agree because after AU support you have to support Automation and after Automation, Notation and after Notation you support something completely different than BlackHole was meant to be.

rowe-morehouse:

Put your plugins somewhere else in the chain.

Makes me wonder if I could find or make a simple background or menu-based AU host, as a stripped-down, UI-free (while running), and open-source replacement for AU Lab.

+1 for AU support. for now ju-x is ok but misses out some plugins.

-1 again.. because this feature will potentially mess up all installed DAW's and there VST that try to send audio over to other DAWs via BlackHole. There are an increasing amount of Plugins out there that use Singletons to manage internet connections or OpenSoundControl .. So if this feature would ever make it into BlackHole you are forced to make a really properly made AudioUnit verification before startup or Audio source/destination changes and on top you would have to implement also a preferences list that keeps signatures of Audio Units around that must be ignored.

I ask myself here, why using BlackHole to route Audio if it would be bend to be a tiny DAW sitting always allocated in the memory that stays in concurrence to any audio software that could benefit from BlackHoles main reason to exist. A completely different talk would be to have a derivate of Software that takes advantage of BlackHole and apply Audio processing on Top. Because such a second Software could manage vst verification lists and do other sweet stuff.. but there you have it, its another App. And for testing purpose i would never use an system hooked audio process that can crash the whole system.. So clearly Blackhole should never become some smaller AU Lab.. There are good developers reasons why AU Lab is so picky with plugins..

The BlackHole integration with SoundSource is awesome. SoundSource was the best $39 bucks I've spent in a long time.

Why would one use BlackHole and Sound Source? SoundSource already captures the audio and provides all sorts of options. BTW, I most use Windows now, and boy do I miss SoundSource. Nothing like it on windows. Nothing.

Features like an inline plugin host should be 100% isolated from the default audio chain I think, stability of the audio feed is the most important thing to me. I can't live with a single skip or click artifact and need the lowest latency.

Thank you for posting your setup. It solved the random pops/drifts on my m1 mac. For reference, I use system audio > BlackHole > Hosting AU app > external DAC, and setting the DAC as clock source worked.

I still regularly get drift like beat skips either using Blackhole with or without aggregate. It is very irregular. Seems to also depend on sample buffer size, higher number = less skips and/or multi tasking audio between DAW and youtube. I now run one vst in LightHost, which is TDR Nova EQ.

Seems I traded PC DPC Latency clicks for beat skips on MacOS. It is workable, but annoying.
Been thinking about getting a minidsp to get rid of system audio EQ for room correction.

Can anybody tell why it is recommended to create an aggregate with soundcard and blackhole in the first place?
If I set Blackhole as system audio source I can use it as input for LightHost which outputs to my audio interface, all the aggregate gets me is drift correction. Why would audio drift / beat skip when I don't use an aggregate?

Thank you for responding and all your effort so far on the project, I will fiddle with the setup further and report back my findings.
The VST host I use is this: https://github.com/rolandoislas/LightHost/releases
Its written for an old version of MacOS and not supported anymore, so it could also be the problem in this setup ofcourse.

I just switched back to the aggregate I already tried using for system output and use it as input in LightHost. The output of LightHost goes straight to the audio interface. Played 10 minutes of music using Foobar and it was fine. Switched to youtube, it was distorted with flutter. So deleted the aggregate and set up a new one. Now it has been skip free for a while.
It can work flawless for an hour maybe. It's really hard to pinpoint the problem.

First thing I did after installing was create multi output and aggregate, because the manual said so.
But as I found them to be skipping I thought I could skip on the aggregates as I read that audio drift is about correcting the sample rate differences between grouped devices. In this setup I don't have a need to group devices. Unless it is mandatory to prevent drifting!

I did try the aggregate before but it was also skipping at some point. Right now it is flawless.

Okay, after 2 weeks of testing with both aggregate in and out.
Blackhole selected in the aggregate.
Interface selected in the aggregate.
Clock source to blackhole. 48khz same for vst host.
Drift correction on Blackhole 16ch.
Only one app playing sound. Foobar music player playing a set of m4a files.
No mouse movement. No other app / cpu usage.

With this setup I get one beat skip / audio drift every 7 or 7.5 minutes.
Either with the vst host sending straight to the interface or sending to a multi output with drift control on the interface.
M1 macbook max on latest macos.

+1 for AU Support.
I use "Sound correction" plugins like Sonarworks SoundID and IK Multimedia ARC3 to calibrate my speakers and headphones to deliver an accurate studio reference sound in my working environment. I use these AU Plugins Systemwide with an App called "menubus" (free version). I do not like using these Plugins in my DAW, because one tends to forget to deactivate them, when printing Audio for Distribution or Mastering, which makes the result unusable.
Unfortunately the App "menubus" is no longer for sale and is not developed/supported any more.
Soundsource or AudioHijack are way too much App for that purpose. And in Soundsource you can not store different AU setups etc.
The reason why I'm voting for Blackhole:
Zero Latency - Small App.
If you are planing on developing something like that, have a look at menubus.
The Pro version can still be downloaded and is exactly what most people are looking for, when wanting to use AU Plugins sytemwide.

thanks for mention Element, i'm current using audio hijack for using vst/ au for my mic. This seem like an free alternative for that due to easy-to-use graph interface. Many vst host/DAW i find is kinda out-of-date or very robust to use

Good to hear it doesn't drift on Sonoma. I have tried a few free vst hosts myself but I got drift and dropouts sometimes only just after hours of stable use. So I ended up ditching aggregates for every day use for now. Still blackhole is great in that you can route 4 separate stereo channels of audio from traktor to bitwig and run your mix decks through bitwig beat synced fx on a single laptop. If you don't open anything else it can work flawless for more than an hour. Still, macos audio drift on aggregates is what DPC latency is on pc. I hope it gets solved for good some day.

Autoeq.app is not an app. The page asks you to find your own app to host the eq profiles. For macos it suggests this: "MacOS AUNBandEq with AU Lab and BlackHole or Soundflower. Alternatively paid options eqMac and SoundSource offer easier setup."

Be aware that there are 3 components in the free option: AUNBandEq, AU lab, and BlackHole. You can replace them with other alternatives, but you always need these 3 parts

This discussion does not belong here. Please discuss in the appropriate repo. I am also removing the link due to no open source license.