AU or VST?

[jb]

AU or VST?
Has anyone noticed a difference using one format over the other
especially for Vi's ?
as far as performance or efficiency especially for big Orchestral set ups..
Any opinion over which ones are preferred and for what reason would be super
helpful.
Thanks.
JB

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I've been preferring VST since moving to 64 bit. It seems that AUs are a bit more crash prone, and they are certainly more compatible in other systems. Not a big consideration most of the time, but given the choice of future compatibility and AU v. VST, I'm pretty much with VST. Otherwise, no really good reasons.

[mikehalloran]

I'm with MLC on this one. I have a few plugs that were only released as VSTs. A few have an additional feature or two. It's not a big deal.

[stubbsonic]

Just to be the devil's advocate, I chose AU because I had a few that were AU only.

Since making that selection, I have read that VST has one or two built-in functions that don't work as well in AU, such as handling plugin created MIDI streams (?).

I've also had some recent trouble with broken AU prefs, where I didn't have any problems with VST's (could that be because I didn't choose them for the main format?).

Just muddying the waters, I suppose.

Trust MLC and MH. They are the bee's knee's.

[bayswater]

When I set up Yosemite I had 8 (out of roughly 500) plugins that crashed DP, although they passed the scan. All were AUs. But as mentioned above it isn't a big deal. These were old free plugins I never use.

From what I see in the plugins folders, all AUs and VSTs are mediated through two support bundles installed by DP. So it could be that these two bundles have more to do with stability and performance of the two formats than the formats themselves.

[mikehalloran]

BTW, you aren't limited to one or the other. There are different ways to set up the DP 8 plugins menu so that you can access anything you want. It's in the manual.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

There's a manual?

[mikehalloran]

[James Steele]

Hmmm... I have been using AU out of habit, but come to think of it, there's another reason you might wish to use VSTs in DP: Final Cut Pro X. PCPX seems to be very sensitive to certain AUs and even if they pass inspection, some AUs will cause FCPX to crash or have weird screen redraw issues. I know. I've encountered them.

My solution had been to use Auganizer to essentially move all my AUs out of the Components folder prior to launching FCPX. (Yes, i was too lazy to painstakingly identify which AU or AUs were the problem so i took the brute force approach.) However if I started moving DP projects over to using primarily VSTs (which FCPX doesn't even use) then no more worries about FCPX AU issues. I'd only use AUs that I might intend to use in FCP. Problem remains... all those older projects that use AU.

[billf]

Hmmm... I have been using AU out of habit, but come to think of it, there's another reason you might wish to use VSTs in DP: Final Cut Pro X. PCPX seems to be very sensitive to certain AUs and even if they pass inspection, some AUs will cause FCPX to crash or have weird screen redraw issues. I know. I've encountered them.

My solution had been to use Auganizer to essentially move all my AUs out of the Components folder prior to launching FCPX. (Yes, i was too lazy to painstakingly identify which AU or AUs were the problem so i took the brute force approach.) However if I started moving DP projects over to using primarily VSTs (which FCPX doesn't even use) then no more worries about FCPX AU issues. I'd only use AUs that I might intend to use in FCP. Problem remains... all those older projects that use AU.

Exactly the problem James. I'm in the same boat, and as you say, all the old projects that use AU will come up with the equally annoying list of plugins that can't be found should they be missing from the Components folder. Final Cut can take eons to launch because of this issue.

Being that Apple is the steward of AU and Final Cut, it should all work better than this.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I've been preferring VST since moving to 64 bit. It seems that AUs are a bit more crash prone, and they are certainly more compatible in other systems. Not a big consideration most of the time, but given the choice of future compatibility and AU v. VST, I'm pretty much with VST. Otherwise, no really good reasons.

As before but in context to recent messages...

[mikehalloran]

I wonder if AU crashing is related to the Cocoa vs Carbon issue that causes some 32bit AUs to not work in DP 7.24 / DSP-Q (Carbon only) or DP 8 (Cocoa only).

The VSTs usually work in DP 8 with a few exceptions.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Clueless in that department here, but several crashes I've gotten in DP are related to AU plugs not behaving. Re-instantiatin them seems to fix it. I can narrow that down a little as I recall Sound Toys Little Micro Shifter and the Korg Wavestation plugs, in particular, as crashing DP.

To clarify my earlier comments, by "system" I was actually referring to "programs" not being AU compatible (as per James' message). I believe that also applies between Mac and PC operating systems.

[dewdman42]

Interesting observations people are making about VST's being more robust for them then equivalent AU's. I wonder why that would be? Most of the guts in a plugin are the same code. The AU and VST layer is really just the way it interfaces with the host application. If its true what people are saying about AU's, I think its possible that Apple may have stuff happening that digs deeper into the coreaudio plumbing somehow then what VST's do, but I'm just hazarding a guess. The graphics, the gui, the algorithmic code, etc..its all the same in any given plugin between the two formats. The only thing that is different is the way data is handed back and forth between the plugin and the host.

Myself I haven't had any specific experiences one way or the other that would make me think one type of plugin is more likely to crash then the other. I have been usually opting to use AU's only because DP has been handling AU's for longer then VST's and my presumption has been that MOTU would be biased or more experienced towards AU's in some way and certainly that is Apple's bias as well, while VST's are based on steinberg's 3rd party interface and rules.

AU's are capable of sending MIDI out too, just like VST's are, but its part of a newer AU specification and my understanding is that its complicated to code, so hardly anyone has. "Complicated to code", perhaps that is a reason some AU plugins are showing some instability compared to equivalent VST's?

Some plugins only output MIDI in their VST version, such as Geist. So I use that VST version. On the other hand, I don't have a VST equivalent for 32Lives, which only supports AU's. None of my AU's are crashing my system, but I am not working full time on music like some of you guys so perhaps they would if I did, I don't know. Its very interesting though and based on the observations here I may switch to using VST's instead of AU's whenever possible.

[bayswater]

I have been usually opting to use AU's only because DP has been handling AU's for longer then VST's and my presumption has been that MOTU would be biased or more experienced towards AU's in some way and certainly that is Apple's bias as well, while VST's are based on steinberg's 3rd party interface and rules.

I take your point that the plugins themselves are pretty much the same thing, and the difference has to be the two bundles in the plugin folder for AU and VST support. But MOTU has developed their VST code more recently, and for two OSs, so it could actually be more robust than the older patched AU stuff?