After 50 years of using Cubase (starting with Pro24!) on a PC I have finally relented and decided to move to a Mac (a Mac Mini M4 Pro to be exact). I currently have a number of projects happening and there’s no way they will be finished before I make the move. So, can a project created on a PC be moved or exported to a Mac? It’s probably a silly question but one worth asking anyway. I guess doing it the long way (eg rendering individual audio tracks) could be done. But what about midi tracks? If anyone has gone through this process I would really appreciate any tips or tricks that might help me. Thanks.
Hi, sure. Copy the project folder on Mac and run the .cpr file. Should open where you left it. If you got the same VSTs installed on Mac you will get no errors whatsoever, but for audio interface you should probably need to reconfigure your in/outs etc, but not big deal.
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…right after their 40th anniversary 
I know, it´s just a typo 
Wow, that’s fantastic almaelectronix, thanks so much, that will make the whole process so much easier. All the very best 
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Well not sure how helpful your response was… But for your information Pro24 was Steinberg’s first iteration of what later became Cubase. Back then there was no audio capability just midi. I had a studio back then and we used to sync an Atari ST running Steinberg Pro24 to our (8 track and then later 16 track) tape machines.
Relax… it wasn’t meant to be helpful in an informative way, just funny.
FYI: The earliest Pro 24 Version 1.0 was released in July 1986. That was 38 years ago - 2 years after Steinberg had been founded in 1984. So it’s sort of funny (or not as I have learned by now) that you have been working with Steinberg Sequencers since 1974. Even before Harry Steinberg himself knew about his future self inventing Cubase/Pro24.
Aaargh, I knew something was off. It’s not Harry Steinberg - the correct name is Karl ‘Charlie’ Steinberg. See, this time the joke’s on me…
I know it works because my friends have a collaborative Cubase project folder uploaded on Google Drive and each user picks up the project where the last user left it. One of them is on Mac while the others are on PC and everything works smoothly, they only have to change the audio interface’s settings (in/outs/etc)
Make sure you’ll install the same TYPE of plugins on your Mac, that you’re using on PC, i.e. most likely VST2 and/or VST3. Macs also use AU plugins, which is Apple’s own format (required for Logic Pro) but not supported by Cubase, AFAIK.
Notice, that new Cubase Pro 14 has support for VST2 disabled by default, but it can be enabled in Plugin Manager - you’ll have to do that if your projects are using VST2 plugins.
Mate thank you so much for your responses. I feel very relieved now thanks to you and others who have responded. I thought it was going to be a huge drama. I’ve been a system builder and IT Support for PC for approaching 20 years. I have avoided Macs like the plague. But starting with M’Soft’s ridiculous antics re Windows 11 and ending with the price and capability of the Mac Mini (especially the Pro for DAWs) I decided to take the plunge which I never thought I would do. Thanks so much
Excellent points antic604. I generally use VST3’s although out of bad habits I always install VST2’s as well. But I am taking this opportunity to revisit my needs and the number of plugins I have (which is too many for sure). I thought that with Macs you had to install the AU versions and I was planning to just install AUs on the MAC. Are you saying that you can install VST3s on MACs? Really appreciate the points you have made. Cheers
VST2 mode is only available when running Cubase in Rosetta mode, which I didn’t prefer. Maybe Rosetta was not supported in future versions of macOS.
Cubase supports the change from VST2 to VST3 automatically but must also be implemented by the third party developers, FabFilter e.g. supports this feature.
I bought my 1st Mac couple of months ago and I’ve been installing VST3, AU (and CLAP, if available). VST3 is good for all DAWs, AU just in case if I decide to try Logic, CLAP because that’s the future but so far only few DAWs and plugin developers support it. Typically the installer lets you choose the formats you want.
I don’t install VST2 or AAX (ProTools format), but I wasn’t even trying to transfer any old projects.
Thanks Elias - I’ll be sticking to VST3 on the MAC. I’ll never be a Logic user (too familiar with Cubase and no reason to move to something else)
Thanks again antic604. I checked one of my favorite plugins (Sitala) and I see that you can download VST3 for it for MAC. Live and learn. Dis you move from PC to your new MAC? What MAC did you buy and how are you finding it?
Yes, usually the Mac installer has all formats inside of it (and plugin formats take just a fraction of overall size, most of which is in the data shared between formats), so you’ll be able to choose which one(s) you want. Just like on PC, honestly 
I have always been using PCs (almost 30 years!), but bought my 1st Mac in June - 14’’ 12-core M2 Mackbook Pro, because it was 2/3 of the price . In terms of performance it’s awesome, way more than I need, or will ever need! The macOS itself feels like a more polished Ubuntu Linux, which was what I expected since both are Unix derivatives. After couple of days you’ll learn most of its quirks & proceed to work as fluently as with Windows. I’m happy I switched 
I was pleased to move too, MBP M1 Pro 2 years back now - and I absolutely love it!
The only issues I had were related to third party plugins and whether they would be picked up Mac side, I guess this is entirely reliant on VST ID’s and such things.
Projects using Kontakt were a bit of a pig in some instances, where files couldn’t be found but once the files were linked up again they were fine.
As we’ve got DAWProject export/import in C14 I would be curious how that goes for migrating troublesome projects, but I believe it doesn’t support automation at this point.
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Fantastic. Thanks so much antic and good luck and best wishes with your projects
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Thanks mate. To be honest I haven’t been that big a fan of Native Instruments, even though I still have quite a number of their synths on my system. I prefer (just my choice) Arturia and Spectrasonics myself. Moving to a MAC will give me the opportunity to just install those plugins that I really like. I guess like a lot of people I get sucked into free or heavily discounted plugins and end up with just way too many. I’m going to try to be more selective in what I install. Unfortunately like most of us I do suffer from GAS often. 
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Hi Vkinetic!
nice you have moved to mac, the new M cpu’s are amazing!
A few things to watch out for:
-Cubase 14 only runs VST3 native apple.
So if you need VST2 to be compatible you need to open your older projects in Rosetta Mode.
After that, if you rather run Apple Silicon Native (much better system preformance for me) you can use something like the free Audiogridder to offload VST2 (or AU) to a local server installed on the same mac. No need to install on another computer. It works pretty good to run old VSTi and FX until you find better versions for your mac…
-backup your projects with File/Backup Project, after Preparing Archive.
Make sure Sample Tracks use samples on known locations, or just copy all your data in the same tree to your data disk, if you know what i mean…
A lot of times this does not work when moving from PC to mac.
-my file structure on my pc and mac are exactly the same:
-C (Macintosh HD) is system stuff, Cubase content, prefs etc etc
-D (DATA) all my songs, samples, kontakt (because its just too big) and some other very big folders like ReFX Nexus (over 120Gb for me) etc etc.
This makes sure everything matches and all my samplers/vsti/cubase just works.
I have some of experience flipping between PC and mac (I had to work on tour a lot, while also having big studio pc…before M1 apple laptops sucked).
I had quite a lot of issues, but forgot most of them, so ask me if you need anything!
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