Yes, DaVinci Resolve loads third-party audio plugins, and it does it in the free version, not just Studio. The confusion is which format Resolve wants, one plugin folder it quietly ignores, and the fact that when a plugin does not appear there is no error telling you why.
All of this is on the Fairlight page. Paths shown are macOS unless noted; Windows notes are called out where they differ.
Yes. Resolve hosts audio plugins on its Fairlight page, the audio room of the app. On macOS it loads both Audio Units and VST. On Windows it loads VST only, because Audio Units is Apple's own format and does not exist off the Mac.
You do not need Resolve Studio for this. Third-party audio plugins load in the free version of DaVinci Resolve as well. The features Blackmagic keeps for Studio are mostly on the video side; hosting a VST or an Audio Unit in Fairlight is not one of them.
If you also cut in Final Cut Pro, note the difference: Final Cut takes Audio Units only. Resolve and Premiere Pro take AU and VST both on Mac. So when you are buying, the format that covers you everywhere on a Mac is AU. The Final Cut version of this guide goes into that.
Use the AU (a .component file) or the VST3 (a .vst3 file). An
installer usually drops them in the right place for you. If you are copying by hand, these are
the folders Resolve reads.
| Format | File | Folder Resolve reads |
|---|---|---|
| Audio Unit (Mac) | .component |
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components |
| VST3 (Mac) | .vst3 |
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 |
| VST3 (Windows) | .vst3 |
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 |
On a Mac there are two of each of those folders: one at the top level of the disk
(/Library) and a second inside your home folder
(~/Library). Logic and Final Cut read both. DaVinci Resolve and Premiere
Pro only read the top-level one. A plugin dropped into the home-folder version simply
never appears in Resolve, and nothing tells you why. If a plugin is missing, this is the first
thing to check.
Resolve scans for plugins at launch and validates each one before it will list it. A plugin that fails is quietly left out. Work through these in order.
Resolve looks for new plugins only when it starts. Installing one while it is running does nothing until you fully quit and relaunch. This alone fixes most cases.
As above: the /Library folder, not the ~/Library one in your home
folder. This is the single most common reason a plugin shows in Logic but is missing in Resolve.
On Windows there is no Audio Units, so an AU will never appear. Make sure you installed the
.vst3 on Windows, and either the .component or the .vst3
on a Mac.
Modern Resolve runs natively on Apple Silicon. An Intel-only plugin may not load. Select the plugin file in Finder, press Cmd+I, and under General it should read Universal or Apple Silicon, not Intel only.
Since macOS Catalina, an unsigned or unnotarized plugin can be blocked by Gatekeeper before Resolve ever sees it. If you got a security warning during install, that is the cause. Anything from a real developer will be signed and notarized and will install with no warning.
Open the Fairlight page. Your installed plugins live in the Effects Library, the panel of audio effects, grouped by manufacturer rather than by product name. That trips people up: you bought a plugin called Halo and you are scrolling for H, but it is filed under the company that made it.
To use one, drag it onto a clip, or add it to a track's insert in the mixer: open the Mixer, click an empty insert slot on the channel, and pick the plugin from the list. Unlike Final Cut, Fairlight is a full mixing environment, so you have real tracks, buses, sends and automation. One instance on a bus can treat everything feeding it, which is the clean way to run a single reverb or a single spatial effect across a whole scene.
Fairlight's own effects cover a lot: EQ, dynamics, a decent reverb, de-humming and de-essing. Before buying anything, most editors need one or two things Resolve genuinely lacks rather than a whole bundle. The gap that comes up most on picture is placing music somewhere real, the next room, down a corridor, out in the street, instead of just dialling a low-pass filter and a reverb and hoping.
THALM puts music into a real space. You set a place on a cutaway of a building rather than dialling filters, and the walls, floors, distance and doorway do the work. It runs as an Audio Unit and a VST3, so it loads straight into Fairlight, and it is Universal, signed and notarized, so none of the trouble on this page applies to it.
Hear the whole thing free in your browser first, no install and no account. If you want the technique rather than the plugin, the manual method is written up here, free.
We write these when there is something worth writing down. One email when a new one lands or a new Tunary instrument ships. No newsletter, no schedule.
Tunary