Captain Play VST AU plugin. Captain Melody 3.0. Pro Tools. 12: Pro Tools. 12: Reason. 10: Reason. 10: Maschine. 2: Maschine. 2: Studio One: 4: Studio One: 4.Midi. DrumCore Free version 3. Sonoma WireWorks. RTAS (also AU/VSTi) You only get two kits with the.
compatibility
Supported Pro Tools versions
- Pro Tools 7.x, 8.x (M-powered, LE and TDM systems)
- Pro Tools 9.x
- Pro Tools 10.x
Pro Tools 6.x users
It is possible to use v1.x of the adapter for Pro Tools 6.x. Purchasers of v2.x also receive access to v1.x.
VST to RTAS Adapter and Mac OSX 10.7 and 10.8
For the adapter to work in 10.7 and 10.8, it is necessary to set permissions on the /Library/Application Support folder so that it is possible to read and write its contents. If it is read-only (this is the default on 10.7 and 10.8), the adapter cannot function.
General compatibility
The current compatibility status of the adapter is that it works for VST2.3 plugins and many VST2.4 plugins.
In cases of incompatibility, it is possible for the plugin vendor to update their software for compatibility with the adapter with minimal effort.
The Adapter supports all VST2 features such as sample-accurate timing, parameter automation, automatic tempo synchronization, easy preset browsing and FXB/FXP support.
VST Support
All VST 2.3 plugins are supported, while many VST 2.4 plugins also function. In cases of incompatibility, it is possible for the plugin vendor to update their software for compatibility with the adapter with minimal effort.
The following situations are supported:
- 'OS X Carbon' and 'OS X Mach-O' VST plug-ins on OS X / PPC
- Windows VST plug-ins on Windows
- 'OS X Intel' plug-ins on OS X / x86.
The following situations are not supported:
- Mac OS 9 VST plugins - the VST plugins must be written for Windows XP (or later) for Windows operation or Mac OSX 10.4.x (or later) for Mac operation
- Mac PowerPC-only plugins (non-universal binary) on Macs with Intel CPUs
- Mac Intel-only plugins (non-universal binary) on PowerPC Macs
Important notes
- The Adapter cannot convert RTAS plugins to VST format
- The Adapter cannot allow you to use Windows plugins on a Mac
- The Adapter cannot allow you to use Mac plugins on a Windows PC
If you’re involved in audio production, it’s hard to avoid Pro Tools. Even if your DAW of choice is one of the many other professional software sequencers out there, you’ll probably have to use Pro Tools at some point. Although it is a quality platform for audio processing, Pro Tools does have one notable drawback – it doesn’t run VST plugins (well, you could view it as an advantage, if you happen to have unlimited cash reserves for buying RTAS goodies)…
Plugin Play – VST versus RTAS
Pro Tools plugins are in a format called Real Time Audio Suite, which is a proprietary Digidesign/Avid format. As such, only official products by recognised developers are released as Pro Tools plugins. While this does help to ensure the stability of your system, it also means that the army of DIY plugin programmers out there can’t create any home brew apps.As VST is an open source platform, there are literally hundreds of free VST plugins available on the Internet. Many of these are extremely useful. Some of them may not work very well, and some of them may destabilise your system, but you can avoid or uninstall these. In a previous post, I recommended some free VST plugins to get started with.
That’s A Wrap for RTAS
Unfortunately, there’s no free solution to getting VST into your Pro Tools rig. However, there is a cheap way – using FXpansion‘s VST to RTAS adaptor.
Pro Tools plugins can be quite pricey, so considering the huge arsenal of VST instruments and effects that are readily available for free, it seems that shelling out the £50 or so for the FXpansion adaptor is a wise investment. I’ve been using the device for a couple of weeks now, and so far it has been working extremely well.
Basically, the adaptor is a program that creates ‘wrappers’ for your VSTs so that Pro Tools can see them as RTAS. All you do is run the program, point it at your VST folder and press the ‘wrap’ button.
RTAS Wrapping In Action
When you run Pro Tools, all your successfully wrapped plugins will appear in your plugin selection menu alongside the native RTAS plugins. You can then insert these into your channels as you would any other plugin.
Overall, of the 80 or so plugins that I tested, only four refused to be wrapped. Of the ones that did wrap, one or two exhibited some strange graphical behaviour, and a couple refused to open. However, the vast majority behaved exactly as they would if you opened them in Cubase.
Vst Plugins Pro Tools 10
According to tests by SOS, the adaptor even works with certain DSP hardware-driven plugins such as TC Electronic’s Powercore and Universal Audio’s UAD1. If you would like to have access to these in Pro Tools, then this is certainly worth a shot.
Overall, the benefit of having your VST plugins available within the Pro Tools environment far outweighs the cost of the adaptor. Once you’ve weeded out any VSTs that might not play nicely with Pro Tools, the increase in resources is indeed a godsend. If you run into any problems with particular plugins, it might be worth checking out the KVR site for more info, and FXpansion themselves are quite active in ironing out problems in this regard.