FXpansion’s VST to RTAS Adaptor, Reviewed by Geoff Sanoff
I can’t remember exactly what prompted me to buy the FXpansion VST to RTAS wrapper five years ago, but its been a very useful tool to me ever since. I’ve used it happily on G4s, G5s Intel Macs and all versions of Pro Tools going from 6 through to 8. These days, I imagine that a large portion of its user base are UAD-1 or UAD-2 card owners who use the version of the wrapper which is bundled with the Universal Audio software.
Geoff Sanoff at Stratosphere Studios
But the original intent of the VST to RTAS wrapper is simply to allow Pro Tools users to run VST plug-ins. For the $100 it will set you back, I think it’s kind of a no-brainer purchase. Why wouldn’t Pro Tools users want to have access to this larger (and often less expensive) array of plug-ins? I think of it a bit like collecting guitar pedals. They’re often a lot cheaper than buying rack gear, and while perhaps not as versatile or hi-fi, when searching for a cool or unique sound, they’re an invaluable resource.
VST plug-ins span the usual range of old school emulations, instruments and synthesizers to outlandish novelty effects. A big benefit of having the wrapper — the pool of products you can choose from deepens significantly. Thus if you are looking for a virtual organ (as I was last week), you’re no longer confined to the 2 or 3 organs in the RTAS/TDM realm, but can look much further afield for the software that meets both your sonic and price requirements. I ended up using the Roland Juno emulation made by Togu Audio Line. It’s a free download (as are all their plug-ins) and easily worth the $100 FXpansion price alone.
There are also plug-ins that should exist in RTAS or TDM land but don’t, and if they did they probably wouldn’t be as cheap. apulSoft’s apTrigga2, for example, is a real-time sample player which is triggered by audio (such as a snare hit), is easy to use, works great as a drum replacer/enhancer but has no real analog in RTAS or TDM platforms. Oh yeah, and it’s only $55.
GETTING UP AND WRAPPING
In terms of function, the FXpansion wrapper is easy to use. Upon launching it will ask you to identify the location of your VST plug-ins, which are usually in the Library>Audio>Plug Ins>VST folder. When running it for the first time you simply need to click on the buttons on the right side and let it work. Depending on your plug-in load this can take a few minutes, but once completed, you will find the VST plug-ins available as inserts within Pro Tools the next time you launch the program. They will come up as wrapped plug-ins on the insert menu, or if you have your plug-ins organized by manufacturer, they’ll show up that way was as well.
Every time thereafter that you want to update your wrapped VST plug-ins, you have the option of either detecting and wrapping the plug-ins individually or of removing all wrappers and re-detecting all plug-ins. I generally opt for the latter procedure, which takes longer but guarantees that I won’t be missing anything. But if you’ve got a large number of VST plug-ins and know that you’ve only got one new plug-in to update, then the process of detecting and wrapping the single plug-in is much quicker.
I won’t go into detail on the second procedure, but suffice it to say that it works quite well and in the event you do have a problem, I’ve had one or two in 5 years, FXpansion is quick with the return email.
QUIRK ALERT
I should mention that there are some quirks to using VST in RTAS land. The most obvious of these is that when some (not all, but many) VST plug-ins windows are open within Pro Tools, you can loose the ability to use the keyboard until you close the plug-in window. I’ve had similar problems with some Waves plug-ins, where the plug-in takes over the keyboard’s function in anticipation that you are going to enter a numeric value for a given parameter.
This can be annoying when trying to work quickly. You hit the space bar to stop playback only to realize that the controls are frozen. Once you realize the cause, shutting the plug-in window is simple enough, but the moment of WTF?! can be irritating. The transport controls are still active however, and you can use those if you have them open or on your toolbar.
The other quirk is that saving and loading settings isn’t always straightforward. You have the VST save/load bar at the bottom of the plug-in window as well as the RTAS save/load menu at the top of the plug-in window. Which do you use? Well they both usually work, but…sometimes they don’t. I generally default to using the RTAS menu but saving both ways may not be a bad idea. It seems to depend on the individual plug-in.
On a similar note, the plug-in presets don’t always load correctly, although I think that’s probably related to the install of the specific plug-in, as this has not been a huge issue for me.
SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN
The only real word of caution I’d offer is not related directly to the FXpansion wrapper but towards using small batch plug-ins in general. Some plug-ins are just more prone to crashing than others. I think this is particularly the case when dealing with small companies making software for fun as much as for profit. They don’t have tech support because their products are free! So as always, save your work early and often. On balance I haven’t found crashing to be any more common an issue with wrapped VST plug-ins than without them.
I’ll end this by listing some VST plug-in resources to get you started.
These websites offer links to cheap or free plug-ins ranging from virtual instruments to reverbs, EQ’s, Leslie simulators, distortions and on and on.
Go forth and wrap.
http://smartelectronix.com/
http://kunz.corrupt.ch/
http://www.tweakbench.com/
http://www.audioracle.com/macvsteffects.php
http://www.camelaudio.com/index.php
http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-audio-software
http://free-plugin-list.com/
To look into and/or buy FXpansion’s VST to RTAS Adapter v2.1 ($99.00), go to:
http://www.FXpansion.com/index.php?page=15.
Geoff Sanoff is a NYC-based engineer/producer who recorded the latest albums by A Camp, Tinted Windows and Obits. He’s also mixed or otherwise engineered records by Jets to Brazil, Hem, Luna, +/-, Secret Machines, Nada Surf and The Sounds, among others. Get in touch with Geoff through his manager Dan Backhaus at dan@justmanaging.com.