Air fx 2.4 review

tiger001 wrote:
too bad there ain't no convulsion reverb in MPC [standalone]
or even in hardware
unless.... Tasty Chips ECR-1: comes true
https://www.tastychips.nl/?page_id=2025

Convulsion reverb would be a great addition.

Frisbi wrote:

Yorgos Arabatzis wrote:@frisbi
That’s what i’m telling you..Try it for yourself with the Air Reverb on the sends...No way to get a true Stereo like that only on insert for this too..My way though works on sends with both..

What do you mean with true stereo?
You mean a reverb that keeps the stereo image of the source?
I am not sure about what I say, but all reverbs i used (hw and sw) spread the stereo image somehow.
I am not sure I ever used a Reverb that keeps the same stereo image of the source, I think that working with depth and space, it has to change it in some way.
What do you think about that?

First let me say that i love ambisonic Sound so i love to be precise when i place sounds in a space.That’s why i created my Preciser project (https://preciser.bandcamp.com) and i’m a big fan of Telefon Tel Aviv (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ2qEah8Fns)
The example i gave you let’s me use a Reverb as a send like is supposed to be (as if i loaded it as an insert).Just test it for yourself.Make a copy of a snare in 2 different pads,hard pan them L-R respectively and load 2 different reverbs into each as an insert.You can clearly hear and seperate the 2 snares with the different reverbs on them at the precise extreme sides (Left-Right) of the Stereo field. (No center bleeding)
This example is the expected behavior of a Stereo Reverb.If you try to do the same with the Reverb as sends you’ll hear them bleeding on the center so in order to achieve the same results you have to do it like i explained.
People don’t want always to insert Reverbs individually to their sounds so the ability to free up some CPU resources by using sends the right way it’s always welcomed
Cheers!

@ Yorgos

I don't know, I am not sure about what you say.
I used many hardware reverbs before, and I am sure some of them (Lexicon, Roland, Strymon) don't necessary respect the stereo places of the source, I mean the reverberation moves in space somehow. Lexicon trick for example modulates the early reflections and make a sort of autopan of them. Same with my favourite Boss Rv500.
Sometimes you can deicide about that (Lexicon pcm 80), sometimes is just like this.
The point is: if you just keep the stereo image of source, how can you give space and depth to it?
So I am not sure about what you say.
For sure if you talk about panning the hats and put a reverb on them that stays panned as the hat, i would just use a mono reverb on them.
But we would need a Reverb expert to explain technically if I am right or wrong.
Anyway personally I prefer to have a reverb like Air reverb, I like to work with a deep reverbed stereo field.

Yep my lexicon doesnt respect pan position and it has stereo inputs, it knows whats best, anyway back to discussing the fx reviews rather than 3 pages on the intricacies of pan position post send , overall the air fx update has been a nice one, i dont rely heavily on fx on the mpc but all these are nice additons, the general mixing ones are big step up from akais with visual feedback on compressors big + and the creative ones are a nice suprise and alot more interesting than they had to be, much better update than 2.3 , still lots to fix but feel things are getting some momentum with force release should mean akai is under more pressure to get this software right, i dont think the mpc is ever going to be powerful enough in these models for convo reverb or high cpu demand type plug ins but this bunch is a great start.

Nice that we now have a "monomaker" (Air Stereo Width).

Fanu wrote:Nice that we now have a "monomaker" (Air Stereo Width).

So you're saying you can make a stereo reverb turn into a mono reverb?

Danoc wrote:

Fanu wrote:Nice that we now have a "monomaker" (Air Stereo Width).

So you're saying you can make a stereo reverb turn into a mono reverb?

You can set the width of any signal with it to 0% so it's mono, and that plugin can also create width. Can also used as a gain plugin, which is a nice little utility feature I was missing.
These new FX are pretty nice TBH.

Caustic Yoda wrote:Yep my lexicon doesnt respect pan position and it has stereo inputs, it knows whats best, anyway back to discussing the fx reviews rather than 3 pages on the intricacies of pan position post send , overall the air fx update has been a nice one, i dont rely heavily on fx on the mpc but all these are nice additons, the general mixing ones are big step up from akais with visual feedback on compressors big + and the creative ones are a nice suprise and alot more interesting than they had to be, much better update than 2.3 , still lots to fix but feel things are getting some momentum with force release should mean akai is under more pressure to get this software right, i dont think the mpc is ever going to be powerful enough in these models for convo reverb or high cpu demand type plug ins but this bunch is a great start.

Nice you like those fx.
I remember you were very caustic for 2.3 synths.
Yes I didn't expect a good reverb on Mpc, i thought it was not possible for cpu problems so i was a bit surprise. Ok it's not a Pcm 80 or SR2016 but I like it somehow in the overall mix, it gives a good space to sounds.
Did you try the Filter Gate?
I really like it and after I tried I realized how it was missing.
I think these Air fx work very good if you chain them, I have the feeling they made them with this in mind.

Ok whew! Glad you cleared that up.

Yeah bro they are dope and look better than the original Air effects. Heck now l can process my claps, ir snares right there. Im about to install 2.4. Yaaaaay!

Fanu wrote:
You can set the width of any signal with it to 0% so it's mono, and that plugin can also create width. Can also used as a gain plugin, which is a nice little utility feature I was missing.
These new FX are pretty nice TBH.

Yep filter gate is nice, heaps similar to the one on sp303 but much more options, yeah those last synths with out multimode are useless too me, the info on 2.5 ive seen looks like that might be the one to fix it all

Am I tripping or is the air pitch shifter better in the Akai Force better than the Mpc Live?

It wasn’t a controlled environment but I heard the pitch shifter in one of the naam videos. There seem to be more artifacting in the Live than the force demo.

YouTube compression etc could have played a part in it though.

kaydigi wrote:Am I tripping or is the air pitch shifter better in the Akai Force better than the Mpc Live?

It wasn’t a controlled environment but I heard the pitch shifter in one of the naam videos. There seem to be more artifacting in the Live than the force demo.

YouTube compression etc could have played a part in it though.

No I think its exactly the same Air fx.
But it seems the warp algorithm in Force is an upgrade of the Mpc one.
They upgraded it, put it on Force and didn't give Mpc the better one.
But Dan on GS said its gonna be implemented soon on Mpc.
I don't know what soon means in term of time.

Frisbi wrote:

kaydigi wrote:Am I tripping or is the air pitch shifter better in the Akai Force better than the Mpc Live?

It wasn’t a controlled environment but I heard the pitch shifter in one of the naam videos. There seem to be more artifacting in the Live than the force demo.

YouTube compression etc could have played a part in it though.

No I think its exactly the same Air fx.
But it seems the warp algorithm in Force is an upgrade of the Mpc one.
They upgraded it, put it on Force and didn't give Mpc the better one.
But Dan on GS said its gonna be implemented soon on Mpc.
I don't know what soon means in term of time.

Going to read the force manual and see it mentions different selectable algorithms.

CharlesRandolph wrote:On the MPC, why not put 2 layers of highat on a drum pad. Then pan layer one hard left and layer two hard right. The slightly detune each layers and apply reverb.

Ever tried the oldest way of making a mono signal become a stereo?? Frequency Shifter - a highly underestimated effect and mostly used by professionals. Invented sometime in the 60th of last century....

I'm still learning everything there is to know about the MPC, but I didn't have many complaints with the standard effects it came with. I'm pretty obsessive compulsive about everything so I tweak, tweak, and tweak until I hear what I want to hear. Not sure if that makes a difference or not, as I'm still learning but I try to get as much out of any tool I can use, no presets. Thanks for the review!