AIR Updates

[sarine]

Just to join the echo chamber here... These would be such cream of the crop VST's if this was 2005 or earlier.

Remember Hypersonic? It was made by Wizoo, sold under Steinberg's brand until version 2,  then discontinued as Wizoo was acquired by Avid at some point. Steinberg was acquired by Yamaha and expanded their sampler HALion into a sampler/synth hybrid to replace Hypersonic. Wizoo became AIR.

The question on my mind for many years had been; What happened to Hypersonic? I really missed this one instrument which always sounded fun and fit into the mix.

Depending on viewpoint, you could say HALion 4-6 are the reincarnations, if you look at it from point of view of the Steinberg brand.

In truth, Xpand! is closer to "the real thing," as Hypersonic was Wizoo's (AIR's) baby. Structure has a lot of Xpand!2 originating sounds too, and I would absolutely use them both were it not for the usual complaints about the minuscule GUI's and bugs. For instance all of my AIR plugins either forget adjustments I've made in the last session, or won't make a sound at all until I reload a preset, and there are a bunch of smaller annoyances relating to the horrible GUI's. These plugins are good at heart, and I wish they would let me give them the love they deserve, but ultimately I had to wave a sad goodbye to my abusive partner that was everything AIR.

As Hypersonic replacement I now use HALion 6 and SampleTank 4.

***** AIR, why did you not let me love you? I was ready and willing, but you just kept kicking me in the nuts repeatedly.

 

 

[User 905133]

29 minutes ago, sarine said:

. . . For instance all of my AIR plugins either forget adjustments I've made in the last session, or won't make a sound at all until I reload a preset . . . .

I come to the world of soft synths from years of using hardware where (for the most part) changed parameters need to be stored (often as "presets" but sometimes under other names).  So, I just assume that soft synths (including AIR) work the same way (for the most part); that is to say, in order to recall changes, those changes first need to be stored in order to be recalled.

Is it common for soft synths to remember adjustments without them having been saved?  I have not systematically explored my soft synths as far as whether or not they retain adjustments on their own, but maybe my experiences with hardware no longer apply with regard to patch tweaks.

 

[sarine]

28 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

Is it common for soft synths to remember adjustments without them having been saved?

That has been my experience. Perhaps it is the host that does this - I don't know - but for some reason it's AIR plugins specifically which gave me hell here. Now that I think about it, the parameters might have been retained but thrown away every time I had to load a preset to have a plugin make sounds after reloading a project, or there was some other problem(s) with state. Not sure anymore because it's been a while - suffice it to say my relationship with AIR products was not productive due to problems that should not and need not exist, and were unique to AIR.

[abacab]

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

Is it common for soft synths to remember adjustments without them having been saved?

 

Yes, very common, but it's not the soft synth doing the remembering...

The plugin host (DAW) should remember all current plugin states any time the project file is saved. In fact I often "bank" (no pun intended) on this feature instead of actually saving a preset in the plugin.

Edited May 13, 2021 by abacab

[abacab]

34 minutes ago, sarine said:

That has been my experience. Perhaps it is the host that does this - I don't know - but for some reason it's AIR plugins specifically which gave me hell here. Now that I think about it, the parameters might have been retained but thrown away every time I had to load a preset to have a plugin make sounds after reloading a project, or there was some other problem(s) with state. Not sure anymore because it's been a while - suffice it to say my relationship with AIR products was not productive due to problems that should not and need not exist, and were unique to AIR.

The times that I have experienced this not working correctly were always due to bugs in the plugin. But often the actual most recent parameters were saved, but the preset name might be missing from the plugin GUI. This would be frustrating if it had been a while since I opened the project and couldn't remember the name of the sound. It would play the saved sound correctly, but any tweaks I had made to it would disappear as soon as I reloaded the preset to get the name back.

A workaround for this might be to open the project, then immediately "save as" the preset in the plugin as a new patch name, in order to preserve your tweaks.

Edited May 13, 2021 by abacab

[chris.r]

3 hours ago, sarine said:

For instance all of my AIR plugins either forget adjustments I've made in the last session, or won't make a sound at all until I reload a preset, and there are a bunch of smaller annoyances...

This was my experience with Synthmaster recently. I had to quickly develop a new habit to check if all instances sound the way they should each time on project load. Reloading solved the problem.

[Joakim]

12 hours ago, sarine said:

Just to join the echo chamber here... These would be such cream of the crop VST's if this was 2005 or earlier.

Remember Hypersonic? It was made by Wizoo, sold under Steinberg's brand until version 2,  then discontinued as Wizoo was acquired by Avid at some point. Steinberg was acquired by Yamaha and expanded their sampler HALion into a sampler/synth hybrid to replace Hypersonic. Wizoo became AIR.

The question on my mind for many years had been; What happened to Hypersonic? I really missed this one instrument which always sounded fun and fit into the mix.

Depending on viewpoint, you could say HALion 4-6 are the reincarnations, if you look at it from point of view of the Steinberg brand.

In truth, Xpand! is closer to "the real thing," as Hypersonic was Wizoo's (AIR's) baby. Structure has a lot of Xpand!2 originating sounds too, and I would absolutely use them both were it not for the usual complaints about the minuscule GUI's and bugs. For instance all of my AIR plugins either forget adjustments I've made in the last session, or won't make a sound at all until I reload a preset, and there are a bunch of smaller annoyances relating to the horrible GUI's. These plugins are good at heart, and I wish they would let me give them the love they deserve, but ultimately I had to wave a sad goodbye to my abusive partner that was everything AIR.

As Hypersonic replacement I now use HALion 6 and SampleTank 4.

***** AIR, why did you not let me love you? I was ready and willing, but you just kept kicking me in the nuts repeatedly.

 

 

Big fan of hypersonic as well. The steinberg take on it is jalion sonic and it’s very similar in look and feel.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Joakim

[daveiv]

20 hours ago, sarine said:

What happened to Hypersonic?

https://gorilla-engine.com/

Edited May 14, 2021 by daveiv