Band-in-a-a box runs great and fast on Silicon M1 (and x86).

Here’s why…

The first time the BiaB x86 program is run in a silicon machine, Rosetta 2 does a one-time translation to Silicon. So the first run takes about 5 seconds longer than normal to get started. But on subsequent runs, it runs using the translated silicon code and boots up and runs very fast . A Band-in-a-Box.aot file is created (hidden) in the system which is the “ahead of time” translation file. And that’s what runs every time, not the x64 program app . This means there isn’t emulation running when you are using the program, since it using the previously translated aot app. This is all behind the scenes and it happens to all kinds of programs including Microsoft x86 “Office” programs run on a Silicon m1. Apple describes their process here https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/about-the-rosetta-translation-environment

Apple hasn’t said they will ever kill Rosetta 2. Why would they? It translates programs to run on Silicon, and it works great.
Apple could kill or change a lot of things that would make BiaB stop working (apple installer, core audio, SU plugins, graphics, QuickTime, midi support). We’ve dealt with those successfully for 32 years, and plan to continue that way. For example, the change to Catalina on x86 years ago broke lots of things in BiaB (and many programs) that we needed to fix (and did). For example, Apple installer changed all kinds of things regarding installing programs to drives other than system drive - that would stop even a silicon native program from installing if it was using old methods.

btw) we are looking into getting the translation to Silicon done during installation, so that the very first run on Silicon doesn’t have a delay.

Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.