My gradual non-Apple Silicon plugins purge

[James Steele]

Sitting down tonight with PlugInfo app and if you type "arch: !apple" it will list for you all your installed plugins that aren't Universal Binary 2 (runs natively on Apple Silicon). I'm slowly deleting plugins that aren't Apple Silicon. Some of them with regrets. I may keep some AU plugs that are good like 2C Audio Aether (reverb)... but just the Audio Unit since DAWs that use Audio Units can run just the plugin in Rosetta 2 without the need to launch the actual DAW in Rosetta 2.

Also ditching old VIs where a newer version as come out. I don't have too many projects that are so important that if a VI comes up missing it'll be the end of the world. Especially if there's newer native version. I generally include a note on the track as to what library/instrument was loaded.

I'm very much inclined to ditch every non-AS native AAX plugin. I don't use Pro Tools much at all. Who wants to run your DAW in Rosetta just to run a certain plugin? Same kinda goes for VST2 plugs. Ditching them. As I said, if I keep any that require Rosetta it will just be the AU versions I think. I may have to make some hard choices, but I really hope to completely purge my M1 Max Mac Studio of all legacy Intel plugs eventually.

As an aside, makes me wonder when Apple will finally kill off Rosetta 2? Hmmmm

[Michael Canavan]

Last time when Apple switched to Intel from PPC it was 5 years after the last PPC Macs were for sale on their site. 2023 was when they switched the final product over to Apple Silicon, that gives us likely another three years, maybe less, but there's some law in the EU about compatibility if I recall correctly.

You're reminding me of two upgrades I need to purchase to make the switch almost completely, Audio Ease Speakerphone 3 and SoundQuest Midiquest 13.

I have an Uno Synth Pro and it's got a neat little AUi plugin editor for it's sounds, that's unlikely to make the jump, but one can hope.

[James Steele]

You're reminding me of two upgrades I need to purchase to make the switch almost completely, Audio Ease Speakerphone 3 and SoundQuest Midiquest 13.

How is MIDIquest these days? Last time I gave it a look it felt a little buggy. It’s also kind of pricey as I recall? Maybe I’ll have to try it out again. I did set up a G4 Mac Mini running Unisyn that I can screen share as a proof of concept, but haven’t done much as I’m still mostly using VIs.

[mikehalloran]

but there's some law in the EU about compatibility if I recall correctly.

California and international treaties require that Apple support the macOS for three years. In October after the next release, an email goes out to government agencies, corporate and EDU accounts, press etc. announcing which OS is no longer officially supported (Monterey last year). I’m on that list.

In addition, if you bought a refurb unit with AppleCare, the original OS still has the 3 years—all iMac Pros shipped with High Sierra, 2018 Minis Mojave and so on…

Apple also maintains a list of hardware on the supported, will still service (repair, batteries, refurb etc) and obsolete.

I ran into this recently when many apps, including Text, would not show Recently opened after I updated to OS 14.6.x. Being Apple and not 3rd party… No one could figure it out and I was eventually bumped up to Engineering and spoke to some clown who said he was refusing to help me because I wasn’t running Sequoia — oh yea? He then closed the case and emailed me that, until I updated to macOS 15, Apple could not help me. The next day, I went on the warpath talking to senior supervisors, forwarding that email and cc’ing Steve Cook reminding them a) my 2023 shipped with Sonoma and b) the 3-year law. I was sent a set of the latest AirPods with an apology. A week later, Sonoma 14.7 was released and the Recently opened bug was fixed. Had someone told me it was a bug, I would have been ok but no…

None of this affects apps that require a minimum OS in order to function at all i.e. there’s no backward compatibility requirement. There was a bit of confusion when Catalina shut off 32bit apps and plug-ins.

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, I wish we could make a global system-wide choice for all installers to check for our "preference" to not install any of the Digitech formats, as they take up a HUGE amount of disc space and it doesn't take many accidental installs of AAX and legacy PT plug-in formats before the internal hard drive starts running out of space.

I've been wondering whether it is safe to ditch VST2 yet, but there are so few plug-ins that I can't run in AU at this point, or even VST3 if I find time to shift (which Mike H. showed us how to do without losing our AU settings), that it's probably best to purge the space and then see how big the next internal drive needs to be.

I seem to recall that Vienna Ensemble is stuck at VST2, but I don't use it except as a quick way to authorize new plug-ins vs. waiting on DP to launch. And even that isn't quick anymore, as practically every VE updates starts a fresh validation.

[bayswater]

James, this got me wondering whether there are any plugins no longer available or updated in Intel 64 format, or any new plugins that are silicon only.

[James Steele]

James, this got me wondering whether there are any plugins no longer available or updated in Intel 64 format, or any new plugins that are silicon only.

Not sure, but I think we’ll see developers continue releasing plug-ins in Universal Binary 2 which contains both Intel 64 and Apple Silicon code. I wonder if UB2 will still run when Apple finally removes Rosetta 2 from macOS? I don’t why not.

[mhschmieder]

I still occasionally run into issues where standalone VI's require a specific plug-in format version to be installed.

After deleting all VST2's from my system last week, a Superior Drummer 3 update came along and said it requires the VST2 version of the plug-in, so I installed that as a one-off.

That forced me to research the status of SD3 on Apple Silicon, as VST2 doesn't work on those chips from what I understand.

Apparently they updated for Apple Silicon a couple of years ago. I wonder if it uses the VST3 wrapper when it is on an M chip, or if it runs Rosetta?

I did some AU vs. VST3 research tonight and it seems they are almost identical in performance in terms of not running during idle time (vs. CPU-hog VST2 plug-ins). No one said one is better than the other; just for specific plug-ins, and unlikely to come up often as most plugs are now written using JUCE (and as a former JUCE developer, that's enough for me to know).

I think I will stick with AU after all, even though I only use Apple Logic for a couple of custom MIDI scripts I wrote that aren't possible in DP, and on rare occasions for Alchemy (Additive Synthesis VI).

On the other hand, I am moving more towards Steinberg for stuff like audio clean-up and notation, and that means VST(3).

At any rate, I think I have now successfully pre-purged anything that won't run on the new Mac Studio when it arrives (they say late June; I placed the order a bit over a week ago). Of course, I'll download fresh installers for everything current.

As I mentioned earlier, plug-ins are huge disc space hogs, mostly because they are almost all written in Qt/C++ or JUCE/C++ and tend to package the full developer kit with the plug-in (a wise choice, speaking from experience).

[mhschmieder]

Quite the surprise: apparently, my new M4 Mac Studio is shipping tomorrow vs. late June!

[James Steele]

Quite the surprise: apparently, my new M4 Mac Studio is shipping tomorrow vs. late June!

Woohooo!!!!

[monkey man]

Quite the surprise: apparently, my new M4 Mac Studio is shipping tomorrow vs. late June!

Awesome Mark!

Happy for you mate.

[Rick Cornish]

Quite the surprise: apparently, my new M4 Mac Studio is shipping tomorrow vs. late June!

That’s great!


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[mhschmieder]

Unfortunately, I can't get off home plate as it refuses to recognize my Logitech MX Keys S keyboard even when its recharge cable is plugged in (which supposedly allows it to work as a wired mouse, but apparently not during computer setup).

I'll have to hope my tenant gets back before midnight and can loan me one of his gazillion wired keyboards. He's a gamer, and of course they ONLY used wired devices, for responsiveness.

I had this same issue when I had to rebuild my 2017 iMac last November, but thought surely it wouldn't be an issue with newer Macs and later macOS releases.

This is going to be a very frustrating process. I was hoping to kick-start it tonight, as I will not be using Migration Assistant this time, so every step is going to take longer and will require several iterations before I can retire the 2017 iMac.

[HCMarkus]

This is going to be a very frustrating process. I was hoping to kick-start it tonight, as I will not be using Migration Assistant this time, so every step is going to take longer and will require several iterations before I can retire the 2017 iMac.

The move from Intel to Apple Silicon may be less difficult than you think.

I did a clean install of all Apps and Plugins, but moved most VI Data via sneaker net using a hard drive and drive dock. Did it all in two days and was up and running on a documentary score, loving the faster response my Mac Studio provided. Sure, some details took a bit to get sorted as issue cropped up now and then, but I was sufficiently operational to get work done, and very efficiently at that.

[mhschmieder]

Well, certain vendors (like Arturia) don't provide catch-all installation options, so it can take half a day to install a few dozen VI's and as many effects plug-ins, just from that vendor alone!

I'll be purging a lot of stuff, recognizing it was wasted money (when plug-ins cost more than today and fewer options existed) as none can be resold. And I'll have to be extra careful to avoid ProTools and VST2 formats from installing.