Macbooks, Live 5 and plugins

[scrawn]

I am currently running Live 5 on my G4 desktop, but thinking of getting a Macbook laptop in the near future. I have heard the Macbooks do not use VST format for plugins but have switched to RTAS, while Live 5 only supports VST and AU.

Has this issue been ironed out? Do I need to upgrade to Live 6 to do so?

[sqook]

I am currently running Live 5 on my G4 desktop, but thinking of getting a Macbook laptop in the near future. I have heard the Macbooks do not use VST format for plugins but have switched to RTAS, while Live 5 only supports VST and AU.

This is totally untrue. The plugin situation with the macbook is exactly the same as with powerpc chips; RTAS remains exclusive to pro tools, and VST and AU remain supported by various other hosts (cubase -> VST, live -> VST/AU, logic -> AU, etc.). The catch is, that you can't use powerpc plugins on a macbook... you need so-called "universal binary" plugins. Most developers have managed to switch over to UB format by now, but you should check to make sure that UB versions are available for the plugins you use the most.

Has this issue been ironed out? Do I need to upgrade to Live 6 to do so?

You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to, but you need to be running at least live 5.2 on intel macs. Previous versions will not work.