Ableton can't find my VST2 plug ins

jjochems78 · 2025-03-10T23:51:38+00:00

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I was digging through older sessions which used VST2 plugins before I switched to VST3 after I switched to an M1 Mac. The old sessions aren't able to load those plugins, which makes sense since they aren't on my hard drive anymore. So then how am I going to be able to open those presets embedded in the song? I would love to just install another folder of VST2 plug ins but I don't see how I can in NI Access? Can anyone give me some guidance please?

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JesterMgee

M1 mac does not support VST2, you have to run Live in Rosetta mode.

Best to learn up on the depreciation of VST2 and macs inability to support anything that is no longer "current". All VST2 plugins need to be switched out for VST3 under rosetta, resaved then you can load in native M1 mode

Of course that means you somehow need to install the VST2 plugins, maybe it can be done if you run Native Access in Rosetta mode and reinstall choosing both VST2 and VST3.

It's a pain, however it's been a known problem that users needed to get ahead of 3 years ago…

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JesterMgee

M1 mac does not support VST2, you have to run Live in Rosetta mode.

Of course that means you somehow need to install the VST2 plugins, maybe it can be done if you run Native Access in Rosetta mode and reinstall choosing both VST2 and VST3.

It's a pain, however it's been a known problem that users needed to get ahead of 3 years ago…

jjochems78

Thanks, your comment led to me getting it sorted out. As it turns out, all I had to do was turn Rosetta back on and the plug in came up in the session. I thought it was gonna take more work since I can't find any trace of a VST2 folder on my drive but it opened anyways. I thought I took care of it all before but there are likely a few old sessions that might have similar issues when I open them later.

JesterMgee

Just keep in mind that enabling Rosetta is not a solution in itself, it is a temp workaround since VST2 is not natively supported on M1 based systems and what you are basically doing is running your DAW in emulation which causes a lot of additional overhead and lack of efficiency (basically loosing all your investment in the Apple Silicon platform).

WHat you need to start doing is now switching out each VST2 instance with a VST3 then saving a new project which can open under native mode (without Rosetta). Until that is done, you have not fixed the issue and Apple may one day simply switch off Rosetta compatibility mode via an update leaving you screwed if you don't act now.

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