[markofthew]

It is negative, but you have understand how niche the music and audio market really is to put some of my comments in context. I'm all for new and cool and all the rest of it, but the end users here--composers, musicians, producers, engineers--tend to not care so much about pioneering in what you might call the HN way.

To speak to your simple example, Native Instruments could do what you suggest, but they could have done what you suggest by adopting the cool and new VST3 standard back in 2006. This would have set them up for Cubase 5, which introduced VST Expression (3.5) to provide exactly that variance within orchestral samples on a per-note basis. So this has been possible for nearly a decade and a half, and, so far as I can tell, while most composers agree it's a neat idea, by Native Instruments controlling the sampler market (and Vienna to a degree) and not supporting VST3.5, the adoption never materialized.

Also, how many keyboards support polyphonic aftertouch? This would be the MIDI message that would need to be generated in order to perform polyphonic note-based expression. But almost no keyboards support it, and ROLI created the MPE standard to provide a workaround by splitting messages across multiple MIDI channels. Interestingly, MPE has received quite a bit of attention, but this doesn't require a new plug-in format to support it. And ROLI, the company, has been disastrous in the marketplace by adopting Silicon-Valley-esque approaches, raising capital, growing too fast with needless acquisitions, filing for bankruptcy, rising more money, and it even has a leader who thinks he can walk on water!

So if I sound old-fashioned and against new ideas, nothing could be further from the truth. But to pretend musicians would jump on disruptive innovation just isn't what has happened in the past. Maybe this time it'll work, but I don't see that industry has changed all that much. In fact, in many ways it's worse. More and more sample library creators have created their own sampler for playback, so whereas Kontakt used to power most libraries, now Spitfire, Cinesamples, 8dio, Orchestral Tools, and others, have their own engine. The phrase herding cats comes to mind.

Diversity and change is the one thing that just hasn't happened in the music and audio world. For example, Steinberg introduced Nuendo 22 years ago with the intention of it disrupting Pro Tools... However, go to Skywalker Sound, for example, or any other high-end audio facility, and they won't be running Nuendo -- at least in the US. And as for open source, listen to Paul Davis talk about Ardour... For some reason, open source music and audio software has just never become a thing. And sure, it would be cool for there to be a kind of Red Hat model adopted in the audio industry, where money could be made from supporting an open-source-based ecosystem, but I think CLAP has more chance of succeeding than this reality.

[mobiuscog]

I see the proliferation of bespoke sample players as both a good thing - it drives innovation, as can be seen in some aspects of Orchestral Tools SINE player - and a reflection that Kontakt just hasn't kept up (perhaps as NI has spread itself too thin across many interests).

I also think that the industry could change - After all, Hans Zimmer has been instrumental (!) in bringing more plugin instruments into the mainstream scores, and may well be one who'd appreciate the potential (especially being fond of u-he instruments).

I'm sure that everything won't suddenly change, and indeed I doubt the landscape will change much over the next 12 months. However, everything has to start somewhere and CLAP is well designed and connected to be able to make a difference.

I also think that a realistic approach needs to be taken with the open source aspect. It opens more doors, rather than closing them - that's what's important. The business side will need more work, but just bringing the ecosystem to more people with less barriers to entry, as well as looking to progress the status quo and allow for more innovation without being dependent on a single vendor, is a fantastic start.

I don't disagree with your current view of the world. I just believe that it's just as ripe for change as other tech industries - perhaps more. Blender is another example of how sentiment can change - it may not be an Industry Standard yet, but it's gaining a lot more use and respect, and even the industry at large is now funding research and development into it.

There is change happening. It just needs encouragement.

[markofthew]

The proliferation of bespoke sample players has solely been for commercial reasons, though. For example, a company receives outside money, say Spitfire; the investors ask if the company owns all their own IP; a discussion ensues that the company's products require a per-license fee to be protected with the Kontakt Player realm; the investor raises their eyebrows. What follows is pain for the user as developers who've never built a sampler player download JUCE and see what they can do, all making the same mistakes, and taking versions to iron them out much to the annoyance of end users. Plus, there's really not that much innovation that comes out of this... And some of the seemingly innovative aspects of SINE were simply stolen at the behest of one of the celebrity names they have behind some of their products.

I would love to see more change in music and audio, but when the main applications in use are all over 30 years old, you have to wonder. Cubase started in 1989 on the Atari and became reborn as Cubase SX 1.0 in 2002, Logic was released by Emagic (after the separation with C-Lab) in 1990/91 and purchased by Apple in 2002, Pro Tools also came in 1991, based on the earlier Sound Tools products, and so on...

Also, it's depressing to think how much exciting research existed in this field in the 80s that still hasn't come to fruition. Look back at Stanford and CCRMA, the close ties to Lusasfilm Computer Division, NeXT, etc... Michael Hawley who is sadly no longer with us, even talked about creating a MusicDroid (like SoundDroid and EditDroid) for John Williams to be able to prototype orchestral scores.

Surely for something truly innovative to happen, we need bigger truly revolutionary thoughts along these lines, not just another plug-in format. That's kind of boring, to be honest. Surely with developers like Urs and others can think of something bigger; CLAP seems motivated by developers wanting to unshackle themselves from the hosts they ultimately need to support them, either via wrapper code or native support. It's hard to articulate why this changes the world for the better for an end user who just wants a cool new synth.

[mobiuscog]

I totally agree with most of what you have said, and it would be crazy to expect the world to just change overnight because of a new plugin format.

However, this is another opportunity to allow change - to break the "chicken and egg" situation and unlock the potential for others to come along and ride on that change.

As with any change, it needs support and nurturing to grow and become something that will have a greater impact. It's a foundation to allow more innovation to sit upon without being constrained by licensing and legacy.

This discussion is an excellent point as to why things need to change. The situation as you have so eloquently summarised, is locked-in and controlled by a few big companies, with little space for innovation in the first place.

It may not be a big or rapid change, but it has the potential to make a difference. In the spirit of your sentence:

> I would love to see more change in music and audio

Encourage the change, and don't decide there's no point because of how it's previously been.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> And as for open source, listen to Paul Davis talk about Ardour... For some reason, open source music and audio software has just never become a thing.

Uh, what? When did I say that? That just isn't true.

[markofthew]

Apologies, Paul. When I saw your 2017 keynote (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk2AMwc4e2k) from the Linux Audio Conference, you seemed less enthusiastic than in other talks you've given. Maybe I was reading too much into the message you were trying to convey; as I say, apologies if that was the case, I have nothing but respect for your work.