How Can I Tell if a Plugin is Apple Silicon Native?

[Rick Cornish]

I just finished my album project on my new Mac Studio. I had only installed just the plugins I needed for the project (all of which were AS native). So now, I’m starting to reinstall all my VIs and other plugins.

I’d prefer to keep everything Apple Silicon native under the assumption that running plugins under Rosetta will slow down the machine, use more resources, or simply be less efficient. (Maybe I’m wrong about that.) Be that as it may, I’m trying to ensure all the plugins and virtual instruments I install are AS native. Some developers are good about clearly posting if their software is or is not AS native…

Spectrasonics: "The latest versions of Omnisphere 2, Keyscape, Trilian and Stylus RMX are natively supported on both Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, etc.) and Intel Mac computers, on the following operating systems: Mac OS 14 Sonoma, Mac OS 13 Ventura, MacOS 12 Monterey, MacOS 11 Big Sur, and MacOS 10.15 Catalina. Beta versions of macOS are not supported."

Boz Digital: "Note for M1 Mac Users: This plugin is not yet compiled to work natively on M1 Macs. We are currently in the process of rewriting it so that it will, but it will take some time. In the meantime, it should work under rosetta on M1 Macs."

Good enough—I know exactly where I stand as to AS compatibility with both developers.

Others give you a vague word salad or even refer to Apple Silicon as"M-Class Macs." And some don’t address this issue at all.

So—my question: Is there a way to tell if a plugin or VI is Apple Silicon native (besides trying to find out on a website or asking the developer)?

[James Steele]

Look up an app called PlugInfo on the App Store. It’s $2.99 I think and worth every penny. It will show you all your installed plug ins, their version number and the architecture.

[James Steele]

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pluginfo/ ... 2949?mt=12

[Rick Cornish]

Look up an app called PlugInfo on the App Store. It’s $2.99 I think and worth every penny. It will show you all your installed plug ins, their version number and the architecture.

Awesome…. thanks, James!

[James Steele]

No worries!! It’s indispensable to me. It also has a search field and you can do enter a command like “pub:psp type:audio unit” to show just PSP Audio Units. Also “arch:” for architecture so you could search “arch:!apple” which would return plug ins that are Intel only.

I may have goofed the syntax up, so you’ll have to check. It will also update dynamically so I’ve actually developed a habit of having it open in the background as I install a new plug-in so I can verify the installation and version number.

For example, if I’m installing a new PSP plug-in, I might put “pub:psp” in the search field, and then run the installer so I can watch that it was installed correctly.

[Rick Cornish]

Thanks again, James.

So—follow-up question: Is there a way to tell if I might have mistakenly installed a non-AS-native AU plugin?


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[Killahurts]

Look up an app called PlugInfo on the App Store. It’s $2.99 I think and worth every penny. It will show you all your installed plug ins, their version number and the architecture.

This is awesome James, thanks for turning us onto it! I purchased it immediately. I don't have Apple Silicon yet, but I do have 400+ plugins, and I get tired of drilling into my plugins folder to find out what versions I'm on. Great management tool!

[mrgkeys]

Thanks again, James.

So—follow-up question: Is there a way to tell if I might have mistakenly installed a non-AS-native AU plugin?


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if you're using pluginfo, the architectures column will tell you, if a plugin is not apple silicon, it will only show Intel 64, or Intel 32. and not Apple. once you've sorted by architecture. I have some plugins that are all 3!

[James Steele]

As stated, when you run PlugInfo it will show you all the installed plugs in a list with several different columns, one of which is "Architecture." Only Apple Silicon Native plugs will include the word "Apple" in the "Architecture" column. Usually they will appear as "Apple, Intel 64" which means they are Universal Binary 2... and have code for either Apple or Intel 64 bit.

I was mistaken in my syntax earlier. If you want to do a search to see what plugs installed on your Mac are NOT Apple Silicon native, in PlugInfo's search field use: arch: !apple. The space between "arch:" and "!apple" is required.

pluginfoarchsearch.jpg (110.25 KiB) Viewed 572 times

[Rick Cornish]

Thanks, James. I discovered that today when I looked at it deeper. PlugInfo just tells you the status of *installed* plugins. It’s not a searchable database of all the plugins out there.

Makes sense.

[James Steele]

Thanks, James. I discovered that today when I looked at it deeper. PlugInfo just tells you the status of *installed* plugins. It’s not a searchable database of all the plugins out there.

Makes sense.

Oh... sorry. I guess I misunderstood what you were looking for. I don't know if there's any comprehensive list out there. There may be. Yeah... you have to be careful I guess. The word "compatible" tends to be a giveaway, as in Apple Silicon compatible. The fine print usually means it requires Rosetta.

Often times the only way I have been able to be sure is to download and install a demo version and then use PlugInfo to check the demo. Again, sorry if I led you astray with PlugInfo.

[Rick Cornish]

Oh... sorry. I guess I misunderstood what you were looking for. I don't know if there's any comprehensive list out there. There may be. Yeah... you have to be careful I guess. The word "compatible" tends to be a giveaway, as in Apple Silicon compatible. The fine print usually means it requires Rosetta.

Often times the only way I have been able to be sure is to download and install a demo version and then use PlugInfo to check the demo. Again, sorry if I led you astray with PlugInfo.

No…. completely my bad.

There are a number of developers out there making vague, misleading statements while they decide whether it’s worth it to them to recompile their software for Apple Silicon. Even though they’re a bit behind, I commend PSP and Boz for stating clearly where their plugins are at. I was hoping there might be another way to determine if a plugin is AS-native before installing it… like a Get Info would give you from clicking on the AU component.

Certainly, PlugInfo will be a great way to manage the plugins I have installed (it already IDed two for me that I got rid of!), but as for trying to work out who is ready for Apple Silicon and who is not, it will mean visits to the developers' websites and contact inquiries to get the 411. Sweetwater's site also has a good page on Sonoma compatibility that provides some info on AS-ready status, as well.

[James Steele]

Yeah... there are some that they only way I've found out is to install the demo and then check with PlugInfo. There may be another why. I know there's an app called Pacifist that will look inside and inspect the contents of an installer ".pkg" file and there may be a way to drill down into the contents of a plugin installer to find some sort of indicator was to whether the plug contains Apple Silicon code. Haven't tried that yet.

[stubbsonic]

I know this has been asked & answered elsewhere, but what is the status of "grandfathering" intel plugs using a shell like Blue Cat's Patchwork, and the like?

[James Steele]

PatchWork is a great tool. I’ve use it to run DrumCore 4. Doesn’t work for every Intel plug-in but many things it does work for.

Only issue would be that one day Apple may remove Rosetta 2 from MacOS and solutions like that will cease to work.