AiR Xpand!2 only for 1,00€

[c_voltage]

Anyway you could not program your own patches with it besides the macro knobs for each patch.

This is only reason why I all time hesitated to buy it during periods of previous discounts.
Of course it would be very cool to get access to the engine edit (in the next version?)

[U-o]

This is the first no-brainer plugin deal I'm not interested in.

[fluffy_little_something]

Not even worth a discussion IMO. That's how business works. And may i also note that the person complaining here offered stuff on the market place, and people ended up paying half of what the product was worth new.

That's not the way business works, Air with their trashy policies is an exception, fortunately. Good companies don't behave like that.

And in case you meant me, what does the market place have to do with any of this? We are talking about new licenses here...

[BERFAB]

I wasn't expecting much, but I must say that I was floored by the breadth of this instrument. Tons of presets, and I didn't see any category left out.

The "real" instruments are good, especially for an all-inclusive package like this. The pianos come in dozens of varieties, but the best of them, the grands, will not take the place of the premium stuff out there anytime soon. However, that said, EVERYTHING is very light, CPU-wise, so you could easily build up backing tracks with pianos, guitars, etc. and save your power for one or two heavier featured instruments.

The guitars were also quite nice, with a few articulated and rhythmic surprises included in the dozens of packages. Everything from Strats (dirty and clean) to steel and nylon are represented, and all are very well done to my ear.

Organs is another important category for me, and the "tell" of a properly done organ patch is a natural sounding Leslie effect routed to the Mod wheel. All the organs here are nicely done, and the Leslie effect, although not tweakable (that I know of) is well done with a slow-medium-fast speeds control built into it.

The beat loops were a really nice surprise. Tons of loops in tons of genres. Also, easily stackable.

Lots and lots of really great stuff here. And for a buck? C'mon now. Though I admit I was surprised to see iLok attached to this--it seems fewer and fewer instruments are using this these days--it was certainly not a deal breaker for me.

Just two criticisms:
1.) I couldn't seem to come to grips with was the FX section. It's there, right in front of you, and there seems to be a ton of FX listed, but for the life of me, I couldn't get a decent hall reverb going on anything (at least not more than was already programmed into the patch). I'm sure I'm missing something here, and I'll try again, but all in all not a huge problem considering the tons of 3rd party FX at everyone's disposal.
2.) The preset section is quite clumsy. Auditioning presets was a real chore because the name tree keeps disappearing when you dial in a preset, and so you lose your place. It would be nice to be able to bring up the preset list and click around to see what you like, especially because there are SO MANY to choose from.

Cheers
-B

[fluffy_little_something]

When you select a reverb in one of the two FX slots, you can set its amount for each of the four layers separately.

[robotmonkey]

That's not the way business works, Air with their trashy policies is an exception, fortunately.

That's exactly the way business works in an oversaturated plugin market (and in general). It's always better to sell huge amounts at low price than few at high price. Xpand2 is exactly that kind of a product that lends itself very well for that approach. It's not very appealing product in itself. It's been given away for free a lot with all kinds of hardware already and those licenses are being sold second hand. Overall it's not a product that would be very appealing at full price. But for a couple of bucks probably a lot of people are going to pick it up. Even I did just in case even though I absolutely do not need anything new and I rarely purchase anything these days. I'd even had picked it up if it would have been selling for 10$ (but probably not at much higher).

[Numanoid]

I thought maybe somebody had done a mistake setting the sale price so low, but as it still is being sold for €1 today, it seems it was the intention from the start.

[fluffy_little_something]

If that's exactly the way it works, how come hardly any other plugin maker does it? Even the Korg M1 (to compare to something similar) still sells at a much higher price, and it sounds inferior.

I think Air have very good programmers (Hybrid is my only synth at the moment, and Xpand my only rompler), but it is a shame to see them act like the Walmart of plugins.

[BERFAB]

When you select a reverb in one of the two FX slots, you can set its amount for each of the four layers separately.

Ahhh. Yes. I figured it might have to do with routing. I was having too much fun auditioning patches to really get into it. And my 3rd party FX were just much easier.

Thanks fluff
-B

[Numanoid]

I think Air have very good programmers (Hybrid is my only synth at the moment, and Xpand my only rompler), but it is a shame to see them act like the Walmart of plugins.

Usually when Waves give a plugins, it is because they want users to update to the latest version of Waves Central.

I'm starting to think that maybe the same applies here, wanting users to upgrade to latest version of PACE

[Lejurai]

Grabbed the deal. Pretty nice rompler even though it's simple as heck. I'm quite positive that I'm going to use this for some layered pads and plucks.

[fluffy_little_something]

I think Air have very good programmers (Hybrid is my only synth at the moment, and Xpand my only rompler), but it is a shame to see them act like the Walmart of plugins.

Usually when Waves give a plugins, it is because they want users to update to the latest version of Waves Central.

I'm starting to think that maybe the same applies here, wanting users to upgrade to latest version of PACE

I don't want to update or upgrade anything because of the limited number of activations for Air stuff

[dimitar]

Thanks AIR!

[chk071]

If that's exactly the way it works, how come hardly any other plugin maker does it?

Eventide regularly has 75 % off sales. Waves regularly have silly prices sales, Steinberg has 50 % off sales, you get Cubase Elements with hardware products, you get Ableton Live Lite with hardware products... hardly "hardly" any plugin, or audio app company which does stuff like that. It's silly to have constant prices if you want to generate some sales. Even the companies which do constant prices have intro offers, or special crossgrades offers. Actually there isn't ANY company i know which doesn't do this really.

[fluffy_little_something]

There is a difference between a sale and dumping.
50 or 75% off of Steinberg or Eventide stuff still makes you feel like you buy something of value. None of them gives away plugins for 1 euro.
Bundling software with hardware is a different story and we don't know how much they actually earn per device.