Fxpansion for pro tools

Strobe2 Synth Expanders. Geist2 Geist2 Expanders. Cypher2 A sound design adventure More Details. Strobe2 A modern classic, reimagined More Details. About FXpansion Premium audio instruments and effects crafted from our offices in London - find out more about who we are and what we do along with a brief history of the company More Info Free Webinars Level up from home with free ROLI webinars.

Learn More Robert Dudzic Robert Dudzic is one of the most in-demand sound designers and composers for motion picture trailers and more. Read the interview. My account Download software updates or register products My Account. Support Having a problem with our products? It actually turns out that some minor filing system corruptions on my hard drive had been preventing the FXpansion installer from installing some supporting files, causing my graphics problems.

Unfortunately, instruments that had caused crashes like RMIV were no better after the upgrade, and obviously fall into the category of stuff that's just not compatible at the moment.

However, everything was suddenly faster, more stable, tempo sync started working, and my success rate was up to at least 80 percent. Also on the positive side, FXpansion can be seen to be actively involved with the on-line user forum, and if a particular incompatible plug-in is popularly requested there's a good chance that they will look into updating the adaptor to accommodate it.

Testing with the ImpOSCar and Novation V-Station instruments, performance was only marginally weaker in Pro Tools compared with using unwrapped versions of the plug-ins in Cubase SX, and to be frank I'm tempted to put this slight difference down to Pro Tools 6 LE itself, which seems to struggle a lot on less-than-cutting-edge systems.

Inevitably, there are glitches here and there. Although upgrading to PT 6. My review version 1. I'm assured this is now fixed in version 1. Other points conceded by FXpansion are lack of support for control surfaces such as Digi , no delay compensation, and the performance limitations imposed by RTAS's fixed sample buffers. However, Pro Tools LE does have plug-in delay compensation up to a point, and this worked perfectly with wrapped plug-ins on my system. I also suffered no worse audio break-up problems with Pro Tools than with Cubase, so the small buffers don't seem to be an issue even with very demanding instruments.

One issue I did encounter with the CM instruments was that the sound would cut out while adjusting on-screen controls. Apparently this can be a symptom of low CPU power, although I didn't have this problem with any other plug-ins. An exciting development in recent versions, which is enjoying continued special development, is compatibility with certain DSP hardware products. DSP support is at a preliminary stage, and the performance is not as good as when using these plug-ins in their native environments, but early reports sound encouraging.

There is the problem of latency in these systems which Pro Tools can't adjust for automatically, but it can at least report the delay time as with TDM plug-ins , allowing you to nudge audio to compensate. Technically, VST To RTAS Adapter is quite an achievement, and politically is one up for the consumer remember, those people who fund the industry against the large manufacturers' format wars.

If my tested plug-in list is anything to go by, the adaptor works with the majority of VST plug-ins out there. Where it does work it's remarkably transparent, doing all the things you'd expect from a real RTAS plug-in.

There are plug-ins that just don't work, so if you are thinking of buying the adaptor in order to use something specific, you should check out the compatibility first.

The best place to do this is the online FXpansion forum at www. There are other things you should consider before making up your mind. You should expect a certain amount of tweaking and experimentation to get a stable working system. I went through my share of crashes in the early stages, including several occasions where I had to strip out all Pro Tools ' settings files to get up and running again. You need to be prepared for this possibility.

Also, the fact that you are introducing potentially unstable third-party plug-ins into the system means you should think twice before installing this stuff in critical situations such as professional recording or mixing sessions. However, for writing, sound design or home Pro Tools studios it really is worth any inconvenience. While it doesn't work with everything, and needs some technical competence to manage, you get big rewards for your efforts.

Tested Plug-ins Plug-in Did it work? Pros Brings hundreds of effects and instruments to Pro Tools, including many free ones. Practically no performance overhead above that of the plug-in. Great value for money. Cons Any problems will require some technical ability to resolve.

Can be unpredictable, so not suitable for critical situations. May not work with your favourite plug-in.