If you’re unable to use your Spectrasonics instrument(s) within your DAW, but the standalone works, then this article may help.

You may need to configure some Privacy & Security settings to allow your DAW to access files on your external drive.

Starting with macOS Catalina (2019), Apple introduced many new security and privacy settings, including one that requires the user to give DAWs permission to access files on a removable volume (a.k.a. external hard drive).

For example, you may have received a message like this:

If you selected “Don’t Allow”, your DAW is unable to access files on your external drive.

This will cause issues with your Spectrasonics instrument(s) if you’ve installed the STEAM or SAGE library folder to an external drive.

To change that setting, navigate here:

System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files and Folder

There should be an entry for your DAW with a “Removable Volumes” slider on that preferences page that looks like this:

After providing the DAW with access to Removable Volumes, restart the DAW and try using your Spectrasonics instrument(s) again.

If you need further assistance, please reach out to us at info@spectrasonics.net and we’ll be happy to help!