Waves Plugins on Macbook Pro with M1 Processor

Hi all,

I’m using a Mac mini M1 / Big Sur 11.2 with Ableton Live 10 (via Rosetta). My Waves plug ins seems to work fine on it. These include the Renaissance collection, various CLA plugs ins inc Epic, and Vitamin and Doubler.

The only thing that wouldn’t work was a trial of the new NX Nashville product. I contacted Waves but they just reiterated there’s no official support.

I’m not sure what will happen if Ableton releases M1 software before Waves. I doubt the DAW can be native while the plug ins are on Rosetta 2, but maybe a Logic user can confirm.

Hope this helps anyone that washes up here.

All the best,

PETE

None of my v.11 Waves plugins are working with my M1 13" macbook pro, running in Reaper. I didn’t see Reaper listed on the Waves notes about M1 macs, so I’m a little cautious about upgrading to v.12 plugins, or just keeping music production on my old machine for the time being. I have a handful of other plugins from different companies that also aren’t compatible, so I might be forced to stick with the old machine for the time being regardless. its a 2012 13" MBP, so my fear is that the v.12 waves plugins might not work in reaper on either computer. If anyone has insight into Waves running in Reaper on an M1 mac, it would be appreciated!

You’re a visionary. Future CEO.

Still I ETA about compatibility with M1?

Any updates? Really need a timeline to expect.

Didn’t Apple already release M1 devkits in summer of last year? I suppose Waves didn’t expect that this is going to be their new CPU architecture.

The problem would be ALL the plugins they would have to upgrade multiplied by the number of DAWs. All of which may have to require large rewrites and have to be bug tested. At the same time they will be still finishing up projects hey began since before the Apple announcement.

It all takes time.

I would like some kind of update regarding Waves Soundgrid compatibility. Kinda rough to not even have the option for launching the programs in Rosetta, unless I’m missing something.

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That’s wrong, a port would be universal and not change with each and every plugin. Their plugins are all based on the same Framework, that’s why Fabfilter was able to port all their plugins over to M1 and not individually separate over time.

Most of their artist plugins such as CLA’s simply have existing plugins running under the hood.

CAN WE GET AN UPDATE ON WSG M1 SUPPORT? I guess I’ll write another sentence since it didn’t think that was enough of a question to post.

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I mean they already have worked on ARM plugins, which they released for iOS, h delay, L1, A10 er cetera.

https://www.waves.com/audio-plugins-ios

Yes, but Waves soundgrid interfaces with intel based server products. So I can imagine it’s complicated, due to the critical nature of these products/platforms.

They do need to at least make a statement.

ARM has been out for a while and it has proven to surpass Intel in efficiency beyond substitution. The M1 at native processing beats all available 8 core Intel macs.

Apple has shipped now a few million M1 Macs and Devs really need to stop chilling in their chairs.

Fabfilter and Valhalla already released native M1 versions.

And they aren’t the only ones to have out work into it.

Blue Cat Audio has released M1 native as well and DMG Audio with all their plugins.
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It just shows now who actually is developing code in-house vs Slate Digital for example, just hiring companies and solely doing Marketing.

It’s gonna be half a year soon since it’s launch and you can now tell which dev is actually competent or not given new hardware releases and the capability to actually adapt.

The most pitiful development is Avid and Pro Tools though, being a prime Apple marketing partner, struggling to make the adaption since all their coding is outsourced and nothing can be practically developed in-house.

Switching to ARM shows actually which devs are knowledgeable and having educated personell: Fabfilter, Blue Cat Audio, Valhalla and DMG Audio.

What I’m saying is that you can see now which devs actually put effort and time onto working on their product vs purely marketing companies.

Given how fast Waves is porting their plugins to Apple Silicon, there must be 2 devs the most actually coding for the company if not a single individual and the rest is Marketing.

It’s seriously sad.

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Is there an eta on this update? It would be really REALLY nice to use these plugins at full capacity on the M1 without crashing ect.

Hi Everybody,

We do understand your desire for a clear date, but we cannot currently provide one.

In the meantime refer to our Apple M1 Processors and Rosetta 2 Emulator article with all the latest notes and findings.

Of course we will update on this article and here in this post when we do have more news.

If you look at the number of Waveshells they have running concurrently you know that its not as simple a single port. Not everything gets updated at the same time, it seems like it’s done as batches, with each one requiring its own shell so as not to upset the older plugins that haven’t been updated to the newer ecosystem.

Something like Rosetta compatibility, however, would require all shells to be done. Which means bringing the older plugins up to spec with the current framework

Yes, they share common framework despite that, but you can’t just pop in and change the code and expect it will all work based on faith. It requires alot of testing. Then there are features that are no longer supported within newer architectures that also require new solutions, all this requires time and extensive planning. It’s basically Fabfilter’s work x20.

Almost nothing is as simple as it looks on the surface. Especially when you have hundreds of plugins to take into consideration.

I wish the Waves IT department luck in converting to M1. I have a Mac mini and cannot wait to use arm-based plugins.

Fwiw I used Tune LT on six different tracks yesterday on my m1 MBA without a single issue (Logic). Running in native mode, Tune launches but rewire doesn’t work. However, running Logic in Rosetta, everything (including rewire) worked perfectly. Just to make sure the project bounce went ok I bounced each of the waves tuned tracks in place after I was done tuning.

Also used oneKnob Louder & C6/C6 sidechain extensively throughout the project w/o any issues.

The only issues I’ve encountered have been on tracks that have studiorack instances - moving or removing the SR plugin from the track causes instability.

Same experience here, all my Waves plugins are working fine running native in Logic Pro on an M1 Mac Mini. I suspect Logic is still loading the plugin instances with Rosetta and that is why they are working.

Should we be concerned about sound quality issues running Waves plugins on M1 Macs? I haven’t noticed any yet…

No, transitions like this almost never ever affect things like sound quality. That kind of exists in its own space in its own algorithms. As long as the numbers go in one end and out the other end you’re all good there.

The REAL problem pretty much lies in compatibility or stability. It is either unstable or doesnt run at all.