M1 (Apple Silicon) and Waves compatibility timeline?

Support
43

I’m incensed that upgrading to a platform widely used by music producers now - -M1 mac - - is not supported by Waves. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on plug ins, going way back to when the company started, and have upgraded multiple times, and am now left with NOTHING. ■■■?!@?!?!

Waves – please get your act together. I will be joining the thousands of other producers migrating to software companies that support current technology, and instead of spending $ 300 upgrading my plugins again, will be looking into Fabfilter and others. It’s a shame because some of your products are really great.

2 Likes
44

In case you missed it, the official M1 support page has been updated yesterday :slight_smile:

https://www.waves.com/support/waves-with-apple-m1-processors

1 Like
45

Here is a nice little workaround and even maybe a solution for Logic Pro users.

I still have to say that Waves should get their fingers out and provide an officiel support to M1 computers.

Go to You Tube. Search for Mark Payne, Missing Waves Plugins in Logic Pro.

Jesper

46

Hi All,

Thank you for your patience and understanding, we are here:

As of today, October 11th, 2021, V13 plugins are natively supported on M1 Mac computers in:

Waves V13 plugins are fully supported in Apple M1 processors running the following DAWs:

  • Logic Pro 10.6.3 (in ARM64 mode)
  • FL Studio 20.8.4.2048
  • Studio One 5.4
  • REAPER 6.35 for ARM
  • Bitwig Studio 4.0.2
  • Garage Band 3.5.3
  • Mainstage 3.5.3
  • Adobe Premiere Pro 2021 15.4.1

Waves V13 (and V12) plugins load and work in the following DAWs within Apple Rosetta 2, even though these DAWs offer no official M1 support:

  • Pro Tools 2020.12 / 2021.7
  • Ableton Live 10 / 11
  • Reason 11
  • Digital Performer
  • Adobe Audition 2020

Please note: These DAWs have not yet announced official support for Apple M1 processors. However, we have found that Waves V13 and V12 plugins load and work when these DAWs are running in the Apple Rosetta 2 emulator environment. Still, this does not constitute official support, and Waves Tech Support will not be able to troubleshoot technical issues.

More Exceptions and note on this page.

Learn more about V13!

We will work to provide official M1 support for more host applications as they become M1-compatible.

1 Like
47

This should really have happened half a year or so ago, but I’m still happy it’s happening now.

Hopefully it won’t take another year in case any compatibility updates are required for macOS 12 Monterey.

48

Just updated to V13 and the performance is night and day.

I have all of my cpu performance back and my projects open in seconds rather than minutes!

Waves could do with having better communication but at least they got there.

49

ARM64?!? Does hat mean it’s actually optimised for the M1 and not just Rosetta ready?!?

1 Like
50

Yeah, us it’s looking to me the leapfrogged simple Rosetta support in many of these DAWs and went straight to Native ARM and offer a timely update to Windows 11.

That’s no easy feat and would have required a complete rebuild of their whole infrastructure. Not to mention all the testing that would have been involved.

51

Not trying to be a ■■■■, but unless you work at Waves, you do not know how easy or complex a feat this was. The way you’re talking about releasing universal binaries requiring a “complete rebuild of their whole infrastructure” also indicates that you don’t know much about software development. Again, I don’t intend to offend you.

52

Actually I studied information technology at university, specifically “programming”. I was quite a good at it too, although I’m a little rusty now. Part of what I do for a living is to also diagnose computer/coding issues and report it back to project manager. Well, the head QA dude really, but the project manager is pretty pro active about it too.

But, yeah, I have some insight. I’d never claim to “know it all” though. Simply using logic, why else would it take so long??

Think about it for a sec. Did they just sit around an play card games on their computers for 9 months?!? Sure COVID would factor in, it’s quite possible a few of their key team may have even gotten sick. They were doing something for a year, even though part of it may have been done from home. New products?? Possibly, but we haven’t seen any. So what is it, what were they doing with their time that the bosses were all okay to pay a year’s wages.

It has to be something constructive.

When you do think about it, you’d realise they have such a huge catalogue of plugins to keep running on multiples of DAWs, and multiple versions OSes gong back about 5 years. Not to mention making sure it’s all backwards compatible so 20 year old projects still open without issue.

A new chip like the M1 brings with it an entire new infrastructure. You need to account for it. That’s why things don’t work automatically, and that’s why ALL developers have write compatible code.

Most of the heavy lifting is done by the new OS and the frameworks provided by Apple. XCode has been designed to make the process a lot easier too. But there is still some work to be done when porting code over and taking advantage of all this. The core mathematical part of it doesn’t change, but almost everything else around it does.

Then there is a matter checking a whole bunch of boxes so that the OSes tight security will play ball. It’s all a lot of hard work for a library has big as theirs, even utilising a single underlying core infrastructure that they do (WAPAPI). Then add Windows 11 compatibility on top…

53

I may have been a bit naive to buy Waves plugs late last year despite being aware of the update plan hate - I had to have a new Mac and thought that my still valid update plan meant that I actually would get to use the plugs I bought for the price that I paid.

Can anyone confirm that I now actually have to pay twice (renew update plan, even though my current plan is still valid) to get to use my Waves plugs? Or, if that’s not the case, how do I get v13 on my current plan?

54

Log into your waves account and click on “get latest version”. Once that’s finished, you will need to use waves central to transfer the new licenses to either your computer or usb stick.

55

Thanks for the help, I couldn’t figure it out by myself. Things are not as bad as I feared fort a minute :slight_smile:

56

@YishaiWaves
Could you please share an ESTIMATED time of release for the Soundgrid drivers for Apple Silicon (M1, M1 Pro/Max)? Superrack loads and seems to work fine on M1, except the detail that it does not pass audio… Superrack SG doesn’t load and (incorrectly) prompts me to download the missing drivers (link to NON COMPATIBLE driver, the a not).

As mentioned so many times in this thread, we’ve all waited a very long time an no info released except that “you’re on it”.

58

Thanks @anon4306718,

Cred to you for at least replying. As that doesn’t happen often according to the comments above. A rough estimate still seems fair to all of us waiting in limbo.

59

Hi @MWProd and all

I am happy to say that we are officially supporting Apple M1 with SoundGrid Applications.

For more information, please refer to the Apple M1 Support for Waves Plugins page.

In order to set up SoundGrid on M1 system, please refer to the How to set up SoundGrid Apps and Driver on M1 Macs page.

Have a good day everybody :slight_smile: :partying_face:

1 Like
60

SAY WHAAAAATTT…!!! That’s great news. Well over due but still, thanks!!

1 Like