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Classic AIR Plugins from just $10


Starship Krupa

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https://www.airmusictech.com/black-friday/

"Get HUGE Black November deals on AIR Plugins – including a selection of AIR Classics like Xpand 2, Structure 2, Velvet 2 and LOOM Classic for just $10! Big savings across the entire range of AIR Plugins."

I was wondering if we'd ever see the 10-bucks-a-pop deals again, and here is one.

BTW, for anyone interested, DB-33 is included in the $10 sale, it's just not on the page in the link. Go to all products and it's in there.

Now, questions for the AIR heads:

I have Xpand!2, Hybrid 3, Vacuum Pro, Boom, and DS-500. All have been very much worth the pittances I paid for them over the years and I'm wondering about the other 10 buck specials. I'm curious about Strike, Transfuser2, and Structure.

Anyone have experience with them? I'm sure each one is worth $10 if someone's looking for them, but I already have drum machines and samplers and am wondering what these bring to the table.

I know that trials are available for all of them, and I will be checking those out, but I also want to get opinions from the hive.

(Edit: these prices are also available at Pluginboutique, which will earn you points and whatever freebie they have next month)

Edited by Starship Krupa
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7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm curious about Strike, Transfuser2, and Structure.

I have those 3 and uninstalled Strike and Structure a while back. They all had a few bugs that bugged me, and are not ever going to be fixed, and I wanted the disk space back.

If you can live with a few flaws that won't be fixed, maybe they are worth $10 a pop for a few hours of fun. :)

Strike: The file exports never worked correctly for me. But for just jamming it can be fun, the patterns can be switched as you play it from a controller. Library takes up a bit of disk space.

Transfuser2: The plugin GUI sometimes failed to correctly render for me in some DAWs. Dated tiny GUI. Can do some interesting things with grooves that no other plugin seems to do, with a series of real-time controls, Transfuser 2 lets you create and tweak grooves, chop up beats and phrases, time-stretch sounds, re-pitch notes, randomize sequences, and more – all on the fly.

Structure: Unable to edit text in presets. Dated tiny GUI. Library takes up a bit of space, and was redundant to my Kontakt and SampleTank libraries. Stick to Xpand 2.

YMMV.

Edit: still have Transfuser 2 installed...

Edited by abacab
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I too uninstalled Structure many years ago as it is a relic that doesn't fair well compared to today's samplers and sample libraries. KONTAKT is light years more sophisticated and you can easily find free KONTAKT and UVI libraries are vastly superior to those in Structure. Even SampleTank 4s factory library is in a different league than Structure. Of course,  all of those cost a lot more. But I would suggest the free KONTAKT  and SampleTank versions together along with the free Decent Sampler and SFORZANDO as superior alternatives that are even lower cost (free) . 

You didn't list it as in your consideration set, but you mentioned Loom Classic and I owned the original Loom and upgraded to Loom 2, which I still enjoy and I think Loom Classic would stil be nice. 

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Tried all 3. Structure won't even install, keeps throwing errors about corrupt files in the downloaded libraries, which I've tried getting from multiple sources. The sage advice of @abacab to stick with Xpand!2 is well-taken. Anyone who doesn't already have Xpand!2, it's a very useful instrument, and an excellent way to get quality results fast. Snag a 2-seater on it for $5, just go ahead. It's great for sketching ideas, but plenty of the stock sounds are very useful, especially the pads and synth basses. It has some ferocious basses. Not as flashy a ROMpler as MSoundFactoryLE or SynthMaster Player, but also less cumbersome.

Strike seems to be a sampled beat box. For this I have Break Tweaker. It sounds great, good samples and a comprehensive UI, but only duplicates things I already have access to. Would just be a distraction.

Transfuser 2, yep, tiny, dated GUI story checks out. It has a workflow style that I don't feel I'm yet qualified to evaluate, it's oriented toward loop editing and triggering. That's something I very much want to explore more, but I don't think that Transfuser 2 is a good place to start. It's the same story as with multiple other AIR VSTi's: sounds excellent, works great, some nice features, all scuppered by any antique tiny UI.

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9 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Transfuser 2, yep, tiny, dated GUI story checks out. It has a workflow style that I don't feel I'm yet qualified to evaluate, it's oriented toward loop editing and triggering. That's something I very much want to explore more, but I don't think that Transfuser 2 is a good place to start. It's the same story as with multiple other AIR VSTi's: sounds excellent, works great, some nice features, all scuppered by any antique tiny UI.

Transfuser, along with many of the "legacy" AIR titles, had a lot of great tech potential under the hood. IMO if they had been properly maintained and updated with enhanced features and workflow they could have become excellent tools for modern day users. But sadly they were left as is...

Ironic when you consider that originally these used to be a Pro Tools "exclusive" instrument package used in many pro studios. 🙄

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