Focusrite Plugin Collective

[Fleer]

Hey guys. Which packs can you recommend?

Depends. Do you have one of the instruments? If not, I would go for the Chromaphone ones.

[mutantdog]

So I'll repeat my previous question, anyone know if these banks work with the Ableton versions of their instruments?

No. Ableton stores individual presets and binary. The AAS banks are like .fxb banks but with human-readable text. You've no way of getting the presets from the banks into the Ableton format without the help of an Ableton programmer.

Thanks. That's basically what i expected really. AAS have their own Live Packs on the Ableton website which appear distinct from these libraries.

[Caine123]

what stupid installers are those? it asks for A SOUNDSET?!?? where to install, and it doesnt say WHAT it installs. now it installed Swatches and AAS player but where are the cromaphone 2 presets? i chose a bank which also shall come with chromaphone 2 presets. i wonder how stupid many installers are made.

[Russell Grand]

https://www.thomann.de/gb/steinberg_ur2 ... ImVuIn0%3D

That's a sexy little interface.

[SparkySpark]

what stupid installers are those? it asks for A SOUNDSET?!?? where to install, and it doesnt say WHAT it installs. now it installed Swatches and AAS player but where are the cromaphone 2 presets? i chose a bank which also shall come with chromaphone 2 presets. i wonder how stupid many installers are made.

Indeed! One should write thesis on this. It is really fascinating!

[SparkySpark]

https://www.thomann.de/gb/steinberg_ur2 ... ImVuIn0%3D

That's a sexy little interface.

But Scarlett is a sexier name.

[pottering]

So I'll repeat my previous question, anyone know if these banks work with the Ableton versions of their instruments?

No. Ableton stores individual presets and binary. The AAS banks are like .fxb banks but with human-readable text. You've no way of getting the presets from the banks into the Ableton format without the help of an Ableton programmer.

I didn't know AAS presets were human readable, thanks for the tip.

Ableton "ADV" presets are also human readable, they are zipped XML files (can be opened with 7-zip).

So technically conversion is possible. Within the limits of the plugin and device, of course.

But, yeah, as a user you can't simply load the files from one into the other.

[Russell Grand]

https://www.thomann.de/gb/steinberg_ur2 ... ImVuIn0%3D

That's a sexy little interface.

But Scarlett is a sexier name.

Indeed it is and I do love that ruby red metal shell!

[SparkySpark]

I just noticed the reply in my mail from AAS re Session and Soundbanks, very friendly and prompt:

Thank you for the good words—greatly appreciated.

Our sound packs are not compatible with the Session Series instruments
(Strum Session in this instance). The Strum GS-2 sound packs work with
either Strum GS-2 or AAS Player (which is included with a sound pack
purchase).

Best regards,

[Gamma-UT]

Ableton "ADV" presets are also human readable, they are zipped XML files (can be opened with 7-zip).

Aha, so they are. Thanks for the tip.

It's been a while since I Perled but the AAS .bank files look a bit like a Perl hash that's been JSONised - lots of curly braces, commas and backslash delimiters. The first half of each preset is a 'schema' which contains the keys. The second half contains a list of values (which I assume are in the same order as the first or it's game over).

[Local Man]

Hey guys. Which packs can you recommend?

Depends. Do you have one of the instruments? If not, I would go for the Chromaphone ones.

This is good advice.
The Ultra Analog packs for example are very well done but without being able to tweak anything they are of limited use in many musical situations. The Chromaphone sounds stand on there own much better. They are more like acoustic instruments in that way.

[Russell Grand]

I just decided on Cinémathèque and Cardinals. Not too shabby, there's some decent sounds here.

[planetearth]

Sure Focusrite could do that, and you may well be right, but if they did it's stupid IMO. One of the main reasons I picked up a Focusrite unit last year was because of their generous Plugin Collective giveaways that have been the same for everyone. If Focusrite chooses to goes down this road now or in the future, I'm gonna think twice before passing on positive word-of-mouth and I may go back to Presonus for my audio interface needs in the future.

True, I doubt this is what they did, either. I was just trying to think of why people saw different numbers of packs available to them.

It still seems we're all not seeing the same offers, however. I see the same packs that @Lesha posted earlier. For example, I don't see the "Stranger Things" pack that others have mentioned.

Definitely not all AAS packs in the list. I picked two Chromaphone packs (Digital Sins and Multiverse) as these seemed most interesting from the list.

hi, where are you seeing this restricted list? I didn't get an e-mail from Focusrite (for some reason they stopped) so I logged into my Focusrite account. Focusrite directs you to the main AAS page I think and from there I went to sound packs? Should I be looking at a different list?

It's right there when you log in to your Focusrite account. There should be two links in the AAS promotion. One is a discount for buying all the soundpacks and the other should redirect you to AAS site where you can select two soundbanks.

How odd. When I do that after hitting submit I get a long list of banks, including "Stranger Strings" - counted or miscounted 34 banks - the full list is 36 but I see it didn't list "Cardinals" which I already have.

Another possibility is that the list for the free packs is different than the list for the discounted packs--and some here are talking about both of them, as if they're the same list. Maybe the newer packs (such as Stranger Things) are only available as discount packs.

That said, I also don't see "Journeys" and "Analog Essentials", which are older packs. But I already own them, and don't expect to see them on the list if AAS is trying to keep me from buying them twice.

So who the hell knows what's going on here? I sure don't, but I'm thankful to AAS and Focusrite for doing anything at all.

Steve

[mister-rz]

Yes, was just about to make my choice after spending the last few hours um-ing and ar-ing which of the 11 to choose, refreshed my page to make sure I was still logged in, then all the other banks popped up, one of the few times procrastination has worked in my favour.

Yes, all of them appeared here, too.

Good times! Glad I waited now, grabbed microsound textures and kitnetix in the end, liked the sound of entangled species as well, took an age to decide.

[mister-rz]

Found a few longer preset walkthru videos online, couldn't find anything longer than two minutes for the main ones I wanted, might be of use if you haven't chosen yet, limited selection tho.

Kitnetix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In5OmbCLQhc


Cardinals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smB7vbMjp4s


Harmonic geometry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhT2f33r3Eg


Synbiosis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ae28aLR04Y


Cinematix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDKU9VWpbpQ


Epicycles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU3-VQTDAq0


Cinematheque

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oyl-obpU0g


Octagon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtfzOwIpYJA


Reverence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Ia2raDTEo