Avid has today announced an update to Pro Tools plug-ins bundle 2022.2, which now together with Pro Tools 2021.12 offers Monterey and Apple Silicon support for Pro Tools plugins. We have the details.

According to the Avid knowledgebase article, the following applies.

macOS 11 (Big Sur), OS12 (Monterey) and M1 Support for Avid Products

Information on Apple M1 systems, macOS 11 (Big Sur), and OS12 (Monterey) support with Avid software and hardware products. Last Updated: March 17, 2022

Products Affected: Media Composer, Pro Tools, Sibelius, Avid NEXIS, Media Composer First, Media Composer Ultimate, Pro Tools First, Pro Tools Ultimate, Sibelius First, Sibelius Ultimate, Media Composer Enterprise

Many Avid products run on Macs, including our Creative Tools family (Pro Tools, Media Composer, Sibelius, and others). Avid continuously works to support macOS as well as Windows. For macOS 11.x "Big Sur", macOS 12.x "Monterey", and the new Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max), our teams have been hard at work. Below is a list of Avid products and their various qualifications with Apple's OS and hardware thus far.

Avid also includes these notes to be read alongside this table.

Pro Tools Big Sur/Monterey Notes

• There is a known Apple issue for HDX Drivers on macOS Big Sur that is resolved in macOS Monterey. Please see Avid HD Driver Installation on macOS for additional information.

• Always verify that your third-party plugins, drivers and other programs are officially supported before updating to a new Operating System.

• Our testing has shown that certain configurations may result in a higher incidence of playback errors. This is particularly prevalent with legacy MacBook Pros.

• Users may experience graphical issues when scrolling.

Pro Tools Apple M1 notes

• Please see the Carbon section of the Pro Tools ReadMe for known Big Sur issues.

• Apple M1 machines can kernel panic if an HDX chassis is disconnected while the computer is on or the computer is put to sleep. To disconnect an HDX chassis safely, the computer must be powered down.

Pro Tools System Usage CPU count on M1 Macs

Due to the innovative combination of Performance cores & High-Efficiency cores in M1 machines, the Pro Tools Hardware Monitor will only display 4 CPUs as the majority of the processing needs to be accomplished in the Performance domain.

Users can download the new update from their Avid user account.

Separate Installers

When one of the team checked their Avid Master Account, they found that there wasn’t a single combined Complete Plug-in Bundle. Instead, there are separate 2022.2 installers for each Avid plugin.

What Does This Update Mean?

This is excellent news for all those who have already bought M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max powered Apple computers as you now have an Avid Approved computer running on macOS Monterey. Prior to this, although Pro Tools 2021.12 worked, as we demonstrated in our various tests, there were issues with plugins using the PACE Fusion iLok copy protection system, which meant that although Pro Tools worked on macOS Monterey a lot of the plugins didn’t work.

Now that PACE has produced a version of their iLok copy protection system that will run on macOS Monterey, which we assume is what Avid has implemented in this 2022.2 plugin update, this means that as well as owners of the M1 Pro and Max based computers, anyone buying the new Mac Studio computer will also have an Avid approved computer to run Pro Tools on.

The only thing to be aware of is whether all your 3rd party plugins are also approved for Apple Silicon and macOS Monterey. To help you with this we have searchable databases for both Apple Silicon and macOS Monterey.