What's the word on Ventura and DP and common plug ins?

[James Steele]

I updated to DP 11.22 today, and the Quicktime movie export crash that's been happening under Ventura has been fixed.

Yep... that was a known bug in 11.21 and MacOS 13.3 didn't help. As you saw though, DP 11.22 was released today and they fixed it. I think MOTU described it as a "workaround" which seems to imply that Apple "broke" something going from Monterrey to Ventura. But glad it's working now!

[mhschmieder]

My DP 11.22 update just now finished. The Ventura upgrade was super-fast compared to incremental Monterey updates.

There are at least four points of data related to Kontakt 7 (AU version) suddenly failing in DP 11 a month or so ago, so I will try to check K7 as soon as I can break from tax work:

1. Kontakt 7 had an update this past week
2. The Ventura upgrade only flagged two things as incompatible:
a. Opera Browser (I reinstalled the latest, and it's now OK)
b. Native Instruments Application Communication (or something like that)
3. DP 11.22 apparently fixed some specific plug-in issues
4. Going to Ventura may reduce issues as vendors emphasize testing the latest

Ventura itself is WAY faster than Monterey. It was one of James's recent posts that I saw last night regarding Apple Mail (which has been taking an hour after a fresh boot -- if I'm lucky -- before I can see message content, which is a killer when dealing as I usually do with immediate time-sensitive matters), that made me decide today that "it can't get worse, so I may as well upgrade".

I needed that data point ASAP before I spend time switching all my K6 instances to K7, so I could decide if I need to dump Audio Units entirely, on account of thinking the only way I'll be productive again is if I switch from macOS to Windows.

At any rate, I'll try to remember to report back here once I have vetted some plug-ins that had become problematic on Monterey, DP 11.21, or in some cases other apps (or all of the above).

[mhschmieder]

Perhaps reinstallation will fix these plug-ins in their AU form, but these are the ones that still fail in DP 11.22, unless for some reason they didn't get re-examined (I'll try to force that now):

1. NI Komplete Kontrol
2. NI Kontakt 7
3. NI Battery 4
4. NI Massive X
5. Arturia Mellotron V
6. Korg miniKorg
7. Moog Model D
8. Moog Model 15
9. Moog Animoog Z
10.Steinberg Groove Agent SE
11. Vienna Ensemble Pro AU3
12. Wallander NotePerformer
13. WayOutWare TimewARP 2600
14. Hybrid_x64
15. SpeakUp Sensor
16. DW Drum Enhancer
17. TutorialPlugin
18. PSP 608 MultiDelay
19.Oxford Envolution
10. 2016 Stereo Room
21. XILS 4
22. T-RackS CS

Some of these I don't know by name and would have to look up, plus I made some guesses on vendors for a few, as there are many plug-ins that have similar names or multiple emulations by different vendors.

I do not think any of these are new failures, and I didn't trash my AU cache, as it takes hours to reexamine due to how many I have reinstalled and I need to get things done tonight. Some of these have failed for years and I thought I had deleted them but apparently didn't catch every version due to variations in file names and organization.

I re-enabled all the ones that failed. The three buttons at the bottom, including the one to re-examine, are greyed out for some reason. It reloads the audio system afterwards, and crashed when I loaded DP 11.22 for the first time, but now it seems properly bootstrapped. I unchecked all VST's this time and reenabled all AU's.

[mhschmieder]

Kontakt 7 and Battery 4 are working now. I'll try to get some of the other failures in fresh states as well.

It takes a few minutes for the Audio Plug-ins tab to show anything, and then it can be sluggish on mouse clicks as well, so the Reexamine is working if there's an active selection but it took so long to honor my selection that I didn't notice it was greyed due to no selection detected (at that point). Maybe this behavior will speed up after a few DP 11.22 sessions.

I'm going to reexamine a few plug-ins I use a lot but simply aren't active in the one project I have time to open and use as a DP 11.22 sanity check tonight. So far, it seems that previous failures are passing revalidation, but I had 22 on that list.

[mhschmieder]

For peace of mind, I went ahead and revalidated all 22 failed Audio Unit plugins. These are the ones that still fail:

1. Hybrid_x64 (I think this is a Steinberg freebie?)
2. T-RackS CS -- gets a "registry error" -- I think IKM may have mothballed this variant?
3. XILS 4 FX -- just the effects version; no VI shows up -- I think it got replaced?
4. TimewaRP 2600 -- this has failed for years and is a dead product (unfortunately)
5. PSP 608 MultiDelay -- I should check for updates as this is an active product (I think)
6. Moog Animoog -- I'll check for updates
7. Moog Model D -- I'll check for updates
8. Moog Model 15 -- I'll check for updates
9. TutorialPlugin -- I haven't had a chance to check what this is and who the vendor is
10.Wallander NotePerformer -- I think this is a dead product (and defunct vendor?)
11. Vienna Ensemble Pro AU3 -- this has NEVER worked; I think it's still in beta?

The good news is that the other 11 now pass, and several of those are my most-used plug-ins.

[mhschmieder]

Hybrid_x64 is an AIR instrument that I never use. I found an update, but it still fails AU validation.

The T-RackS CS shell is still supported as a channel strip style host for the T-RackS plug-ins, so I'm not sure why it fails when none of the others do. I was unable to launch IK Product Manager though, and had to reinstall it even though there's been no update, so that may have been the cause. I then requested revalidation, of T-RackS CS, but it still gives a registry error.

I updated XILS 4 and it now passes validation. I get confused by that company's similar product names and miss some updates as a result, thinking I've already run them.

I reinstalled PSP 608 MultiDelay but it still fails validation. For some reason my iLok has a license from 2019 and one from 2007, which I thought was way before they went to dongle protection, but none of my other PSP plug-ins have duplicate iLok entries. That may have complicated the post-Ventura-upgrade validation. It shows up twice in the AU list. I couldn't quickly find my spare iLok dongles, so instead of moving the old 2007 license to another dongle and then disconnecting that one from the computer, I relinquished the iLok license back to PSP. There is only one file copy in the AU folder on the iMac though, so that's not at issue. Obviously, the 2007 version is probably 32-bit.

TutorialPlugin is likely a JUCE experiment from when I was pulling my hair out doing real-time audio programming in C++21 in Spring 2021. It's under my user directory vs. the main Library/Audio/Plugins/Components folder, so I deleted it.

Wallander NotePerformer 3 is probably not compatible, and Version 4 seems to be in slo-mo development. On the other hand, there is a link to re-download 3.3.2, which I can't access as my Wallander account is with an unreachable email and their site seems to have no place to log in or communicate. Maybe someone here has contact info? I don't know what version I have installed as the AU plugin file doesn't identify its version. It is probably 3.1.0 as I have an old installer file for that one that is labeled as such. Unfortunately, that installer will not run on Ventura. Maybe it's 32-bits?

For the Moog stuff, the only way seems to be to use the horrible App Sore, which I avoid as much as possible and find outrageously non-user-friendly (e.g., it isn't a place where you can quickly get a lean ad-free view of what you own and ways to download and install; only the Updates tab comes close to that experience, and it is too stupid to know that an OS upgrade might require a re-install). I'll keep searching to see where my purchased apps are hidden in the App Store.

Actually, a global search finds them and shows as purchased, but my only option is to "Open" them. Which, of course, launches the standalone desktop apps. I did find cached installers though (whether current or not, which is highly unlikely as the App Store recently updated them all, so these were probably initial installations). Anyway, it blocks the installation. I think maybe these don't get updated as they are AU2 and AU3 is the preferred format from Moog. Hence the installers, as the App Store typically doesn't download and cache installers.

[mhschmieder]

I got PSP 608 MultiDelay to validate and to work as en insert effect in a project, after restarting DP following my giving up the original iLok license for the plug-in. DP still sees it twice, in spite of just one installed file, but I was able to tell which one was associated with which iLok license, as one of them now validates and the other one still fails. I disabled that one as it clearly is associated with the now-removed iLok license from 2007 (which is likely a 32-bit version).

No progress on the others, but I suspect Mike will have some contact info for me regarding NotePerformer so that I can get Wallander my current information and receive the updated installer (though it may not help; we may have to wait until Version 4, which may not be available for some time).

Finale keeps being flagged by Ventura as broken and asking to delete it, even after reinstalling, and even the fresh reinstall of IK Multimedia's account manager did not halt the "registry failure" dialogs that keep popping up in DP.

Not sure what can be done about the Moog plug-ins, and I was planning on doing some heavy tracking with them real soon.

Overall though, I have the cleanest list of working AU plug-ins ever. So DP 11.22 may be the best version yet!

[James Steele]

Hybrid_x64 is an AIR instrument that I never use. I found an update, but it still fails AU validation.

I have that one and it works... I have version 3.0.7, but that one is Intel 64 architecture so has to run in Rosetta. It's by AIR Music Technology as you know by now and it seems to work okay for me.

The T-RackS CS shell is still supported as a channel strip style host for the T-RackS plug-ins, so I'm not sure why it fails when none of the others do. I was unable to launch IK Product Manager though, and had to reinstall it even though there's been no update, so that may have been the cause. I then requested revalidation, of T-RackS CS, but it still gives a registry error.

Is that TR5 Suite? The shell program? I upgraded recently I guess. There was a sell recently on some sort of T-RackS package so I have version 5 now. Version 5.10.1 to be exact. Of course IK loads up your boot drive with a bunch of stuff you don't yet own to sell you on purchasing it I guess. I have several of them I got in some sale recently and that's working here.

[James Steele]

Kontakt 7 and Battery 4 are working now. I'll try to get some of the other failures in fresh states as well.

Glad you got those working. There was an issue with Native Access that affected Battery 4 and it may have affected Kontakt 7, too. I don't know if NI ever fixed it. What happened was with the first AS-native release of Battery 4... if you ran the update without first deleting the existing Battery 4 AU in the Components folder, it did not completely overwrite the old plugin. You had to actually go in the Finder and delete the old Battery 4 before installing the new one. Like I said, that may have been the case with Kontakt 7 as well. You have to be on guard for that with Native Access it seems.

[James Steele]

10. 2016 Stereo Room

I have that one working here. I have version 3.7.11 of that which is AS-native, except for the AAX and that probably never will be as I think that's an old plug in that is superseded by SP2016 Reverb which is version 1.5.16 last I checked and all formats are AS-native now. I think Mike Halloran said that 2016 Stereo Room was basically a subset of SP2016 Reverb and all the algorithms/presets of that plug are contained in the latter?

[Phil O]

So what's the general consensus now that 11.22 has fixed some problems? Ventura, yea or nay?


Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[James Steele]

So what's the general consensus now that 11.22 has fixed some problems? Ventura, yea or nay?


Your friendly neighborhood Phil

I'm doing fine here with 13.3.1 on my M1 Max Mac Studio. I'd point out that unfortunately for a lot of recent purchases of new Macs, they don't have much choice. I bought mine in July of last year when they were shipping with Monterey. I did move to Ventura a month or so ago because I could live with the Core Audio bounce bug in DP 11.21, fairly certain that MOTU would tackle it soon.

I'm doing okay as I said, but haven't really stress tested it working a big project for hours at a time, but it seems pretty stable. If I had an Intel machine though, I think I wouldn't bother with it, however. My gut feeling says that Apple may still be refining what's going on under the hood with these relatively new Apple Silicon CPUs, so it's probably worthwhile taking advantage of whatever optimizations they are doing. But on the more mature Intel architecture... I can't see a compelling reason.

[mhschmieder]

Fixing the Apple Mail problem was reason enough for me (2017 Intel iMac), and I don't think there's a way to get Apple Mail working properly anymore without going to the latest Ventura release (apparently it was also broken in Ventura until 13.3.1).

I also haven't stress-tested DP 11.22 with Ventura 13.3.1 yet. Hopefully after finishing taxes. I am at least incrementally getting things in shape and vetted piecemeal while focusing on other stuff, and it does seem the most stable combination in a long time.

[James Steele]

I wasn’t aware of the Apple Mail issue. I did notice though that in an earlier version of Ventura strange issues with the search field. That appears to be fixed.

[primeevolutionary]

There are still a lot of plugins that I use that are not yet ready for Ventura.

I had a question regarding silicon Macs: As these plugin companies release their Ventura plugins, do I still have to worry about whether a plugin will work on a silicon Mac?

These would be plugins that already worked on silicon Macs on Big Sur and Monterey.

Or, will every future release be a potential additional waiting period for silicon Mac compatibility until Intel Macs are no longer OS supported?