Is audiounit~ a vst~ (and vice-versa)

ok a few elements more : I created 3 new objects
[vst~ "Guitar Rig 5"],
[audiounit~ "Guitar Rig 5"] and
[vst~] with a message "plug" and I showed it the audiounit "Guitar Rig 5"
___then quit max, take the "Guitar Rig 5" plugin off the VST folder and restart max

only the [vst~] finds the plug-in (I did expect that the [audiounit~ "Guitar Rig 5"] would find it, it does not)
what's more using the message "plug_au "Guitar Rig 5" which i did hope would open the AU version of the plug-in (on both vst~ and audiounits~ objects) does not work if the vst plug-in is missing - so it seems me it calls the VST plug, not AU.

So how can I call at startup, or later, by a message the AU version of the plug-in ???
And what is the [audiounit~] object ??? just a different name for vst~ ??

if anyone knows, thanks
Kasper

prefer [symbol] (default: VST)

In the absence of other information, such as an absolute path to a plug-in file or an explicit typed plug-in path (e.g. C74_VST:/[pluginname], C74_VST3:/[pluginname], or C74_AU:/[pluginname] on OSX), the prefer attribute will be used to preferentially load one type of plug-in before other available formats when using the plug message. Note that the variations plug_vst, plug_vst3, and plug_au can also be used to override the specified preference.

Possible values:

'VST'
'VST3'
'AudioUnit'

https://docs.cycling74.com/max7/refpages/audiounit~

regarding save paths: you can choose a location yourself when writing files? this should fix the issue that stuff lands somewhere out of your control. if you dont choose a location, max will go to the last used path.

Hi Roman

many thanks : yes what you describe is the way it SHOULD be, however it works differently :
• a message "plug_au" send to an audiounit~ object seems to open the VST version of the plug-in (when i took the vst version of the said plug-in from the VST (not components) folder it returned that it can not open the plug-in (!!) -
• regarding save path : without a path it sometimes saved the preset in the application folder, and with a precise path- such as "GRIS16:/Users/ktt/Documents/MAX_KTT/PLUGS_KTT/noise" (to which I add fxp at the end in case of a vst plug)
it saves the preset in a different, invisible folder, (the LIBRARY folder which is in the "user" folder) where it recreates the other folders and names them Documents MAX_KTT & PLUGS_KTT. And then is unable to find the preset. I did not tried with vst3, but the audiounit~ seems very unreliable to me.... where the VST~ object works as it should. Could also be because I Use the latest maxOS (on a new mac, not really a choice).

Beside does anyone know what is the difference (in real world) between vst and AU ??? is one "superior" to the other ?

The main difference is that all parameters of VST are floating point numbers with the range 0..1. while AU parameters can have different types and ranges.

Btw, I think audiounit~ is not (and never was) officially supported.

[audiounit~] is just an alias name for [vst~]. It is not a different object.
When you want to load a specific version of a plugin (au, vst2, vst3), you have to use the prefer attribute (see Roman above).

i would be stupid to guarantee that objects will work as they should, because my own experience leads otherwise.^^

however, i thought it is fundamental to understand first how it should work, and vst should be default over vst3 and au anyway.

what i dont know is what happens when there are AUs in /user/... and the corresponding VST is in /library/... and similar combinations. or when a VST version fails to load or has wrong file rights.

are you sure your VST has exactly the same filename as the AU version? because according to the holy reference it will should even work with "plug" that it is chosen automatically.

that path problem beats me. try using [opendialog] with "write". that´s safe then.

@ BROC - since the audiounit~ object is in the official distribution, one would think that it is very officially supported
@ JEAN-FRANCOIS CHARLES - ok, let's say say that audiounit~ is an alias for vst~ : however it reacts differently to the same messages , for instance "write" does not bring a dialog window (asking where to write and with what name)
And also if to 2 different VST~ objects load the same plug but one with the plug_au message when the other with plug_vst, and the quit max, take the VST instance of the plug away from the plug-ins folder and restart max and my patch
_the vst~ object loaded with the VST plug-in can not find it (which is normal) but the vst~ loaded with an AU object can not find it either and says
vst~: unable to resolve AU plugin
Guitar Rig 5: plugin file not found

_what's more, creating a new vst~object with the "prefer AudioUnit" attribute sends the same message.... as if
it was looking for a vst.
Given the fact that audiounit~ also writes the presets not where I ask it to do so but into some fantasy places (or invisible folders), I will stick with VST (so far I do not see a plug-in which would be only AU..)

many thanks for your answers
kasper

@ Roman : I use the VST (in vst~) since years and tried just because I have heard (?) that AU were superior... And yes, double-checked and the names are strictly identical (except for the final .vst or .component)

Again, there is no such object as [audiounit~]. It is just an alias for [vst~]. You can see that for instance if you look in the audio-objectmappings.txt file, which resides inside of the Max application folder .
Whether you instantiate the object as [audiounit~] or [vst~], the 'write' message will work differently if you load a VST or an AudioUnit plugin. You see the difference in the help file, if you look at the "state saving" tab, they describe what happens when a VST plugin is loaded. To see the effect of "write" when you load an AudioUnit plugin, see the "audio unit" tab.