Native Instruments Apple Silicon M1 Compatibility

funx

Just installed the native FM8, thanks team

Calagan

I've got a question regarding the last Apple Silicon native version of Battery 4 (that was uploaded maybe 2h ago) : is it normal that when I launch the Audio Unit version of it, it triggers the AUHostingCompatibilityService process ?

It's like if the Audio unit version of Battery 4 is not Apple Silicon Native !

I tested, and it's not like that with Massive and Phasis (two recently updated plugins), so I guess it's not the policy of NI, and it must be a bug or just the first version of the update...

EDIT : I removed the faulty AU version of Battery4 and reinstalled the whole package. Everything is ok right now. The AU version of Battery 4 is now definitely Apple Silicon native, dated from 2023 and has the good version number. Strangely, the faulty AU was marked as version 4.3.0 but dated from 2017. PlugInfo was telling me it was AS native but it was not, and was telling me 2023 when the "get info" feature was telling me 2017 as creation date. I guess it was a glitch in the NI installation files, or a bug in my system. It's ok right now.

EDIT 2 : it seems to be a glitch in the NI installation files, because I'm not the only one to have the issue (I had some talk about it in a gearspace thread). Whatever you can read in the pluginfo app for exemple, the updated AU plugin IS NOT A.S. NATIVE. You definitely need to remove it before installing the update. Then it's ok... (for any strange reason)

decat_Tf

While the Traktor M compatibility is near and can be tested as beta they also seem to have dropped support for Catalina, an OS not even 4 years old.

Tried to post a message in the beta section but seems to get rejected. 🤨

Calagan

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/59247#Comment_59247

I'm 100% with you on this.

Catalina was released in october 2019, and it's the last step for many old Macs (that still run perfectly fine). It's pure madness from Native Instruments, because their product only run officially on 3 Mac OS : Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura. And they even didn't port the entire range on Apple Silicon.

It's the only plugin brand I use with such a small window of operation : none of the other plugins I use droped Catalina, and 95% of them are Apple Silicon native since months (Reason, Sonimus and Kush being the last ones in my collection to be stuck in the Intel world).

I don't think it's the way to manage professional audio tools. Or maybe they are not intended to be professional... It's been months I started to avoid using NI products in my music (when possible, because sadly a lot of them, especially in Reaktor, sound truly unique), because I know it's only long time troubles. I've experienced these troubles in the past (when updating Reaktor and Kontakt), and the transition to Apple Silicon is the worst I experienced, so since months I try to use u-He or Arturia synths instead of NI ones.

When I open old sessions from maybe 3-4 years ago on my brand new Apple Silicon mac, the only plugins that make trouble are the NI ones : I lost hours in the past trying to replace Kontakt 5 instances by K6 ones, Reaktor 5 instances by R6 ones, and now I loose hours of my precious time replacing Intel Vst Reaktor 6 instances by AU Reaktor ones (because I need to work in an Apple Silicon native session and can't use Live eternally in Rosetta mode just because of NI products). Next step will be to switch to vst3 when vst2 will no longer be supported. I mean, what other dev waited so long to offer vst3 while immediatly droping vst2 at the same time ?

99% of my other plugins just offered me updates with no change in the name of the plugin and no absurd way of saving presets (check my complain in the Reaktor 6 beta thread).

Anyway, I hope this transition will end soon because it's truly a huge pain in the ass...

Calagan

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/59247#Comment_59247

I'm 100% with you on this.

Catalina was released in october 2019, and it's the last step for many old Macs (that still run perfectly fine). It's pure madness from Native Instruments, because their product only run officially on 3 Mac OS : Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura. And they even didn't port the entire range on Apple Silicon.

It's the only plugin brand I use with such a small window of operation : none of the other plugins I use droped Catalina, and 95% of them are Apple Silicon native since months (Reason, Sonimus and Kush being the last ones in my collection to be stuck in the Intel world).

I don't think it's the way to manage professional audio tools. Or maybe they are not intended to be professional... It's been months I started to avoid using NI products in my music (when possible, because sadly a lot of them, especially in Reaktor, sound truly unique), because I know it's only long time troubles. I've experienced these troubles in the past (when updating Reaktor and Kontakt), and the transition to Apple Silicon is the worst I experienced, so since months I try to use u-He or Arturia synths instead of NI ones.

When I open old sessions from maybe 3-4 years ago on my brand new Apple Silicon mac, the only plugins that make trouble are the NI ones : I lost hours in the past trying to replace Kontakt 5 instances by K6 ones, Reaktor 5 instances by R6 ones, and now I loose hours of my precious time replacing Intel Vst Reaktor 6 instances by AU Reaktor ones (because I need to work in an Apple Silicon native session and can't use Live eternally in Rosetta mode just because of NI products). Next step will be to switch to vst3 when vst2 will no longer be supported. I mean, what other dev waited so long to offer vst3 while immediatly droping vst2 at the same time ?

99% of my other plugins just offered me updates with no change in the name of the plugin and no absurd way of saving presets (check my complain in the Reaktor 6 beta thread).

Anyway, I hope this transition will end soon because it's truly a huge pain in the ***...

decat_Tf

I'm going to try to read up on your Reaktor stuff asap, mainly hanging out in the Traktor area. Tried to post a message in the beta part yesterday but doesn't seem to go through, no error or something. Got registered on this board around 2006 and once in a while I came to read up what's shaking. Didn't had a packload of messages, maybe hundred orso. And since the update I'm not even allowed to post something in the beta part, because of the post count or something else? No idea, or are they refusing this post? After rechecking the beta part moments ago it doesn't get approved...

I tried to reply on someone who brought the support of Catalina to the subject, still got it in draft, will post it here, not that it will change much.

It seems they already did, not sure though because couldn't much info on it. I'm preparing an old 2011 27 iMac with upgraded K4100M GPU and using Opencore. More of a frankenmac than a standard one. 😂 Before putting it up for sale the iMac will thoroughly be tested. Installed Catalina some days ago and once completed and updated the latest Traktor beta became the next thing to do. Once installed the iMac would be used for several DVS sessions at home.

During the install there was a popup about Traktor being installed on a unsupported OS, proceeding remained possible though. After completion I tried to fire up Traktor = again a message that Traktor can not be run on an unsupported OS. Nevertheless there's an easy workaround the make it work.

But yeah, I'm wondering now if it's due the frankenmac or did they really stop supporting Catalina? An OS that's not even 4 years old. If so that's pretty ****** up because there's still a bunch of audio hardware / interfaces circulating around that are not class compliant and cannot be used post Catalina.

Those interfaces not being able to run on Big Sur and beyond is somehow hardware related. For example, due to the internal hardware it's not possible use my Xone DB2 with the Mini M1 and A&H will never be able get a driver written for it.

Being forced to upgrade to a more recent Mac because the older interfaces simply cannot be run anymore is somehow understandable. But if NI effectively stopped supporting Catalina it rather looks like a decision which was taken because they could, but not out of necessity.

With a workaround I was able to play 2 x 4h sessions at home using Catalina and 3.9 and it ran fine, not one issue. (apart from the issues also present on newer systems like the browser)

While it's still possible to run 3.9 on Catalina NI decided you can't. And by taking this decision they also decided that lot's of perfectly running interfaces running fine on Catalina cannot be used with Traktor anymore on macOS post Catalina due to not being class compliant.

Why the hard decision? It still runs fine. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to mention that Traktor being installed on a unsupported OS means no support from NI? Seems less harsh than blocking the use of Traktor because it's being ran on OS which is not even 4 years old.

NI deciding that you cannot use a perfect running Mac just because they want to goes a bit far imho.

decat_Tf

Tried to reply here but it seems that my messages don't come through / need to get approved when they are long?

Calagan

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/59307#Comment_59307

You possibly used a nasty word in your message. I needed to change the end of my previous post (adding some **) in order to be able to post it... ;)

decat_Tf

Lol, thanks, indeed message related 😂

Here it is:

I'm going to try to read up on your Reaktor stuff asap, mainly hanging out in the Traktor area. Tried to post a message in the beta part yesterday but doesn't seem to go through, no error or something. Got registered on this board around 2006 and once in a while I came to read up what's shaking. Didn't had a packload of messages, maybe hundred orso. And since the update I'm not even allowed to post something in the beta part, because of the post count or something else? No idea, or are they refusing this post? After rechecking the beta part moments ago it doesn't get approved...

I tried to reply on someone who brought the support of Catalina to the subject, still got it in draft, will post it here, not that it will change much.

It seems they already did, not sure though because couldn't much info on it. I'm preparing an old 2011 27 iMac with upgraded K4100M GPU and using Opencore. More of a frankenmac than a standard one. 😂 Before putting it up for sale the iMac will thoroughly be tested. Installed Catalina some days ago and once completed and updated the latest Traktor beta became the next thing to do. Once installed the iMac would be used for several DVS sessions at home.

During the install there was a popup about Traktor being installed on a unsupported OS, proceeding remained possible though. After completion I tried to fire up Traktor = again a message that Traktor can not be run on an unsupported OS. Nevertheless there's an easy workaround the make it work.

But yeah, I'm wondering now if it's due the frankenmac or did they really stop supporting Catalina? An OS that's not even 4 years old. If so that's pretty 'intercoursed' up because there's still a bunch of audio hardware / interfaces circulating around that are not class compliant and cannot be used post Catalina.

Those interfaces not being able to run on Big Sur and beyond is somehow hardware related. For example, due to the internal hardware it's not possible use my Xone DB2 with the Mini M1 and A&H will never be able get a driver written for it.

Being forced to upgrade to a more recent Mac because the older interfaces simply cannot be run anymore is somehow understandable. But if NI effectively stopped supporting Catalina it rather looks like a decision which was taken because they could, but not out of necessity.

With a workaround I was able to play 2 x 4h sessions at home using Catalina and 3.9 and it ran fine, not one issue. (apart from the issues also present on newer systems like the browser)

While it's still possible to run 3.9 on Catalina NI decided you can't. And by taking this decision they also decided that lot's of perfectly running interfaces running fine on Catalina cannot be used with Traktor anymore on macOS post Catalina due to not being class compliant.

Why the hard decision? It still runs fine. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to mention that Traktor being installed on a unsupported OS means no support from NI? Seems less harsh than blocking the use of Traktor because it's being ran on OS which is not even 4 years old.

NI deciding that you cannot use a perfect running Mac just because they want to goes a bit far imho.

childlike_empress

I’m on a Mac mini M1 2020 and I’m a string arranger. I would so very much love to be able to use this Cremona library that I purchased without realizing that my computer couldn’t really handle it. I’d love to be added to the beta team as well.

Jeremy_NI

@childlike_empress I would recommend to create a dedicated thread with your issue, maybe in the Kontakt section of the forum. Please include more details. Every current product is compatible now with M1/M2 computers so the problem is elsewhere.