Hi.
There are times when I loose track of things. I google for help and my eyes glaze over from the results as I’m not technically minded in the area of concern.
But my question is along these lines - I run Linux only. When I look for plugins, say on falkTX’s KXStudio website I get spoiled for choice for LV2/VST2/VST3 options. As I understand it VST3 is an upgrade over VST2 (better use of CPU or something like that).
But if I had to choose a standard for my collection should I stick with LV2 or should I upgrade to a plugin’s VST3 alternative when available?
I’m aware that VCV does not support LV2 but I use other hosts like Carla.
Personally I use LV2 where I can. VST3 doesn’t necessarily have “better use of CPU” and actually has less features than VST2 in some respects.
Just realize that many plugin developers only support so many formats, LV2 is still a bit of a niche that only few support (even though JUCE7 has official support now, and 99% of plugins are made using JUCE these days).
In the end it doesn’t really matter than much, it depends on what kind of features you need/want. I try to use the same plugins on desktop as I do embedded (MOD devices), so then LV2 generally is preferred, but if the same plugin exists in other formats I’m fine using those formats, depending on the host.
If you can choose between LV2 and VST3 and you only use LV2-capable hosts then I’d go for LV2. In my experience VST3 is sometimes not very stable, whereas stability issues with LV2 have been quite rare.
