Select Region
Knowledge baseNewsmacOS Big Sur and Apple Silicon Compatibility
November 11, 2020

macOS Big Sur and Apple Silicon Compatibility

Neural DSP plugins are fully compatible with macOS Big Sur. We recommend you take all the usual precautions and ensure your apps and drivers are compatible before updating.

Apple Silicon

We tested the latest versions of all our plugins on macOS Big Sur using a Mac Mini with an Apple A12Z Bionic CPU (not an M1). At the time of testing, we were only able to test VST2, VST3, and AU plugin formats in Ableton Live and Logic Pro as Pro Tools was not compatible. Standalone formats were also tested.

In our testing, we observed CPU usage to be slightly higher on the A12Z Bionic, but we expect performance to be significantly better on the M1.

In the DAWs we were able to use, plugin compatibility was surprisingly good. Standalone plugins functioned well, too. However, we currently cannot fully recommend switching to Apple Silicon as many apps, DAWs, and drivers are currently not fully compatible.

We will keep you updated on this.

Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash