knaggsdp
I use multiple DAW software both at home and at college and I wonder why when switching between the applications I don't have the same VST plugins for certain tasks, for example, compression and reverb. Every DAW has their own plugins which can achieve the same purpose but they aren't exactly the same in both the process, features, and the user interface.
The great thing about VST is that you can have the same plugins on different DAWs if you like. Each one will work in the others (with very few exceptions). So, what you seem to be suggesting is not some sort of standardisation across DAWs but a reduction in choice, which is rarely a good thing.
You might think it's possible to condense all the features into just 1 or 2 'standard' plugins but that is likely to result in excess complexity. For example, I don't bother with the analogue style EQs because they give me too little control and I don't care about the supposed qualities that some people like in them. But they probably don't want to use a standard parametric EQ because they value the ease of use of something like a Pultec and may prefer its sound. Which should be the standard? If you say "both", then why stop there? How about a graphic equaliser as well - but how many bands? How many channels?
- All the plugins must also have their source code released under one of the OSI-approved licenses. I recommend the three-clause BSD license.
- To allow for collaboration between DAW makers for the plugins (so everyone can help with the development of the plugins), the plugins source code will be publicly available online at GitHub.
This sort of requirement basically compels DAW makers to work on something for free. Why would Cakewalk work hard on an EQ if Steinberg can just take it for free and put it in Cubase? Why would Apple create an amazing compressor for Logic if Cockos can drop it into REAPER without investing any money themselves? This would be a clear example of a free rider problem and you would need to provide external incentives to overcome it.
- Binary installers must be available for both Windows and Mac and available in both 32-bit and 64-bit and must be able to be installed side-by-side.
Here, you compel Windows-only developers to start a Mac development team (and vice versa) - all for a product that they can't sell and which other developers can use for free.
- All plugins must utilise all cores available on the host for processing.
That's an arbitrary technological requirement that doesn't make any sense. Not every audio algorithm is trivially parallelised. It's much more common,and usually more efficient, for each plugin to run on a single thread, so that the concurrency happens with plugins each on different cores, not each plugin spanning all the cores. In short, what you're asking for is for developers to spend money on something that doesn't benefit them and doesn't necessarily even benefit users (since there are already many good freeware and bundled VSTs). What would have more traction is for independent developers to start out on this mission. Let them create some high quality open-source VSTs, then all the DAW developers have to compete to be able to offer something better. The main downside here is that the VST SDK is not open source so it's non-trivial for people to join in development efforts. But maybe there are legal ways around that.