forgot); feels a bit like a downgrade but I guess most people won't care about this.

VST2:

VST3:

awol9000

So not much I guess. Thanks for the reply D-One

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/14084#Comment_14084

No problem. Eventually, MAS-Plug should add things that are supported in VST3 like inter plugin communication, resizable window, more inputs and outputs, etc... hopefully.

EvilDragon

In theory, they could add Program Change support there in VST3, Kontakt does have it. There is a way to support it - not sure why they didn't.

tetsuneko

AFAIK there arent many (any?) new VST3-only features existing in the plugins, but I expect this to change once VST3 development matures more @ NI. VST3 offer so much new powerful stuff that NI would be daft not to pick some up eventually. MIDI 2.0, MPE, more/flexible i/o for both MIDI & Audio, and so on..

robertroff

Another change is that the plugin window size is not recalled in the DAW project or preset.

bondis

As far as I understand VST3 process the audio differently - basically only process when there are anything to process (silence = no CPU used).

VST2 is always processing...

=> you can potentially run more plugins with VST3 on the same computer

UdoBehm

Hi@all,

I'm curious whether NI VST3s really are using no CPU at all when there's nothing to process. I've tested the new Komplete Kontrol VST3 with Massive X running in Ableton Live. Even if I didn't do anything with the VST(s) in Live I had a overall CPU load of about 10-15 % in Live.

Does anyone know what is causing this and whether the Komplete Kontrol VST3 plugin really doesn't consume ANY CPU if there's nothing going on in the plugin (or is there always something going on after I have loaded any kind of instrument inside the plugin, no matter it is a VST2 or VST3 instrument (inside Komplete Kontrol))? Does anyone know whether VST2 or VST3 inside Komplete Kontrol (VST3) is making a difference concerning CPU load??

Thanks for your answers!

Udo

Kaldosh

From what I saw we are definitely not going toward any form of improvement atm. I’ll stick to vst2 for sure, less cpu heavy and fully featured. I thought vst3 would bring multi inputs for multi source side chain and midi side chaining, also this supposed cpu saving feature is definitely not there and seem to be handled in vst2 better 🤔

UdoBehm

Interesting. So the Ni VST3s currently have only disadvantages compared to their older VST2 versions, no matter if the Komplete Kontrol or the Maschine plugin is being used?

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/14654#Comment_14654

I wouldn't go about just assuming that without any actual testing.

UdoBehm

Do you know about any measurements or concrete information about the behaviour of the VST3 instruments?

EvilDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/14148#Comment_14148

There is absolutely no reason why a VST2 plugin couldn't support MIDI 2.0, to be honest. MPE is just regular MIDI specified in a particular way, support for it is not really built into the plugin standard, and VST2 plugins can also understand MPE just fine.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/14251#Comment_14251

This is also incorrect. Many VST2 plugins can also shut off their processing when not receiving audio input - and many of them actively do that. This VST3 "feature" is nothing special. Plugin still needs to "subscribe" to using it, it doesn't happen automatically by virtue of compiling a VST3 plugin alone.

Also, this feature is practically useless for instrument plugins, it's way more useful for effects (for obvious reasons). But it can't help any analog modelled effects that always have a bit of a noise floor in order to "emulate the analog".

This just shows how patently misleading Steiny's marketing is.

basehead617

Considering almost nobody (including me) has any idea why VST3 is needed or what it gives you, I'd say their 'marketing' has failed miserably..

Tony Jones

Found this on gearspace, basically the same set of views on what does it actually mean, and also includes midi 1 vs 2. It’s a bit blurry is my takeaway!

https://gearspace.com/board/propellerhead-reason/1353412-vst2-vs-vst3-2.html