When you’re starting out in music production, it’s normal to feel confused by all the different terms you’ll stumble upon. There are so many technical terms and acronyms, even experienced musicians don't always remember what they stand for!
VST, AU, AAX, and AUv3 are all acronyms referring to different formats of audio plug-ins. Which one of these you’ll use depends on your operating system and your host / DAW.
- VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology. It’s the most famous format for plug-ins. Both VST version 2 (VST2) and VST version 3 (VST3) work on Mac and Windows.
- AU stands for Audio Units and is a plug-in format used on Mac only. AUv3 is simply a newer version with additional features of the AU format for audio plug-ins on Mac and the only format currently available on iOS.
- AAX stands for Avid Audio Extension and is a plug-in format specifically used by ProTools, both on Windows and Mac.
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