Native Instruments has conducted initial compatibility tests with Mac OS X 10.6, which have shown all current NI products to work without any specific issues under standard installations of this operating system.

However, users involved in professional audio production or live performance should be cautious about upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 until compatibility with third-party audio software and hardware has been widely confirmed by the relevant manufacturers.

Native Instruments is currently conducting further systematic compatibility and performance tests with Snow Leopard, and will provide additional information on this page as it becomes available.

Please see below for some special notes regarding 64bit aspects of Mac OS X 10.6.

32bit kernel mode vs. 64bit kernel mode
All installations of Mac OS X 10.6 on Apple consumer models start in 32bit kernel mode by default. This kernel mode allows the operation of both 32bit and 64bit Mac OS X applications.

Users can activate an optional 64bit kernel mode through a special key combination during the boot process. However, drivers for NI audio interfaces and controllers are currently not compatible with 64bit kernel mode.

For the time being, Native Instruments does not recommend using 64bit kernel mode with music production software. The development efforts necessary to establish 64bit kernel mode compatibility for NI products are currently being evaluated.

64bit plugin hosts
At this point, there are no 64bit Mac versions of relevant sequencer/DAW applications available on the market. Due to the lack of suitable testing platforms, it is currently unclear whether the 32bit plugin versions of Native Instruments products would exhibit any issues in 64bit host environments.

Native Instruments is in contact with other software manufacturers about 64bit compatibility aspects. Once 64bit versions of relevant plugin hosts become available, Native Instruments will conduct the related compatibility testing and provide further information.