Producers and DJs: don’t upgrade to macOS Big Sur

Apple’s new macOS Big Sur was released yesterday, Thursday, November 12th. With it comes the usual aesthetic and internal change, including new Safari features, restyled GUI, new Control Centre and Notification Centre. 

As with every update, it also comes with a list of caveats – especially for DJs and producers. As it stands, software like Pioneer DJ’s rekordbox, Serato DJ and Ableton Live, as well as plugin developers like Output, Waves, Arturia and more, have all advised against updating to Big Sur with official compatibility still not announced. In fact, some users have reported software not opening at all in the new OS during the beta period and since its launch yesterday. Native Instruments have issued a statement saying that Big Sur can even cause a malfunction in your Kontrol S4 MK3 hardware. Bad news. 

The new OS is a particularly challenging one for developers as Apple introduced their new M1 chips that allow cross-platform support for iOS and macOS, so it may take longer than usual to see a stable update for your favourite software. 

For now, the only software that officially works perfectly with Big Sur is Apple’s own Logic Pro, which was also updated yesterday to take advantage of the new M1 chips. Algoriddim also updated djay to Pro AI which takes advantage of the new more powerful chips. 

For now, the advice for most remains: don’t upgrade your music-making or DJing computer to macOS Big Sur for the foreseeable future and check in with the software company regularly for news.