2.5 months, anything new?

I agree

Sorry, I don’t know all the VST facts, or I would probably know the answer already ;-). But why care so much about VST 2 compatibility? Are there a lot of VSTs currently produced that are VST 2 and not also VST 3?

yeah, I’m not sure why the first target is vst2. Everything new is vst3. Anything else is just legacy

My vague impression is that the VST3 spec is a lot harder to write for, which may be exacerbated by the hard design problems something like Rack for DAWs poses (it’s more likely to push into dark corners than most plugins would).

JUCE has abstracted a lot of this out, which I suspect has helped with VST3 adoptation tremendously, but I highly doubt that Rack for DAWs is using (or maybe even could use) JUCE.

I don’t envy Andrew’s position at the moment. He’s a better-is-better programmer dealing with the one of the premier worse-is-better-but-also-worse SDKs (and some increasingly wild speculation and personal animus to boot). My best guess is that V2 is in good shape but he’s hitting issues with Rack for DAWs and doesn’t want to handle a lot of entitled Redditors going nuts if V2 comes out without Rack for DAWs.

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I only caught a minute of Andrew on the discord voice chat last night before I had a phone call, and he was discussing various VST development issues. Maybe one of the other chat participants can share more about it.

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Well, I feel bad about suggesting all sorts of draconian possibilities. It sounds like Andrew is burned out or otherwise in not a great place, mentally/emotionally, and that’s rough to go through.

Andrew, I highly recommend Prozac to take the edge off. 40mg is what I take. Talking to a doctor about it once, his opinion was “they should put it in the water.”

Plus there’s the whole last year. Anyone with a social bone in their body couldn’t come through that completely unscathed. Fortunately, I am antisocial, so I’m OK. My wife, not so much.

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It’s good to hear from Andrew again, although I’m sad to hear him describe his near-burnout, as I would call it. It’s a very ambitious project, and I’m sure it hasn’t been helped by the pandemic and various social issues that’s been happening around it. I doubt he’ll read this, but if could give Andrew any advice it would be this:

  • Focus on getting V2 out the door before the VST version. That will also give a longer porting time for plugins, and time to iron out the worst bugs and get initial feedback, which I think will be a good thing.
  • Only after that, finish the work on getting the VST version done, and release it only when it’s done. I’m sure it’s a challenging project.

I’m of course not sure if the two can be de-coupled but I would hope so. Sure, this might disappoint some people expecting both to be released on same day, but that is far better than burnout, or near-infinite postponement, or too short porting and testing time, and it will generate positive PR and exitement for the project and the arrival of the VST version. It will also lessen the risk of impending burnout by biting off the task into two, and it will be a good mood and morale boost to get product released.

Prioritize your health Andrew, it’s more important than Rack! I’m always open for a confidential chat as well.

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There was a release plan here with a rough roadmap:

But - complex software dev is never an exact science, and health/wellbeing and enjoying VCV (i.e. the great thing Andrew and the community already have built) are much more important than sticking to loose, old plans). And to achieve those in the long run, it might also be necessary to take more time out, or get help for certain areas - but that only Andrew and those involved closely can judge.

But, Fingers crossed the v2/VST release generates enough income for multiple people, so Andrew could employ friends/colleagues/community members to potentially take over the areas/parts that cause the biggest emotional/mental drain (i.e. I’d assume managing community communication & expectation management & the occasionally occurring drama around it play a large role when a project becomes as loved & successfull as VCV and can be difficult to deal with for everyone, on top of the technical challenges that VCV v2 & VST hold).

Thanks for the open words @Vortico in the dev blog - and I wish you all the best, and if there’s anything I/we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

c.

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First of all; best to Andrew. His health should come before anything else.

Before we all jump into new expectations concerning new names for rack2/vsts; I think it would be wise to take his last post as something serious. It has been apparent since v0.6 that his project is very ambitious and that he has had trouble making it collaborative. As both the VCV core and the library and community grow, this problem will only become bigger. Without a significant change in the way the VCV company functions we should not expect steady progress any time soon.

VCV Rack has immense value already, and it can grow even bigger. However, to do that properly means forming a team to hand oarts of the operation over to, this much has become clear. This will mean that beyond any direct health issues, Andrew will have to learn to open stuff up: create a way to onboard developers (at first maybe one, later dozens, who knows?). Also, it would n’t hurt if Andrew would hand over parts of the operation, of which communication seems the most urgent, considering both the long communication intervals and the tone of voice that can be handled better.

For me personally this will be the last time I check in to the community for a while. Saying goodbye to VCV for now, unless news of a serious business overhaul is announced. Love the project, but if it is not handled better it will drag a lot of people down instead of lifting the community up.

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I’m going to continue using it because it’s cool, even if nothing ever gets updated again. It’s free, I can make music with it (ok that’s aspirational), people who know how can make and sell their own plugins or not or whatever :heart_eyes:

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There’s millions dead and countless lives upturned for months/years due to a pandemic and yet people seem desperate to inject drama into the story of a guy a bit late finishing the latest version of their music software. Perspective ffs.

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new tutorials, official and 3rd party modules and hardware ports are also something to looking forward to, and it doesn’t need to wait for v2 to happen :slight_smile: we are fed with at least one new module every week, I don’t think we can say that the community is desperately waiting for something new since months

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gonna respectfully disagree. :slight_smile: The whole reason I have been writing modules is to use them within a VST context. The fact that so many other people are wondering what is going on indicates there is a lot of interest in the VST version as well. Just because stuff is being released, doesn’t mean we aren’t waiting for something else. These activities are orthogonal.

I think we can in fact say, the community is desperately waiting for the VST version, especially since it was announced that it was “coming soon” 2 years ago. I get that Andrew is dealing with some stuff, but that doesn’t make other folks frustration any less valid

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It sounds more serious than “some stuff”. I think someone’s health is more important than hitting a release date, so if that means waiting, fine by me.

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Andrew does not do all the stuff. There are some parts made by other contributors. Check all the repositories available in GitHub and see them all.

There are moral and legal issues to deal when accepting code contributions to a code base. One small example, in the main Rack code base, imagine that I contributed with some code. Now that version 2 will cost money, am I entitled to some of that money? if not, am I a sucker because I worked for free?

I respect his decision of not accepting contributions for the Rack. That makes sorting out the legal issues simpler. There are very few audio music companies that allow you to see part of their source code.

Some of the coding has been done by third parties and paid by the community (some of the MI ports). Other developers have collaborated with VCV when developing plugins, for example Valley with Sound Stage.

I don’t know what you expect. A lot of successful software and hardware projects are driver by a single person. Rack, even since it was a beta, has been a good and fun piece of software. VCV as a company will grow as it is needed and if it is needed. Personally, I don’t need big marketing campaigns and Facebook/YouTube ads to let me know that I should like it. I simply enjoy it.

Vult in perpetuum!

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Completely agree with you on nearly every point. VCV is a joy, Andrew is a wizard, the collection of modules is amazing.

Reason why I think we’re at a point where a change is needed is because 3 things coïncide: Big delay Apparent (near) burn out Reports of developers not feeling welcome

For my personal use vst + improved stability is essential, so the sum of all parts means I am investing my time elsewhere.

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My point of view on those three points.

  • Software estimations are hard and projects are usually late. That’s why most software companies do not publish timelines or future plans until they are about to be released.
  • Everybody gets tired of work, even when one is doing fun things. Additionally, past year has been emotionally tough, specially for the people that have had to deal with hospitals and passing of relatives. Taking time off and taking vacations is good. But that will add to the delay of projects.
  • I have read some of the post made by the disappointed developers. I can understand the concerns of both sides and it is not hard to point out the misunderstandings. But personally, I’m a very practical person and I don’t let drama affect me. My objectives since day one have been: to develop things that I enjoy, share them with other people that may like them. I don’t need anyone to like me or welcome me, but it makes me happy that people like the Vult creations. Dr. Leonardo Laguna Ruiz sucks, but Vult rules.
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I do not want to sound rude about this, but it brings to the table the flaws of the software is fine, but announcing that you are going to stop using it does not matter to me, just as I do not care what brand of detergent you use, it is pointless

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Usually, the simple and robust way projects handle that is copyright assignment. You contribute code and hand over the ownership of it to the project, for them to do with it as they see fit.

Sure. Depends on whether you want to look at VCV as an open source project or an “audio music company”. Plenty of good open source projects, also in the space of sound/audio/music.

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