Pianoteq and Garageband

David,

A 'normal' install of the Pianoteq software should automatically add the component file (the AU-plugin) to the components folder. You don't have to do it yourself, the installer takes care of it. I've never known it to fail.

If it were me and faced with your problem, my first step would be to re-install Pianoteq just to make sure that there is indeed a Pianoteq component file in the components folder. If that is the case, but Pianoteq remains unavailable in GarageBand, you'll need to tell GarageBand to rescan the Audio Units. To initiate this rescan, you have to delete a few AU-cache files from your computer and then launch GarageBand. Here are the steps:

(1) In the Finder, navigate to Macintosh HD/Users/<your username>/Library/Caches/
(2) Delete the following files:
     - com.apple.audiounits.cache
     - AudioUnitCache/com.apple.audiounits.cache
     - AudioUnitCache/com.apple.audiounits.sandboxed.cache
(3) Open GarageBand. The software will now automatically re-scan the components folder and the Audio Units in it, validate all the plug-ins that pass the validation process, and make them available for use.

And that's it.

(I'm not up to date with the most recent versions of GarageBand and OSX though. Perhaps these days it is possible to initiate an AU re-scan from within the software or via some other way. But whatever the situation, the method outlined above should definitely work.)

_

Thanks so much for such a detailed reply,  I really appreciate it.

I uninstalled then reinstalled Pianoteq a number of times, and unfortunately each time I did it and checked, the components folder remained totally empty. "I've never known it to fail" - it failed for me every time! :-(

So unfortunately as wonderful as your advice is in items 1, 2 and 3 .... I can't get to that point because of an empty components folder.

These are deep waters, David.
I really don't understand how a Pianoteq installation could fail to put the Pianoteq component in the components folder. You're absolutely sure you're looking in the right components folder? Because there are two of them, one in the Macintosh HD/Library and one in the Users library. Perhaps you've been looking in the Users library, but Pianoteq installs its AU-component in the Macintosh HD/Library.

So here are the two folders you need to check:
(1) Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (this is the folder that should contain the Pianoteq.component file)
(2) Macintosh HD/Users/<your username>/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components

And another question: have you been able to install other 3rd party plug-ins successfully for use in GarageBand? If not, maybe give that a try as well, just to see if the problem is Pianoteq-specific (which, again, I find highly doubtful), or if there is something else going on in your system which prevents 3rd-party plugins to become available in GarageBand.

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