Apple is expected to end Rosetta 2 support after macOS Tahoe. A huge chunk of the plugin ecosystem still relies on Rosetta to run inside our DAWs, and once that translation layer is gone, those plugins are simply dead on any newer OS.

So what do we actually do here? Is the plan just to stay on Tahoe forever and hope for the best?

Would love to know how people are thinking about it.

 

I wouldn't worry about it 1 bit. What are these Intel plugins you can't replace with either an ARM version, or a different plugin?

Obviously that will be almost entirely [k]d stuff, or abandonware. You could leave the machine you have on Tahoe or even older MacOS.
You could buy a desk big enough to hold a second Mini that can still use Rosetta2 and an ethernet cable. You could Run Parallels Desktop or other VM for just intel plugins.

The easy answer and one I would plan on would be to just go all ARM plugins and not run anything via Rosetta2. Many people have already done that.

 

I would have to go through my system and see if there’s anything I would have an update for that’s compatible with Apple silicon and if there’s anything not compatible, but it might just be “if it’s not 64 bit it’s not going past Tahoe” and I probably have everything as a universal binary (unfattened but would still have universal installation)… anything missing the jump beyond is probably just staying on windows for me

 

MacOS 26 is Tahoe. 27 will be next year and still have Rosetta2. So 28 will be the first version with limited Rosetta2 support.
Here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102527

So two operating systems from now you will have to "worry about it" or make some plans. But what programs are you going to be running 2 years from now which have still not been updated to ARM versions? They will be from basically dead developers, or those plugins you do not have new updates to because they are cracked. If something like that is a problem, you may have to actually buy some stuff that you will have been using as Intel plugins for another 2 years more. That is pushing "try before buy" a little far. If there are new versions, maybe some Team will make a ARM release of them.

And that is the doom and gloom scenario. A more likely one is you will either not even use Intel plugins or you will just figure out some other way to run your DAW completely Native-only. This will ultimately be a complete non-issue.

 

Ive pretty much switched to only ARM, but there are still quite a few older plugins that only run as AU that i use here and there. As far as Im aware, nobody has incorporated hosting rosetta plugins in a plugin host, like bluecat, ddmf etc. I havent looked in a while, so could be wrong. If nobody has, I wonder if its possible. hmmmmm... going to look into it more.

 

And here I am running ( on Windows 11 customized edition)
VSTi's and VST's from 2001 and up lol

Apple has been doing this for years trying to shake off the Pro users with these changes. Remember Apple is a CELL PHONE and consumer gadgets company now, they want to move away form the Pro industry, it's time for people to understand that. This has been going on for many years the Shake, Logic and many other tools saga should of been a clear sign of where Apple was headed.

 

Last edited: Feb 20, 2026

Here I am running Catalina on a "frozen" Mac Pro from 2010 with 2 Xeon X5690s at 3.46ghz each 128gb RAM as my DAW.

No-one cares about Windows users' input. Although, the first "doom and gloom" OP reads like that also.

Any serious Mac users will know this is going to be 0 problem. "oh no, my customers archived Logic sessions won't open!", really? Because that kind of person has plenty of money to buy a Mini and freeze it.

 

I dont think your statement is true in the slightest. Apple is developing some extremely powerful chips, and are continuing down that path. They want to get some of the AI development into their systems. Besides, all you have to do is look at their web store to see they are not just a cellphone compnay lol. I almost feel like you are trolling even.

 

Almost? Is there some sort of other purpose to trying to derail threads about OS you don't even use with off-topic garbage?

 

These are my systems :
Apple Mac ( Mac laptop, 27" Imac, Imac (old OS X Snow Leopard with Intel Core Duo)
Windows (4 windows systems)
Linux ( 2 linux systems for system backups)
Windows Server ( for Network Domain).
4 Iphones ( Using the Mac's for system backups etc)

I have to use different tools to manage all this stuff, does not matter what OS it's the tool for each purpose.
If you tell me you can run 20+ year old VST's and VST'is, software on any latest Mac desktop we all would be
coming over to your place to see that happening. This is why we have different OS and even hardware systems,
they all have their strengths and weakness.

For old Audio Applications ( many that simply were never made for Mac) it's on Windows 10-11 since they still run.
For old Audio Mac applications, VST's , VSTi's in have them on the older Mac's in run here.

Remember the post with the Native Instruments FM7 Mac edition?
I posted that for the Mac guys here, sadly the VSTi could not work only the standalone for the Intel edition.

Keep older Mac systems running for as long as you can

I will leave you with this from Google :

On Apple Shake ( formerly Windows Shake)

"Apple's decision to discontinue Shake, a industry-standard node-based compositing software developed by Nothing Real, in 2009 is often cited as a pivotal moment where the company shifted focus away from high-end, specialized pro users to more consumer-centric or prosumer applications"

I was into Fusion so never bothered me, however VFX houses were very pissed with Apple as they were already heavily into Linux workstations and did not want to switch to the more expensive Mac hardware. In the end this Compositing software was EOL by Apple and killed it even on the Mac platform!!!.

 

Actually what I see them doing is unifying their hardware. This was part of the point of ditching intel for their own cpus (and they SMOKE intel's comparable CPUs) I've been building and repairing computers of any sort for nearly 30 years, and that just what I see happening. The Neo just came out on an A18 Pro chip, so the first big step has happened...even though the actual first step was uniting all the operating systems to one operating system architecture, and now that they make all their own gpu and cpu, you'll be seeing more like the NEO (which can run Mac OS apps AND iOS apps). An iPad Pro will come out with an M series cpu at some point, a MacBook Pro will get a detachable iPad as its screen etc etc. Everything they're doing seems to be pointing to this, unification. Granted every apple product already is a phone, I can text and call from my somewhat newer Macs, but this is also in windows 11 now too. I don't think they are done with pro hardware and software at all, not by any means...the reason they discontinued the Mac Pro line is because the other products all have Pro versions of them now, and let me tell you even a pro Mini is a scorcher, I was dumbfounded by what it can handle doing and all at once. The M series chips are the shoot...and unified cpu, gpu, and ram just make them ALL the faster. Sucks I can't upgrade my ram or ssd without some serious soldering skills (which I have but am still hesitant)...gone are THOSE days for Mac users for sure. Anyway...

 

EXACTLY, I just resurrected an old x-serve 2.8ghz 8 core xeon based...sure it's a bit loud but wow can it handle a DA running the older plugins. I have it running High Sierra just because it's a sweet spot where I can run 32 AND 64bit plugins, a modern version as well as older versions of Cubase so I can still export projects and use them on my newer m4 Mac, PLUS I have 15 years worth of projects written and recorded in older cubase and Ableton apps. TWO acbook Pros, one running bootcamp for windows only VSTs, even though a decently new machine can run crossover which is fast enough I can play newer windows based video games emulated in it and sometimes they run even better than the native Mac port (nobody cares about Mac gamers so they just toss them some bullshit now and then and say 'have fun')

I still have windows desktops but they aren't anything special, you can still run a lot of really old windows software on newer windows machines if you know what you're doing ...with Macs its trickier and more of a game even, but in my experience they usually run the softwares I use more stable than windows does.

Anyway, YES KEEP your old DAW machines running and in good shape and they'll go forever....I'm on a 2008 x-serve typing this and it can run MASSSIVE projects still, and it's fast and snappy. Its only bottleneck is spinning hard drives, and it's not optimized for SSDs so they also still run slow too. Floating point calculations, cpu, and ram are what matter when runnin software plugins though, not hard drive speed.

 

The SSD vs hdd scenario is pretty drastic speed differences. I'm running 5,1 Mac Pro mid-2010 as my DAW computer because of the stability, the amount of internal drives it can utilize for plenty of internal SSD system disk and storage is great. It's dead silent; I can hear my watch ticking over it. I have the 2 Xeon processors upgraded to Intel X5690s @ 3.46 ghz 12 cores. "Upgraded" processors from originals, from China 53 bucks plus some thermal paste. Wifi/bluetooth upgraded via Fenvi T919, 128gb 1333 mhz RAM, cheap Nvidia gpu for Metal compliance to allow Catalina to run fine. Since the Pro has 2 onboard ethernet ports, one is cabled to Win10 laptop as Audiogridder server for any PC effects plugins I want to use inside Logic. I'm getting 44 milliseconds additional latency via Audiogridder, but Logic's latency compensation handles that with no offset needed to be added.

Any ARM Mac is faster, but so are the 2 2017 Macs I have with i7s in them, which I barely use for audio anyway. For UVR5 ensemble stem separations, mostly. Even when I finally break down and get an Apple Silicon Mac, my Pro is not going anywhere. It's not an iphone.

 

It is the usual Apple way : they push clients AND devs to upgrade.
And that's why i stopped using Apple computers, even hackintoshes when it was possible.

Here is (once again) how many time they changed architecture :
Motorola 68k PowerPC Intel x86 Apple Silicon

I even remember when they dropped features from Logic when they shifted from 32 to 64bits.
Every time, they cut something they don't want to maintain.

And Apple fanboys come and say : "just upgrade, buy new software AND hardware, stop buying from "outdated" devs ..."
They don't see the problem because they don't want to see it.

On my side, i simply use softwares from 20 years ago when i want it.

PS : fun fact, i already got a thumb down from Apple fanboy :D

 

Last edited: Apr 15, 2026 at 1:07 PM

You would also have to consider go back to an Intel Mac i9 2019. A bit hot sometimes, but reliable. Anyone remembers Bootcamp?

 

Indeed. Apple are far more interested in the future than they are in the past.
It helps them make more forward progress with dragging all the old baggage along with them.

Yep. And each time, that architecture change massively improved what Macs could do at the time.

And all of those transitions had smoothing technologies that made the transition in many cases almost seamless - usually the pain points were certain developers dragging their feet or resisting change. But in all case, it made stuff better. Modern Apple silicon Macs, especially laptops, are simply phenonenal and we wouldn't be here if Apple hadn't decided that stuff needed to change because it was holding them back.

Which features, specifically? Calling you out on this one, because I can think of zero features "dropped" when Logic went from 7.1.x (32-bit only) to 7.2.0, the first 64-bit version (which was actually a universal binary - one of those transition technologies I referred to above - and ran both 32 and 64-bit). Maybe i'm forgetting something...

That's a big reason for sure, but it's not the only reason.

There are plenty of people that make informed choices as to what they use and why. We're not all the same, and the world is not black or white. Derogatory terms or rubbishing people not on your "team" is just pretty childish behaviour, imo...

Maybe their problem with "not seeing it" is not always they other guy's problem... ;)

Same here. On my modern Mac.

Look no one cares what computer you, or I use. Use what works for you - spending time rubbishing the people or companies you *don't* use is just a pointless waste of energy imo. Love your Windows PC, or your Linux machine or whatever? Great, go use it to do something productive than complaining about the stuff you don't use...

 

Usually I'm not a big fan of Apple bashing, but Apple dropping something or changing an established architecture is something that scares me away from that platform. I hate when I have to give up an old but loved piece of software because of company policy. Yeah I know, Progress and everything. But as you said, on PC I can keep my darlings and have progression as well.

 

Use this script to find out if your plugins will work:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

DIRS=(
  "/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components"
  "$HOME/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components"
)

printf "%-50s %-15s %-20s\n" "Plugin" "Architecture" "Comment"

for DIR in "${DIRS[@]}"; do
  [ -d "$DIR" ] || continue

  find "$DIR" -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "*.component" | while read -r PLUG; do

    BIN="$(find "$PLUG/Contents/MacOS" -maxdepth 1 -type f -perm +111 2>/dev/null | head -n 1)"

    if [ -z "$BIN" ]; then
      printf "%-50s %-15s %-20s\n" "$(basename "$PLUG")" "unknown" "no Binary found"
      continue
    fi

    OUT="$(file "$BIN" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')"

    if [[ "$OUT" == *arm64* && "$OUT" == *x86_64* ]]; then
      ARCH="universal"
      CMT="runs native"
    elif [[ "$OUT" == *arm64* ]]; then
      ARCH="arm64"
      CMT="runs native"
    elif [[ "$OUT" == *x86_64* ]]; then
      ARCH="x86_64"
      CMT="needs Rosetta"
    else
      ARCH="misc"
      CMT="unknown"
    fi

    printf "%-50s %-15s %-20s\n" "$(basename "$PLUG")" "$ARCH" "$CMT"

  done
done

Save as .sh file and run with Terminal.

 

I'm running Logic on M4. Users have to have Rosetta mode to run ARA2 plugins. I understand Apple wanting to sandbox AU plugins in native mode, but they need to figure out a solution to run the newer ARA2 plugs (stuff from Waves, SynchroArts, Noiseworks, Celemony, etc). When you get used to the efficiency of using ARA2 in your workflow, it would be hard to go back to the old method of loading audio in realtime or via freeze tracks.