so... sorry to come off a little nubish... but what exactly is the nomanclature of Apples newest plugins. Is U2B both native to Silicon and Intel (thru Rosetta2) and Silicon strictly for M1?

 

U2B (Universal 2 Binary) means that the app or plugin contains code for both Intel and Apple Silicon ARM bundled into a single container.

If an app doesn't have ARM code, it can run through the Rosetta 2 emulation or for AU plugins they can be hosted in ARM daws through the AU Hosting Compatibility Service. VST plugins do not have a similar compatibility service so ARM code VSTs can only be run in an ARM native DAW.

Not all apps and plugins that contain ARM code are U2B, they may be ARM only and in the future we will probably see many more ARM only releases, which means they can't be run on older Intel macs.

 

Last edited: Feb 23, 2022

got it... thanks!

 

while this is true for most cases, its not entirly the case , some DAW's supports VST/VST3 bridging, like FL Studio, where you can run FL in native M1/arm64 and still open a x86 intel plugin automatically thanks to their bridging process, ive also heard Studio One is looking into doing that as well but not too sure

 

Yoy can already use Intel Plugins ins StudioOne (arm) or Logic(arm)

 

And in Live too.

 

You absolutely can't do this in Live. You can only do it in hosts that support plugin sandboxing that open a Rosetta sandbox to host a non ARM plugin. Ableton does not support this. As far as I know Reaper and Studio One are the only DAWs that do. If FL supports it, that's news to me.