Collaboration with someone using a PC

[peachesandbacon]

HI all, I'm hoping you can help with some tips here.
Am doing some collaboration with a friend who uses Ableton on a PC, (I'm on a Mac)

So far it seems to be working fine sharing projects with the exception of 3rd party plugins and instruments, as PC's don't use Audio Units (AU)
I get a pop up saying plugin not found when I load the project.

Is there away around this? Do I just need to install the VST version of the plugin to Ableton to get this to work?
Is it that simple? Or is there anything else I need to be aware of.

[dsu]

For a few years I would move Live sets between a PC and a Mac, both in the same room. I ended up having the same VST's on both platforms and it worked out. One option is for you and your collaborator want to configure identical environments. This option has financial implications that might not be practical. Another option would be to create a version of our set and freeze all the tracks, collect all and send it. Your partner works with the
your frozen tracks creates their own freezes their tracks and returns the set to you.

This means changing your partners tracks is awkward to impossible and that might make this approach a No Go for you. You could have a procedure where for each frozen track there is a track that just contains either the audio without effect or MIDI with out instruments. That would let either partner take the source material and play with without changing what has all ready been done.

Hope this helps.

[jestermgee]

Install and use VST not AU. Yes pc doesn’t support AU because it’s a proprietary apple format but VST is supported by any OS.

[wayfinder]

ableton live cannot use the equivalent vst to automatically replace an au in a project (or the other way around). you will have to save the patches in the manufacturer's format, swap out the plugin, and hope they can read preset files generated on the other platform