I recently upgraded to a Mac Studio silicon (M1) running Ventura. I installed Wavelab and it’s running fine, but will not show a UAD folder or any of my UAD plugins. All other developers are there. Steinberg support suggested I uninstall and reinstall UAD, which I did. No improvement. Does anyone have suggestions or experience with this?
Universal Audio made the unfortunate decision to not make VST3 versions of their UAD-2 plugins. They are one of the only companies I can think of that never made VST3 versions, and only have VST2 versions.
Steinberg announced the death of VST2 awhile ago now and most plugin companies have made VST3 versions in the last 10+ years.
Anyway, using WaveLab in Apple Silicon Mode means you can only use VST3 plugins. There is no VST2 support.
The new UA Spark/UADx versions of the Universal Audio plugins are VST3 but they have only released a few of their plugins in this format at this time so for me, it’s not really useful yet. You don’t have to repurchase the UA Spark/UADx versions if you already own the older UAD-2 version.
If you want to use the older VST2 versions of UAD-2 plugins in WaveLab, you can launch WaveLab in Rosetta Mode.
To do this, press CMD + I (Get Info) on the WaveLab application and select the Rosetta check box.
Wow that was super helpful @Justin_Perkins I appreciate you going into so much detail.
I’m pretty frustrated by UAD’s unhelpful approach, but I am grateful that you pointed out how to use Wavelab in Rosetta mode. Thanks again!
No problem. I actually already had this typed up from somebody asking the same question in the WaveLab Users Facebook group.
I’ve not done any side by side tests but having to use WaveLab in Rosetta mode could result in an overall performance decrease vs. using Apple Silicon mode. I can’t really say for sure though.
I was asking UAD for VST3 versions for years and they never happened with their classic UAD-2 plugins.
It seems that we’re getting VST3 versions finally via their new UADx/UA Spark platform but at this time, very few plugins are available on that platform, and very few of those are useful in mastering.
At this pace, maybe they’ll get them all updated to VST3 by 2027.
Yeah it is strange that this particular situation is what falls through the cracks. I also agree that the Spark plugins aren’t the mastering tools so that route is limited. I started using UAD because of the DSP, but now that native processing is so much faster it might just push me to start using other native options.
I’m going to try running Wavelab in Rosetta for some mastering this week. I will post some reactions When I get the chance. Thanks again for the insight.