How Do You Use A New Audio Unit In GarageBand? - Audio Units Components Mac OS X (Instruments and Effects)
Audio Units (AU) In GarageBand

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Audio Units (AU) In GarageBand

 

AU Audio Units (.component) + VST (.vst) for Logic Pro, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro X, MainStage, Cubase, Ardour, Ableton Live, REAPER, Studio One Professional and Digital Performer, among others. Also available in Also: Logic EXS24 (.exs) or KONTAKT (.nki)

GarageBand's range of effects and software instruments can be expanded simply by adding plug-ins known as Audio Units.

Syntheway Audio Units for Mac OS X and macOS Sierra: Audio Units is the plug-in format developed by Apple to coincide with their new audio and MIDI technologies in OS X. Certain programs like Logic support Audio units exclusively, while other programs like Digital Performer 4 support their own MAS format as well as Audio Units. Audio Units are handled at the level of the OS X operating sytem itself and for programmers they can have a certain advantages in that two seperate engines exist for the GUI of the plug-in as well as the sound engine itself, allowing for a more advance user interface design. AU are used by Apple applications such as GarageBand, Soundtrack Pro, Logic Express, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, MainStage and most 3rd party audio software developed for Mac OS X such as Ardour, Ableton Live, REAPER and Digital Performer.

  

What are Audio Units?

Audio Units (AU) are a system-level plug-in architecture provided by Core Audio in Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. Audio Units are a set of application programming interface (API) services provided by the operating system to generate, process, receive, or otherwise manipulate streams of audio in near-real-time with minimal latency. It may be thought of as Apple's architectural equivalent to another popular plug-in format, Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology (VST).

As far as GarageBand is concerned, Audio Units come into two types — effects and software instruments — but the way you add these to two types your system is identical, and it is in fact impossible to tell, from simply looking at an Audio Unit component, which type it is. Both have the same standard icon:

(Though, note that some developers will give their Audio Units a custom icon.)


How do you install a new Audio Unit?

1.- Once extracted from the dmg file you should have a file with a .component extension

2.- The Audio Units plug-ins appear as individual components in the Library folders on your Mac, so the .component bundle must be placed into proper Component folder

Usually the Component folder is located in the root directory on Mac:

Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components

In the Finder choose Go > Go to Folder, enter "Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components" into the Go to Folder field, then click Go.

Rarely the Components folder can be located in your "user" folder:

You can also check the Library in your Home folder. In the Finder choose Go > Go to Folder, enter "~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components" into the Go to Folder field, then click Go.

  

3.- Restart your Mac.

4.- Open GarageBand

5.- Go to add an Audio Unit instrument plug-in to a software instrument track.

6.- In the Plug-ins area, click the Instrument slot, choose AU Instruments, then choose "Syntheway" and the plug-in from the submenu:

  

Using a new Audio Unit Instrument

This is slightly more complicated. New Audio Unit Instruments don't appear in GarageBand's browser-like list that you see when you create a new track — not until you create a preset with them and save it. Instead, they appear in the Generators popup. Create a new track, open the Details... triangle at the bottom of the window, and open the Generators popup menu. As with new Audio Unit Effects, instruments are listed in a section below GarageBand's standard instruments, under the grey heading Audio Unit Modules.

Simply select your new Audio Unit Instrument by name, click the edit button to make any changes (if creating a track, you will have to click Create then bring up the Track Info window again to do this — just a quirk of GarageBand), and you can start using your new Audio Instrument.

Step by Step -> Adding Audio Units Modules (Instruments) to GarageBand

  



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