Steinberg VST 2 SDK Support Ends In October 2018

Steinberg today announced the end of support for VST 2 in the Software Development Kit (SDK), efffective October 2018:

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.

From October 2018 onward we are closing down the second version of VST for good. While the VST 2 SDK has been unavailable, and so have maintenance and technical support, the subset within the VST 3 SDK will also be omitted.

VST 2 compatibility with Steinberg VST hosts will remain, however, we recommend to root for the latest version of VST. VST 2 was introduced in 1999 and since then the technology has evolved dramatically. Since 2008, the SDK for the third iteration of VST, VST 3, has been available and since then efforts are focused entirely on the further development of VST 3.

“We appreciate that developers and users alike gravitate strongly toward the VST 3 interface that comes with many technological advancements. By bidding farewell to VST 2, we hope to offer everyone a clear direction,” comments Yvan Grabit, technology lead at Steinberg.

Virtual Studio Technology or VST is a standard plug-in format for creating virtual instruments and effects for use in DAWs and other music applications.

7 thoughts on “Steinberg VST 2 SDK Support Ends In October 2018

  1. C’mon Steinberg, we pay you at least twice of the price than the other DAWs, and you killed in time the 32 bits compatibility and then the VST2! What’s wrong to keep it alive?! It still works very well.
    If you stop to maintain the 32 bit and the VST2, at least lower your prices.
    I love the Cubase workflow, but after all of that Reaper is even more tempting…

  2. This is going to be a shock to the industry, as far as I can tell, loads of plug-ins only use VST2.
    That said, stopping support doesn’t mean that old libraries won’t continue to work for a long time.
    And if you’re a DAW developer, you’ll still want to keep VST2 support for a long time too.

  3. I always like to install vst2 because of the free folder selection offered in contrary to vst3. Am i wrong doing this. I very agree to the first comment. Since Atari i paid a shitload of dollars to Steinberg. I earned a lifetime guarantee license after all these years. Beside cutting 32bit and Vst2 this sucking paranoid performance hog of license key is the other thing to mention. Once plugged into a non native usb port it peaks on 50% projects all the time. Be careful Steinberg not loosing in the long run.

  4. There is such a legacy of VST2 that I suspect it’ll be supported by DAWs for years to come. There obviously hasn’t been a compelling reason for developers to move to VST3 or they would have already.

  5. The article states “VST 2 compatibility with Steinberg VST hosts will remain”. However, the SDK for VST3 has a host, and it does not seem to know how to load VST2 plugins. So can someone at Steinberg (or anybody) please clarify this? Does a VST host developer have to determine which VST flavor a plugin supports and then use different methodologies to load it into the host?

Leave a Reply to evileye Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *