Audio Units in macOS High Sierra: Should I Upgrade?

Audio Production Audio Plugins
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I have taken the plunge and upgraded my, relatively new, iMac Late 2015 to macOS High Sierra.

Everything just seems… faster. It works really well!

All the essentials seem to be working flawlessly for me:

  • Adobe Audition CC 2017
  • Logic Pro X
  • Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK
  • Saffire Scarlett 2i2

No issues whatsoever thus far. I loaded my Adobe Audition Presets back into Audition CC as a template. Everything just works.

The only issue I have come across so far are related to plugins. Specifically I am having an issue with Audio Units (Apple’s native audio plugin format).

According to this article on Pro Tools Expert:

Apple made some significant changes to the way Audio Units are handled in High Sierra.

I can’t get Waves, iZotope or MeldaProduction plugins to load in AU format.

That is OK for Adobe Audition CC as the VST and VST3 plugins work but AU does not work.

This means GarageBand and Logic Pro X are out of the game as far as plugins are concerned.

I’m sure this is something that will be fixed shortly once the plugin developers (or Apple) push out an update. This is simply a warning for any other audio producer using a Mac considering the upgrade to High Sierra.

If your experience is different please let me know in the comments!

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Looking positively on this @Mike, it should encourage you to do more native Audition stuff, that hopefully won’t be mac specific, since I don’t own a mac or special plugins.

If I get more into doing Audio stuff and take it way more seriously then I might get some plugins or a mac or both, but till then, and with my current financial situation, I have to make do with Windows and Native Audition.

I also have a Linux Ubuntu laptop, so if you know of any good things audio-wise I can do on that, then let me know.

1 Like
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An update on the Audio Units situation.

I fired up Logic Pro X this morning and suddenly all AU audio plugins are scanned and recognised :tada:

au-plugins-working-macos-high-sierra
au-plugins-working-macos-high-sierra1008×476 26.3 KB

I can say that, from my experience, it is safe to upgrade your macOS to High Sierra.

Now to re-download the Complete Sound Library… 47.21 GB! :slight_smile:

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Glad you got it working again @Mike!

Remember, just because you have them, doesn’t mean you need to always use them. :slight_smile: