VST vs. AUDIO Units on a Macbook Pro

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:41 pm

Yo!

After a lengthy absence I am getting back into Live having just purchased 7!

Would folks care to weigh in on whether they find VST's or Audio Units more efficient on Macbook Pro's. Crashes, time lags, CPU drain etc. are key.

Thanks!

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:43 pm

never really compared them, but i use AUs, like the preset handling more.
i use logic as well, so it's a no brainer for me.

glitchrock-buddha · Post by **glitchrock-buddha** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:43 pm

Doesn't really matter. I like that AU's only have one version of every plug-in for different output configurations personally.

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:07 pm

glitchrock-buddha wrote:Doesn't really matter. I like that AU's only have one version of every plug-in for different output configurations personally.

Really? Because I have heard some folks on the Tape/Op board say they hate AU's for some reason.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:11 pm

Brittney Sparse wrote:
glitchrock-buddha wrote:Doesn't really matter. I like that AU's only have one version of every plug-in for different output configurations personally.
Really? Because I have heard some folks on the Tape/Op board say they hate AU's for some reason.

? probably because they are apple haters and AUs are an apple development... or whatever.

it's rubbish they both work fine... and if you use logic / soundtrack pro or the like you can't use VSTs, so it's easy to have all in AU format and load it into whatever prog you are running... Live, Logic, etc. just like glitchrock-buddha stated.

salatspinatra · Post by **salatspinatra** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:32 pm

I've was curious about this too, and got an overall consensus that AU's have just a slight edge over VST's. I've no real computer science lingo to support this claim, but I understand au's, due to their native to apple, are more robust/stable and use better architecture to take advantage of the operational structure of apple's audio objects. I've listened to some AU's and very subjectively thought they sounded "better" than their vst counterparts. That is, both sounded equal in quality to my ears, but I preferred the AU on occasions.
Here's a classic to support the opposite: there are claims that the VST version of suppatrigga, for example, is "snappier" and "more responsive". Maybe people mean that it takes less time to buffer once you've turned it on, I couldn't tell you.
Couldn't it really just boil down to implementation and how the developer translated their work from one format to another?
Anyway, if I had to choose, I'd still go with AU, but you'll find that midi configuring and responsiveness may favor vst. I do agree that the preset handling is typically more to my taste with AU.

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:42 pm

Only reason for favouring VST over AU would be if you collaborate with someone who uses PC. Then you could transfer your work from MAC to PC as long as both had the same plugs installed.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:43 pm

You should expect that, typically, AUs will be more optimized, given that Apple designed the protocol.

However, there is nothing wrong with installing both AU and VST and seeing if there are performance differentials, occasionally some software throws up a quirk or two in one plugin fromat which is not present in another.

Anyone just dissing an actual plug-in format, especially one as well supported as AU or VST is pretty ignorant. Even DX plugins can be good in certain applications (particularly Sonar, which has extended support for it so can record automation, whereas most DX hosts cannot).

Also the actual sound quality of an AU/VST is no different, unless there is a significant bug in it's audio engine on one format. (something like this would be spotted very quickly and rectified in an update). AUs are pretty much designed to offer the same functionality as VSTs, Apple just got tired of having to pay Steinberg a licensing fee, so basically recreated a VST in their own new proprietary format, trying to optimize it for Mac OSX. This was following in MOTU's footsteps, who's Digital Performer DAW was using it's own MAS plugin format as native.

Also remember that VST has been updated a lot too, so as Apple added new tweaks into AU, Steinberg incorporated most of those features in the updated VST too, and vice versa. And VST3, which is the newest VST protocol, offers significantly better resources for multiple audio routings and multitimbrality, although it is only being used in Cubase 4 at present - However, Steinberg have just released an SDK that allows plug-in developers to make a vst3 plugin and the program automatically writes a translation to VST2.4 - What was holding back development is that VST3 is radically different and not compatible with VST2.x, so meant 2 versions of the VST plugin would have to be coded - given that only C4 is using vst3 at present, any other DAW would need vst 2.4 and that meant 2 seperate coding jobs costing a lot of dough, BUt Steinberg claim their new developers tool will auto create a legacy vst 2.4 version from the vst3 plugin (although will not be able to take advantage of some of the new features in vst3).

glitchrock-buddha · Post by **glitchrock-buddha** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:50 pm

There are reasons why either version of a plug-in could be more stable. I've tried VST versions which are actually more stable or slightly lower cpu use than their AU counterparts (like a couple NI plugs). That can often be because developers usually make the VST versions first and then port to AU. On the other hand I've used AU's that never had some problem I've heard of being in the VST version. This would likely happen if the developer focuses on the AU version first (like Zebra 2).

Overall I see no benefit to one over the other, besides, like I said, that the AU versions have just one component file for various output configurations whereas VST has multiple versions of some plug-ins.

I've just always used AUs since they came out because I used Logic before Live.

last man on earth · Post by **last man on earth** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:56 pm

Actually, there is a benefit - if you decide to move from Mac to PC (

), you won't be able to use AU's, so if you've got all AU presets, you could be in for a long changeover process.

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:58 pm

last man on earth wrote:Actually, there is a benefit - if you decide to move from Mac to PC ( ), you won't be able to use AU's, so if you've got all AU presets, you could be in for a long changeover process.

Nah, this guy wasn't going on about a MAC/PC thing. It was definitely MAc and AU stability or performance.