Mac OS 9 Lives

Digital Audio Workstation & MIDI => Digital Audio Workstations & MIDI Applications => Plugins (VST,TDM,RTAS,MAS) => Topic started by: smilesdavis on September 23, 2026, 09:00:54 AM

Title: McDSP on NuBus Pro Tools — Confirmed Plug-ins, Versions & Compatibility
Post by: smilesdavis on September 23, 2026, 09:00:54 AM

McDSP on NuBus Pro Tools — Confirmed Plug-ins, Versions & Compatibility

McDSP plug-ins really did run on Digidesign NuBus TDM hardware.

This is explicitly documented by McDSP itself and independently confirmed by contemporary reviews and dealer literature.

The confirmed NuBus-capable McDSP products are:

FilterBank
CompressorBank
Analog Channel AC1

Analog Channel AC2 does NOT support NuBus.

MC2000 and Chrome Tone explicitly do NOT support NuBus.

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McDSP Compatibility Archive

McDSP's surviving compatibility archive has an actual NuBus hardware column.

The legend defines:

* = Limited Support

This is not an inference from generic TDM compatibility.

McDSP explicitly marked individual releases as having limited NuBus support.

McDSP compatibility archive — 2006 Wayback capture:

[McDSP Compatibility Archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20060902190057/http://www.mcdsp.com/support/compatibility.html)

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Confirmed NuBus Versions

Product	Version	Installer / CD	Mac OS listed	NuBus
FilterBank	1.0.4	FilterBank	8.1	Limited
FilterBank	1.1.1	The Banks / Green Disk 3 / Green Disk 4	8.1	Limited
FilterBank	2.0	Green Disk 5 / Green Disk 6	9.0.4	Limited
CompressorBank	1.1.1	The Banks / Green Disk 3 / Green Disk 4 / Green Disk 5	8.1	Limited
CompressorBank	2.0	Green Disk 6	9.0.4	Limited
Analog Channel	1.0	Green Disk 5	9.0.4	Limited
Analog Channel	1.0.1	Green Disk 6	9.0.4	Limited

The next releases lose the NuBus indication:

FilterBank 2.1 — no NuBus
CompressorBank 2.1 — no NuBus
Analog Channel 1.1 — no NuBus

Therefore the last versions listed by McDSP as NuBus-capable are:

FilterBank 2.0
CompressorBank 2.0
Analog Channel 1.0.1 — AC1 component only

McDSP's archive explicitly places FilterBank 1.0.4/1.1.1 and CompressorBank 1.1.1 in the Mac OS 8.1 era, while their v2.0 releases and Analog Channel 1.0/1.0.1 are listed for Mac OS 9.0.4.

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FilterBank

FilterBank was McDSP's first product, introduced in 1998.

The earliest version preserved in McDSP's compatibility archive is:

FilterBank 1.0.4

McDSP lists it as:

Mac OS 8.1
NuBus — Limited Support

FilterBank 1.1.1 retains the same combination.

FilterBank 2.0 is still marked for limited NuBus support and is the last such release in McDSP's archived matrix.

Independent contemporary confirmation — Electronic Musician, November 1999

Electronic Musician reviewed FilterBank 1.04 TDM/AudioSuite.

The system-requirements material specifically noted limited support for NuBus-based Pro Tools.

The review also confirms:

Pro Tools 4.0 or later
TDM + AudioSuite
Challenge/response or key-disk authorization
FilterBank 1.04 was a real shipping product, not merely an old entry retained in a later compatibility chart.

Independent contemporary confirmation — Sweet Notes, 2000

Sweetwater published actual FilterBank DSP capacity figures:

MIX: up to 48 EQ/filter bands per DSP
PCI: up to 24 EQ/filter bands per DSP
NuBus: up to 6 EQ/filter bands per DSP

It explicitly states that FilterBank supports:

NuBus
PCI
MIX
host-based Pro Tools systems

and was available as TDM, AudioSuite and RTAS.

So FilterBank's NuBus support was not merely an installer accidentally loading on an old machine.

McDSP had actually written a NuBus DSP implementation.

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FilterBank NuBus DSP Capacity

Hardware	EQ/filter bands per DSP
NuBus	6
PCI	24
MIX	48

Source: Sweetwater Sweet Notes, Late Spring 2000.

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CompressorBank

McDSP's archive confirms:

CompressorBank 1.1.1
Mac OS 8.1
NuBus — Limited Support

Installer/CD listings:

The Banks
Green Disk 3
Green Disk 4
Green Disk 5

CompressorBank 2.0
Mac OS 9.0.4
NuBus — Limited Support
Green Disk 6

CompressorBank 2.1 is the first archive-listed version where NuBus support disappears.

Sweetwater's 2000 article independently confirms CompressorBank support for:

NuBus
PCI
MIX
host-based Pro Tools

with Pro Tools automation from PT 4.0 onward.

Period DSP figures given for the newer hardware were:

MIX: up to 16 mono / 12 stereo compressors per DSP
PCI: up to 8 mono / 5 stereo compressors per DSP

The surviving Sweetwater article confirms NuBus operation but does not give an equivalent NuBus CompressorBank instance count.

I have therefore left that figure ? rather than guessing.

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The Banks

Of particular interest for collectors:

McDSP's compatibility database associates both:

FilterBank 1.1.1
CompressorBank 1.1.1

with the installer/CD named:

The Banks

Both are listed as:

Mac OS 8.1
NuBus — Limited Support

For a period-correct Mac OS 8.1 NuBus McDSP setup, The Banks is therefore one of the most interesting surviving installer packages to locate.

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Analog Channel on NuBus

This one needs an important qualification.

McDSP's compatibility table lists:

Analog Channel 1.0 — NuBus Limited Support
Analog Channel 1.0.1 — NuBus Limited Support

Both are listed with Mac OS 9.0.4.

But Analog Channel consists of two separate processing algorithms:

AC1 — analog channel/preamp/saturation
AC2 — analog tape modelling

A period AudioTechnology review explains exactly what McDSP's limited NuBus support means here.

AC1 DOES run on NuBus.

DSP capacity:

MIX DSP — up to 24 mono / 16 stereo
PCI III — 9 instances
NuBus — 2 mono instances

The reviewer specifically describes two mono NuBus instances as enough for mastering use.

AC2 DOES NOT run on NuBus.

The same contemporary review explicitly states that AC2's NuBus operation was not supported.

Therefore:

Analog Channel NuBus support = AC1 only.

This almost certainly explains the asterisk / Limited Support designation in McDSP's own compatibility matrix.

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Analog Channel NuBus Summary

Component	NuBus	Capacity
AC1	YES	2 mono instances
AC2	NO	—

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MC2000 — NO NuBus

MC2000 is explicitly excluded.

Its McDSP manual contains a section devoted to:

ProTools|24, Nubus, and MIX DSP hardware

McDSP explains that the MC2000 algorithm exceeds the processing capability of both the classic Pro Tools|24 DSP Farm and NuBus DSP hardware.

Therefore:

MC2000 — NO NuBus support

This is an algorithm/DSP-capacity limitation rather than simply a later installer dropping old Mac support.

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Chrome Tone — NO NuBus

Chrome Tone's manual gives essentially the same explanation.

Its processing requirements exceed the capacity of the classic Pro Tools|24 and NuBus DSP hardware.

Therefore:

Chrome Tone — NO NuBus support

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Other McDSP Products

The surviving McDSP compatibility matrix does not provide a NuBus path for later products such as:

Channel G
Chrome Tone
MC2000
Revolver
Synthesizer One

The historically documented NuBus McDSP family is therefore centered on:

FilterBank
CompressorBank
Analog Channel AC1

with MC2000 and Chrome Tone specifically documented as too demanding for NuBus DSP hardware.

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Digidesign NuBus Host Limit

The McDSP plug-in compatibility has to be separated from the underlying Digidesign Pro Tools/DAE support.

Avid's own Pro Tools release history gives:

1994-11-28 — Pro Tools 3.0 — Pro Tools III NuBus release

1997-03-21 — Pro Tools 4.0 — NuBus + PCI; AudioSuite introduced

1998-06-23 — Pro Tools 4.2

1998-09-25 — Pro Tools 4.3 — MIX introduced; NuBus support dropped

Digidesign Technical Support later stated explicitly:

Pro Tools 4.2 is the last Pro Tools version supporting NuBus hardware on a PowerPC Macintosh.

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DAE Limit

Pro Tools 4.2 = DAE 3.3

Sweetwater's preserved DAE compatibility information states:

DAE 3.3 is the highest DAE version supporting NuBus machines.

Therefore the last officially supported Digidesign NuBus software stack is:

Pro Tools 4.2
DAE 3.3

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The Cleanest Documented McDSP NuBus Setup

For an officially-era-correct NuBus machine, the strongest documentation overlap is:

PowerPC NuBus Macintosh
Pro Tools III NuBus hardware
Pro Tools 4.2
DAE 3.3
Mac OS 8.1

with:

FilterBank 1.0.4
or
FilterBank 1.1.1

plus:

CompressorBank 1.1.1

McDSP's own archive lists these plug-in releases as Mac OS 8.1 and explicitly marks their NuBus support as limited. Digidesign's own history independently establishes PT 4.2 as the end of officially supported NuBus Pro Tools.

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What About FilterBank/CompressorBank 2.0 and Analog Channel under Mac OS 9?

This is where the history becomes interesting.

McDSP's own matrix lists:

FilterBank 2.0 — NuBus* — Mac OS 9.0.4
CompressorBank 2.0 — NuBus* — Mac OS 9.0.4
Analog Channel 1.0/1.0.1 — NuBus* — Mac OS 9.0.4

Sweetwater was also still advertising explicit FilterBank and CompressorBank NuBus support in 2000, well after Pro Tools 4.3 had officially dropped NuBus.

Therefore McDSP clearly retained NuBus DSP support in its plug-in code beyond Digidesign's official NuBus product lifetime.

However:

Do not automatically interpret the McDSP table as proving that Pro Tools 4.2 + DAE 3.3 + Mac OS 9.0.4 + every one of these plug-in versions was an officially qualified Digidesign configuration.

The McDSP table records several compatibility dimensions in the same row. It does not necessarily establish that every possible combination of those dimensions was officially tested together.

The safe distinction is:

Confirmed: McDSP v2.0 FilterBank/CompressorBank binaries still supported NuBus DSP.

Confirmed: Analog Channel AC1 supported NuBus.

Confirmed: McDSP lists those releases in its Mac OS 9.0.4 generation.

Confirmed: Digidesign's official NuBus Pro Tools line ended at PT 4.2 / DAE 3.3.

Not yet proven: an officially qualified Digidesign/McDSP configuration combining all of the above under Mac OS 9.0.4.

There are old user reports of later/unsupported NuBus Pro Tools configurations, but these should be kept separate from the official compatibility record.

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Why Did McDSP Still Support NuBus?

FilterBank debuted in 1998 — exactly during the transition from NuBus Pro Tools III systems to PCI/d24/MIX systems.

Pro Tools 4.3 officially dropped NuBus in September 1998.

But the installed base of professional NuBus Pro Tools III systems obviously did not disappear overnight.

By 1999–2000, McDSP was therefore shipping plug-ins primarily into the PCI/MIX generation while still preserving reduced-capacity NuBus DSP implementations