Which multi-timbral bread and butter VSTi in CbB?

[Some Guy]

6 hours ago, pbognar said:

Are you referring to this upgrade from Xpand!2 ?  https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/58-Inst-Bundle/2294-AIR-Instrument-Expansion-Pack-3-COMPLETE-UPGRADE-

Yes.

You buy Xpand!2 and the upgrade.

Then you add Xpand!2 to your iLok Manager followed by the upgrade, and everything will register and just work.

And if having great quality is a major deal, then you need to look into better Sampler Libraries (which cost a lot more).

But the AIR Synths/Instruments are worth the relatively cheap price, if you use those types of VSTis.

The Sampler Library is "Bundle Quality."  It won't be any better than the stuff that ships out of the box with most DAWs.  The AIR stuff was developed to be bundled with Pro Tools (and a lot of it still is - the Effects/Instruments and Vacuum Pro, IIRC).

Edited October 25, 2019 by Some Guy

[Mánibranðr Studios]

XPand! 2 Is great, but I also use Roland SCVA for my bread and butter sounds. I consider it to be a great upgrade to TTS-1 and is compatible with most of the MIDIs I had previously written out of the box with little extra routing/setup/editing.

[Magic Russ]

On 10/24/2019 at 7:20 AM, mettelus said:

TTS-1 does have the advantage that CbB (with no output MIDI selected in preferences) will launch MIDI files, insert TTS-1, and route it for you. That feature is nice if you are starting with another's MIDI file, then can replace content (shift-drag MIDI) to other VSTis. I'll admit that with the processing power of newer machines, I do not get as excited by multi-tibral as I used to. For some reason I waste more time routing/setting them up than to just pick and choose what works best piecemeal. Then again, it could just be laziness on my part.

Personally I prefer how Studio One does it where each track goes to an instance of their sampler with an appropriate instrument loaded according to the MIDI program number associated with the track.  That way I can easily replace each track with the best possible instrument to use with it.