Tracking Apple Silicon Native Hosts, Plugins, Effects

[cadiz]

What would you say, is it now a good time to start using VST3 instead of VST2? I always used vst2 because of the old projects but now might be a good time to switch. Should I bother?

Ableton 11. MacOs Monterey

From my experience a project with a VST2 will not load the same plugin in VST3 so to be backwards compatible you need to have both versions installed at least this is the situation with Ableton Live

[Rickskii]

Sorry for the OT post but unsure where else to post.
Genuinely confused at this point which versions of plugins to download if like me you have a new MacBook Pro or Max. At present I am doing the following:

1. I am downloading VST2 as this is where the native versions reside
2. I am downloading VST3 due to the SB business and people like NI not making Kontakt as a VST2 etc.
3. I am also downloading AU as Ableton (my DAW of choice) opens non native by using the AU wrapper.

Also some devs such as Jon V audio or Aberrant DSP don't have VST2 licences.

Is this how others are doing it or can I not bother with one or the other. The current system makes keeping track of stuff a bit of a mess.

Rick.

[sQeetz]

Cherry Audio Voltage Modular is available in a native version

Nice but I'm a bit disappointed. Is it normal that it uses so much CPU (about 15% on one core) when completely empty? I thought it was because it ran under Rosetta, but in native Logic with native VM still high CPU load while idling.
I also have, for example, Eight Voice. And playing multiple voices barely register on the CPU meter. It's really nicely optimized... But when loading the Synth Expander Module (which I assume shares codes with 8V) CPU usage can go up to 50% (on one core).

It's way better now. Guess it was just downloading modules in the background?

Also no universal binary. It's either AS or Intel.

[khollister]

Sorry for the OT post but unsure where else to post.
Genuinely confused at this point which versions of plugins to download if like me you have a new MacBook Pro or Max. At present I am doing the following:

1. I am downloading VST2 as this is where the native versions reside
2. I am downloading VST3 due to the SB business and people like NI not making Kontakt as a VST2 etc.
3. I am also downloading AU as Ableton (my DAW of choice) opens non native by using the AU wrapper.

Also some devs such as Jon V audio or Aberrant DSP don't have VST2 licences.

Is this how others are doing it or can I not bother with one or the other. The current system makes keeping track of stuff a bit of a mess.

Rick.

It really depends on what DAW you use. Most plugin installers install everything by default, and since we aren't talking about a lot of disk space I aways just install everything unless I remember to uncheck AAX. I'm not aware of any plugin that has a native VST2 and not VST3 unless there is no VST3 at all (UAD, Soundtoys, etc). At least on a Mac the stuff is all in one place rather than being scattered around your drive like in Windows.

[btfnk]

All three plugins installed (AU/VST2/VST3) are 6.7.0. Not sure what you are taking about. Lots of devs do not give you the choice of which versions to install. It’s just disk space.

The Kontakt VST2 is not native ARM. Only AU and VST3 are UB2.

It's among the biggest blunders that dinosaur of a death spiral company has made.

[theymer]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Three Body Tech - Kirchhoff EQ is native,
source: https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.ph ... tcount=579 (https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.php?p=15783762&postcount=579)

Thanks for doing this!

[Tronam]

All three plugins installed (AU/VST2/VST3) are 6.7.0. Not sure what you are taking about. Lots of devs do not give you the choice of which versions to install. It’s just disk space.

The Kontakt VST2 is not native ARM. Only AU and VST3 are UB2.

It's among the biggest blunders that dinosaur of a death spiral company has made.

Hasn’t VST2 been officially deprecated?

[sqigls]

Thread here...

Steinberg Discontinuing VST2 Support in its products
viewtopic.php?t=576589

[btfnk]

Yes, which is why new products and new devs aren't releasing VST2 anymore. I'm totally fine with that. But existing products should still receive compatibility updates in their existing formats. Not doing that is absurd. Many other companies are releasing VST2 UB2 updates for their existing products because they understand the value of backward compatibility and their users existing workflow.

[Kitty cloudz]

Hi , this thread has helped me a lot thx, just want to share my m1 experience..For other high performance users.
I have had lots of issues running my rather intense cpu / dsp Ableton live performance set , I have tried many laptops including recently a high spec Asus g14 , all were too taxed to run the full live set I wanted , lots of pops and lag , that would not fly in the live setting , ...I was also about to ditch my M1 macbook , but after meticulously reinstalling every plugin that has a m1 native release, updating Ableton to 11.1 and then *ONLY using m1 native vst3/2 ,my cpu meter went from 79- 88% idle to 23-34% idle and very smooth performance..so I can say M1 native is the “real deal” for those really pushing there rigs to musical extremes.

*Plugin alliance m1 release In march will be huge for me.

[teilo]

All three plugins installed (AU/VST2/VST3) are 6.7.0. Not sure what you are taking about. Lots of devs do not give you the choice of which versions to install. It’s just disk space.

The Kontakt VST2 is not native ARM. Only AU and VST3 are UB2.

It's among the biggest blunders that dinosaur of a death spiral company has made.

Yes, I know, and I didn't say otherwise. The VST2 is upgraded, but is x64-only. NI had an ARM build
of the VST2 during the beta, but couldn't release it because Steinberg is pulling the rug out from under VST2 development on ARM. Steinberg is NOT extending the VST2 license for existing developers to the ARM architecture. Yes, many developers have already released VST2-builds. But Steinberg only just clarified that this is gong away, even for existing products. So blame Steinberg, not NI. NI is ripping off the bandaid now. Other devs will be forced to follow soon enough.

[kidslow]

There are prices to be paid for 55% performance gains or no such thing as a computational free lunch. That said, Steinberg lost my business a long time ago, so please feel free to heap scorn upon them.

Also, I'm probably in the minority, but not having legacy VST2 projects to maintain, I have had few problems with VST3 and that is my preferred format when available. Upon occasion I do see issues with it and will fall back to VST or AU. If I want a plugin available to the system (e.g. via SoundSource) I will install it as AU. If AU or VST are the two choices, I choose VST in most cases. Perhaps I should avoid VST as much as possible going forward so as to avoid legacy project issues down the road.

ADDING:
There is a sign of life from Boz Digital Labs and a web page now to track his M1 status.
https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/the-grea ... e-of-2022/
Apparently Panipulator 3 is now M1 compatible (untested by me) and Mongoose 2 is due next.

[Atlatnesiti]

Thread here...

Steinberg Discontinuing VST2 Support in its products
viewtopic.php?t=576589

Almost all my plug-ins are Vst 3 now.
I hardly use Vst 2 anymore. If devs are so lazy and can’t be bothered to update their plug-ins to vst3 then I’ll ditch them.
Devs had more than enough time to migrate their VST2 to vst3.
Personally I’m removing all my Vst 2 as we speak…
Good riddance

[petergreeny]

Why in bloody hell is Ilok taking so long to update to M1 Native? They're apparently holding everyone else up... anyone know why this could be?

[davestretch]

Why in bloody hell is Ilok taking so long to update to M1 Native? They're apparently holding everyone else up... anyone know why this could be?

They've had to rewrite the Fusion protection software. Word is that they are getting ready to bring these tools out of Beta soon and that should open up the flood gates for all the developers that rely on it. Soundtoys and Liquidsonics already have M1 Native Public Preview builds which are working well.