Recently purchased PT 11...

[LonestarHawkeye]

I had been using PT 10 on a Snow Leopard machine and kept it that way as I only switched to MAC before I bought it. I now have a copy of Mountain Lion as Mavericks doesn't appear to play nicely with my Media Composer version and etc unfortunately. So I have to update the OS as well and I'm guessing I'll be doing a clean install of the OS, but have been told that I can just upgrade it normally without the clean install. Not sure what might be best.

Since I have bought the PT 11, how do I go about saving all of my plugins and etc so that they are usable in PT 11?

On PT 10 I would always tell it to keep them in the folder as it would ask me to remove them as they were not being used, but since they were 64 bit (according to the Sweetwater guys) and I wanted to keep them for this very thing I just wanted to make sure that I do it right so that I don't "screw" myself.

I hope that I am posting this in the correct area, apologizes if I did not.

Thank you in advance for any information you can give me.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by LonestarHawkeye

Since I have bought the PT 11, how do I go about saving all of my plugins and etc so that they are usable in PT 11?

You wouldn't save your old plugins. PT11 uses the new AAX64 plugin format so you need to download current installers from plugin vendors.

[VRW]

Originally Posted by JFreak

You wouldn't save your old plugins. PT11 uses the new AAX64 plugin format so you need to download current installers from plugin vendors.

+1
There are a lot plugins 64bit AAX ready now!

And for those are not, you may get a host-plugin you can use in Pro Tools 11 to
host 64bit VST or AU versions of your old plugins.
Blue Cat Audio offers 2 quite affordable yet PT11 approved host plugins.

1. Blue Cat Audio Patchwork (virtual patchbay, parallel processing etc.) $79.-
http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_PatchWork
2. Blue Cat Audio MB-7 Multiband Mixer $129.-
http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_MB7Mixer

Both are great, useful good quality plugins with a lot of cool functions besides the ability to host VST/AUs.
If you have old plugs which are not 64bit AAX yet, I would recommend to get Blue Cat Audio´s Patchwork
as it is very affordable and a good, stable host for all your non-AAX-plugins and VIs.
You can even host sample players and drum applications (BFD etc.) with this plugin in Pro Tools 11.
It´s just important that these are 64bit VST or AU, you cannot host 32bit versions of the plugs (no RTAS plugs).

If you however would be interested in the Multiband Mixer functions of MB-7 (can be also used as Multiband-Comp
or Limiter etc.), you may also check this one out but have to say on my system here Patchwork is the more stable
plugin as to the hosting function at the moment.

Btw you better should do a clean install because it´s a complete new system actually and it´s not recommended
to "mix it up" with all the old stuff. That´s just a perfect fertile soil for problems . I would definitely avoid that.

Wishing you the best of success with your new system as well as much fun,


VRW




Mac Mini i7Quad, 16GB Ram, MBP Mid 2012 2,5GHz i5, 16GB Ram, MacOS 10.10.1 Yosemite, Apogee Quartet+Duet 2
Genelec Active, Yamaha NS10, Pro Tools 11.2.2, Logic 10.0.7, Waves, MCDSP, Duende Native, HOFA, IK Multimedia, NI etc.

[LonestarHawkeye]

I was under the impression that the plugins were aax already (at least that's what I see in a folder anyway). A few wave plugins I don't believe were aax though.

Sounds like I'll be doing a clean install then and just reinstalling everything from waves, izotope, and etc.

Do most allow you to download the aax versions, assuming the ones I already have are not, or are you forced to buy them again?

Thanks for the replies.

[Bruce Paine]

It all depends on the company and in some cases what version number you have of the plug-in. I would say the majority are free updates for AAX versions, but certainly not all. In some cases a newer version that adds AAX support may also include other new features besides compatibility.

A good place to start are the lists with links of 64-Bit AAX plug-ins in the first post of these 2 stickies in the AAX Plug-Ins Forum:
Sticky: 3rd party 64-bit AAX Plug-ins for Pro Tools 11
Sticky: Avid 64-bit AAX Plug-ins for Pro Tools 11

[VRW]

Originally Posted by Bruce Paine

It all depends on the company and in some cases what version number you have of the plug-in. I would say the majority are free updates for AAX versions, but certainly not all. In some cases a newer version that adds AAX support may also include other new features besides compatibility.

+1
in most cases it´s the version number of your plugin which is important.
If you had bought and used plugs with a version number which already included
64bit AAX support you of course don´t have to buy them again.

You may just double check your plugs (+version numbers) on the dedicated manufacturer´s websites.

A few examples...
if you had Waves v9 - no need for WUP, just download the latest/right installer for your Mac OS
if you had Waves v8 - will need to buy WUP to be able to use Waves plugs in PT11

if you had Ozone v5 - no need to buy v6 except you definitely want the new plugin, but v5 already was available as 64bit AAX plugin
if you had Ozone v4 - will have to buy 5 or 6 as v4 did only support RTAS, VST+AU, not 64bit AAX

...and so on.

Will be a bit tiring probably to check this out for every plug you use but unfortunately the only way to find out if you would have to invest
more money or not.
In most cases you will find out easily in which format the version of the plugin does work by checking the specs on the download site. If not so,
you additionally may check it´s PDF release notes.

In some few cases even the higher version number of a plugin will be available for free, without having to buy an upgrade, but that´s rare
so again you will just have to find it out by carefully checking the manufacturer´s website.

The best of success to you,

VRW