Bitwig has this feature for looping clips: "Operators". The recurrence operator, specifically. You can do more complicated stuff like "play this note on the 2nd & 4th loop of a 5 loop cycle".
GPU Audio is doing it with VST 3. And it's probably possible with CLAP too?
Processing audio on a GPU is a lower level issue than a plugin standard which describes the interface between the DAW and the plugin (how audio, parameters, notes, modulation data, etc. are exchanged).
These Bitwig people are always doing something exciting. Seems like they took all the stuff that makes the built-in Bitwig instruments cool (per note/voice modulation, "non-destructive" modulation) and turned it into an open plugin format.
I wonder if this brings anything cool to the table for effects plugins? Does it allow for per-voice effects?
You may have a point regarding some plugins, but complaining about it here isn't very fair to Vital:
>additional software, security tools (digital dongles) and drivers
Vital appears to install/require none of these things.
>found the free version to be limited in many subtle ways
Subtle how? It's all listed on their home page: there are less presets (you can make your own) and there are less wavetables (you can import your own). The only functional limitation is on using the "text-to-wavetable" feature to generate wavetables.
Otherwise, you have all the same modulation, filtering, wavetable morphing, & FX that the paid version does. If you choose to pay for it, you're basically just buying more presets.
It's worth noting that these numbers aren't great indicators of sound quality. A 70 dB SNR is perfectly fine for listening to music. Listening and recording environments often have a worse acoustic SNR than that. Instruments are often recorded with converters and digital/analog effects that have a < 100 dB SNR, and they're often further compressed/distorted.
Still, I agree that vinyl is nowhere close to ideal in terms of sound quality. I enjoy it in spite of that.
Yes, it's a garbage number, especially for recreational listening.
The typical home will have enough background noise (HVAC, traffic, wind, etc) that the noise floor isn't especially relevant, but things like a rich midrange and good dynamics certainly will be.
Also, "degrades on each play" is a real overbid these days. Maybe 50 years ago when people used crappy stylii with non-counterwighted tonearms, that was a problem... but a decent turntable with a good cartridge is quite safe. It would take hundreds of plays for noticeable degredation to occur. I might draw a parallel to home users worrying about SSD write cycles - it's much more of a theoretical issue than a practical one.
