Mixing plugins formats in Live. Why is it advised against it ?

[Calagan]

Hi There

I noticed recently some official Ableton advise not to mix different plugins formats in the same Live set.
It's here : https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... on-Windows
They say the same thing (in a shorter sentance) in the mac version of the manual (I'm on a Mac machine) : https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... s-on-macOS

I'd be curious why this advice ?
Is it new to Live 12 ?

On the live set I use on stage, almost every plugins is mixed with VST2 , VST3 (and sometimes AU) versions... It's a mess regarding plugin formats.
Would I gain some efficiency and or stability using only vst3 ?

[scheffkoch]

...afaik the advice is you should avoid mixing different formats of one single plugin...whereas there shouldn't be problem if you have chosen different formats of different plugins...regarding stability: i avoid using vst3 plugins since i had some problems with this format in the past...

[cids]

Hi There

I noticed recently some official Ableton advise not to mix different plugins formats in the same Live set.
It's here : https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... on-Windows
They say the same thing (in a shorter sentance) in the mac version of the manual (I'm on a Mac machine) : https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... s-on-macOS

I'd be curious why this advice ?
Is it new to Live 12 ?

On the live set I use on stage, almost every plugins is mixed with VST2 , VST3 (and sometimes AU) versions... It's a mess regarding plugin formats.
Would I gain some efficiency and or stability using only vst3 ?

I've checked the macOS article and do not see any advice against mixing different plugin formats in the same Live set, maybe I've missed it... ("The plug-in format you choose, whether AU, VST2, or VST3, is a matter of preference.") in the Windows article it is stated: "Avoid mixing plugin formats (VST2, VST3) for the same plug-in in the same Live set." --> might be this is an advice provided by some plug-in vendors

[H20nly]

Using multiple formats in the same set can cause problems with some control surfaces that allow interaction with plugins.

VST2 is going away.

Personally, I disable all types but VST3 in Live. I only use AU in Live for troubleshooting. I use 100% AU in Logic

[pottering]

The advice to "avoid mixing plugin formats (VST2, VST3) for the same plug-in in the same Live set", is to avoid wasting resources, as you would be loading 2 (or more) different software (each plugin format is basically separate software, despite looking the same), using more memory and CPU, when you could be loading just one version.

[Calagan]

Thanks for all your answers...

@cids : search for the term "mixing" in the Mac page. You'll see they mention briefly (I quote) : "Avoid mixing different formats (AU, VST, VST3) of the same plug-in in one Set."

@pottering : yep, it makes perfect sense. When you load 10 instances of the same plugin, I guess some CPU and memory is shared between the different instances, but loading vst2 and vst3 formats of the same plugin is like loading different plugins...

I also noticed some people have issues with some specific plugins when doing so. I don't think I ever had any problem with that, but I may gain some loading time and ressources loading only vst3 plugins...