For the Mac users out there, of whom I am one, I'd like to create a list of the plugins that we should use as an AU and those we should use as VST

Apparently there are some plugin developers who understand the AU format and use it well. One such dev that comes to mind is u-he. On the other hand, there are plugin developers who throw a wrapper on a VST and call it a day, and everything in-between.

I have no idea what VST "wrappers" might be used, or exactly how VSTs might be wrapped, but I do know some devs advise using the VST rather than AU, and I believe Audio Damage is one dev recommending this with their plugins.

For stability and resource usage for plugins in various hosts on the Mac, sometimes it makes sense to use the AU, and other times it makes sense to use the VST. If there is interest, lets create the lists and maybe even the devs will help out.

My goal is to use the best version of each plugin for stability and performance.

Please help me compile this list. Let's keep this on topic. This isn't about Mac vs. PC, and this is not a place to bash plugin developers. This is a thread to make of list of the best version of plugins to use on the Mac and why. Thanks in advance for not going all crazy cat lady (or Internet hero in your parent's basement) in this thread.

AU version is best on Mac
- u-he plugins (Urs is not human)
- ValhallaDSP (depends, see post by Sean/ValhallaDSP below)
- DMG Audio (should be equally good as AU or VST, AU might have more features)
- AudioSpillage
- Cytomic - The Glue (AU supports text to value and value to text conversions)
- fxpansion (depends on host, see answer from Angux_FX in this thread)


VST version is best on Mac
- Audio Damage
- Sugar Bytes
- Big Tick Audio (Rhino)
- fxpansion (depends on host, see answer from Angux_FX in this thread)


I'm going to have to think about how to organize this list, since it's becoming clear the best choice can change by plugin, 32 or 64 bit, and DAW/Host.

If you have experienced with stability issues with a plugin AU/VST in a specific DAW/Host please chime in with details.
Last edited by billcarroll on Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:18 am; edited 9 times in total

Here are the 2 posts I'm basing my current assumption re: u-he and Audio Damage plugins


Urs of u-he taking about AU and VST
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=353796


Post on analogindustries.com by Chris Randall, co-owner of Audio Damage, Inc.
http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.php?blogid=129779 4073728

big tick uses the wrapper. dont' know whether its a problem either

What host(s) do you use? Here, I don't have the choice.. I have Cubase 6 (which is VST only) and Digital Performer 7 (which is AU only.. I think the same goes for Logic, yes?)

I guess I've outed myself as an Ableton Live and Native Instruments Maschine user. Both accept AU and VST.

I'm always using audio units...and have nothing in VST format.

Some developers actually tell you to use the VST version over the AU. I'm just trying to nail down best version to use since it affects performance and overall stability of your DAW.

I notice fxpansion sells the "VST to AU Adapter v2.0" and based on this I'm guessing their AUs are wrapped VSTs. I've asked fxpansion directly but have not gotten an answer.

I'd use VST for everything. Except maybe u-he stuff because he doesn't like the VST format on Mac, at least not the 2.4 VST format.

I' ve read both links, the issues on AU x VSTs on mac are pretty interesting.

Waves has some issues with the AU version on Live (when first instantiated, the plug will be bypassed although it will pretend to be active - great for placebo EQ changes but not much real use until you bypass it in Live and then unbypass it). The VST Waveshell doesn't suffer from this so much.

However, I'll usually use the AUs for convenience (preset compatibility with Logic for plugs that don't save their own) unless it clearly makes Live crash or I need MIDI out. I've never noticed enough of a performance hit between the two to really bother with trying to list which one is best. The time spent in traversing a wrapper function is unlikely to be a significant amount of time compared with the actual processing of any data-intensive plug-in.

I've emailed some of the developers and I'm getting some interesting information back regarding AU vs VST. I'll share some of the information here with their permission. If we get lucky a few of the developers might chime in here themselves.

The semi-official Valhalla policy on AU versus VST:

It depends.

Due to some quirks of the Juce wrapper, and the code I created back in 2010 to deal with some flaws in the Juce wrapper, the automation values in Valhalla VSTs display "real world" values, while the AUs displayed normalized values. Advantage: VST.

Another Juce "quirk" leads to some VST hosts being unable to use the data entry fields under the sliders, while the AU can use the data entry. This is the case in Ableton Live. Advantage: AU.

The 64-bit AUs work well in all hosts, while the 64-bit VST works well in Cubase and Studio One, but is a bit quirky in Reaper. Other plugin developers that use Juce have reported similar findings. Advantage: AU.

The VST SDK is nice and lean, but has no documentation to speak of in its 2.4 incarnation, and is horribly complicated in its 3.x version according to most developers. The Audio Unit SDK is powerful, but has a bunch of options that won't ever be used as they aren't cross platform, and the documentation is really cumbersome. Advantage: hard to say, but I'd pick VST.

Most Juce developers will start with a "generic" audio processing block in Juce, with a specific Juce editor. The Juce framework has wrapper code to port the audio and GUI to VST, AU and RTAS. I use my own cross-platform DSP code, that can be ported to GUI-less VST or AU in about 30 minutes. The Juce port of my code takes far more time. The RTAS wrapper in Juce uses similar conventions to VST (i.e. parameters in 0.0 to 1.0 range), so creating RTAS plugins is easy if you use Juce and have working VST code.

Sean Costello

Sean, thank you so much for your time and the detailed response. That was awesome.

My pleasure!

I forgot to add that, while many of the "quirks" in my plugins stem from issues with the Juce framework, not all plugins that use Juce will have these issues. Andrew Simper / Cytomic uses Juce, and his plugins display "real world" automation values for both VST and AU. Andrew has posted some of his code on the Juce forum, and I hope to integrate some of it in my upcoming plugins. Hopefully some version of Andrew's code will make it into future Juce builds as well.

Sean Costello