VST3 - Maschine supporting existing NI VST3, but none from other vendors?

CT Blaze
CT Blaze Member Posts: 7 Newcomer
edited November 2022 in Maschine

I don't understand this any longer... I paused for 2,5 years, only to find a TOTAL mess with VST2 and VST3 support. Firstly, screw STEINBERG for causing this, but also everyone else for blindly following Steinberg on their "Standards". Proprietary technology is always dangerous, and fires back eventually...

Having said that, WHY on earth does Maschine support NI's own VST3 plugins, but seemingly none of the others?

I have VST3 plugins of vendors like Roland, Plugin Alliance, Overloud, Audiothing and Togu Audio Line (TAL) sitting in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 , they are not being recognized while scanning ! WHY?

Is Native Instruments actually aware that any new developer cannot provide VST2 any longer, thanks to Steinberg? Is there a problem with VTS3 itself, is it not a standards they can rely on?

Please, enlighten me, and I know there were several threads in the old forum about this, from 2020 on, I can't believe this is still not resolved?

Please convince me not to switch to something else, more modern, with more flexible code base, right now. Why would I spend any money with NI products right now, in this situation? I've been a user and fan since 2014, and now SUPER DISAPPOINTED, as you might have guessed already...

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Comments

  • Kymeia
    Kymeia Member Posts: 3,612 Expert
    edited February 2022

    Of course NI are aware, that's why they are adding VST3 support but it isn't as easy as you may think. Maschine and Komplete Kontrol are both at the moment very dependent on VST2 due to the NKS standard, that is changing and the goal is for them both to support VST3 from third party developers too, but they started with their own plugins because it makes sense to implement and test it first with the plugins you know best, before opening up the potential can of worms that is third party VST3 support. It looks from several NI statements that they plan to open up to third party developers gradually rather than all at once, starting with those who are already NKS partners. This makes sense, if they just add it without going through this process it will likely be a crash fest and just as importantly from NI's perspective, the transformation of NKS from VST2 to VST3 isn't something that can be rushed all in one go. Start with trusted partners who are willing to work collaboratively on the transition process rather than making it a free for all.

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,300 Expert
    edited February 2022

    Actually, Steinberg didn’t make a mess and gave developers plenty time to migrate their products to VST3.

    From the Steinberg news here:

    https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandevents/news/newsdetail/article/vst-2-coming-to-an-end-4727.html

    (which unfortunately isn’t available anymore)

    Late 2013 we announced that the Software Development Kit (SDK) for VST 2 would no longer be maintained and would only be available as subset of the VST 3 SDK. Five years down the line and this transitional phase is now also coming to an end.​

    And in 2018, Steinberg stopped issuing VST2 developer licenses.

    @CT Blaze wrote:

    Proprietary technology is always dangerous, and fires back eventually...

    …which seems to be the case with NKS.

  • skrutiny
    skrutiny Member Posts: 23 Member

    There is a neat workaround to get 3rd party vst3's working in mashine. Its a vst2 shell that cleverly wraps any vst3's. Ironic that native instruments cant do this natively =] https://www.xlutop.com/buzz/zip/vst3shell.zip

  • skrutiny
    skrutiny Member Posts: 23 Member

    oh and btw, if you updated to the latest version of mashine, this will not work. lolz

  • coongaman
    coongaman Member Posts: 16 Helper

    All I can say is that this has nothing to do with Steinberg.

    This is just showing how bad the NI company got only focusing on the mainstream market.

    This have amongst resulted in really bad planning and several stages of focus changes.

    Sadly VST support is lacking when it is been warned a long time ago.

    Obviously their company structure fails!

  • olafmol
    olafmol Member Posts: 133 Pro

    Yeah but 10 years can go by so quick ;)

  • Vagus
    Vagus Member Posts: 403 Pro

    So a little update to this. Arturia's Augmented Strings, you can install only the VST3, and still chose NKS support on the install. And it works.

    The problem isn't that VST3s don't work - it's that we can't user our own VST3s. I may get moaned at for this, but it's feature limiting by design, rather than by capability.

    There's always workarounds, but we shouldn't have to.

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 151 Advisor


    MPC Software is missing VST3 Support, as well. Many vendors have been lazy about implementing this.

    I don't mind that they are (thus far) only supporting their own (it's easier to test and validate your own software, and you can fix bugs with a faster turn-around), but I really dislike how I must deal with two versions of the same plug-in in one list. We need a toggle to hide VST2 plug-ins when VST3s are detected and vice versa.

    The list is twice as long now. It runs off the screen.

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newcomer
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Vagus
    Vagus Member Posts: 403 Pro

    But KK/Maschine are the open and free plugin wrappers that NI want to be the industry standard. It can't be that if it's just limited to NI or Partners. Yes, they can be prioritised, but not allowing 3rd party VSTs, when the program supports them isn't good culturally, or from a business perspective; all the good work that NKS has done could be undone by being late to the party.

    Imagine if Roli Studio Player allowed 3rd party VSTs, and added in previews. It's a simple move for them that NI could counter in advance by allowing 3rd party VST in open beta.

    I buy more software every month, and about 50% of this isn't NI software. I own Komplete ultimate, and if it's NKS Ready or compatible, I'm more likely to buy. Enabling the community to assist in the implentation would be the best move for KK/Maschine.

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newcomer
    edited June 2022
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 151 Advisor

    There are ramifications in other areas that they have to consider - like ... how much are the support burdens going to increase if they "enabled the community to assist in the implementation."

  • Vagus
    Vagus Member Posts: 403 Pro

    Ture, but there's also the benefit of QA from the wider community.

    Having seen some of the poor NKS implementation that NI has approved (3rd party) in the last 12 months, I think NI could use all the QA help it could get.

    And please don't get me wrong - I love NI and its products- I've invested heavily in the ecosystem; I just want to see what are excellent products stay on the forefront of technology, rather than take a back seat to new products and sample packs.

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 151 Advisor

    When you release something to the wider community, you also oblige yourself to support them.

    They'd [probably] like to work on it themselves before opening those floodgates.

    There are a lot of people who are going to report back with issues regarding tons of out of support/out of development VST3 plug-ins (old versions, discontinued products, etc.). It can get really hectic.

  • Aural_State
    Aural_State Member Posts: 1 Member

    VST3 was never a standard nor is VST 2.xx

    It may look like VST3 is better than VST 2.xx but it doesn't

    VST3 was made specific for Hardware Synths with VST feature

    So there is no real purpose why these plugin companies need to make a VST3 version when it doesn't come with a hardware

    This is the Ultimate Truth

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