PlugSound Pro ships with 8 GB of sounds, including USB's complete PlugSound Box. The sound set has synths, pianos, guitars, basses, orchestral instruments, drums, and ethnic instruments all controlled with an uncluttered, intuitive user interface.

Plugsound Box regroups the six individual plug-ins, allowing musicians to access the entire sound library at once, a whooping 3.56 GB of sounds in total. Plugsound Box is a simple to use and CPU-efficient plug-in collection, with a sound quality that earned Ultimate Sound Bank a Key Buy award and an EM Editor’s Choice from Electronic Musician. Each Plugsound is a virtual instrument based on a professional sample library, available for Mac OS X (Audio Units, MAS, VST, RTAS), for Mac OS9 (VST, MAS, RTAS) and for Windows (XP recommended) based PC (VSTi, DXi, RTAS). Plugsound Vol.1: Keyboard Collection Plugsound Vol.2: Fretted Instruments Plugsound Vol.3: Drums & Percs Elements Plugsound Vol.4: Hip Hop Toolkits Plugsound Vol.5: Synth Collections Plugsound Vol.6: Global Collection GM.

Ultimate Sound Bank (USB) refers to PlugSound Pro ($399) as a “complete workstation” plug-in, and what a workstation it is! PlugSound Pro ships with 8 GB of sounds, including USB's complete PlugSound Box. The sound set has synths, pianos, guitars, basses, orchestral instruments, drums, and ethnic instruments all controlled with an uncluttered, intuitive user interface. A loop library consisting of beats, vocal parts, and musical phrases is also included to kick your inspiration into high gear. You can even add to the arsenal by importing files in REX, AIFF, and WAV formats as well as Apple Loops.

If you still need more, USB has a selection of expansion libraries called UVI Sound Cards. Give Me the Details At the heart of PlugSound Pro is the UVI Engine, the same core engine found in MachFive, Ethno, and Symphonic Instruments by MOTU and Atmosphere, Trilogy, and Stylus by Spectrasonics.

Flatron l177wsb driver windows 7 free. PlugSound Pro's feature set provides 64-part multitimbral capability, 64 MIDI channels, and an extensive effects section complete with convolution reverb. The plug-in also includes an Expert mode for creating complex stacks and combinations, with each part having its own effects and output setting.

Don't worry about some of the large sound files — PlugSound Pro can stream samples from your hard drive. The Sound Design section has enough sound-shaping parameters to satisfy your need to tweak, and a MIDI Learn feature so you can map controls to various PlugSound Pro parameters. Navigation is a snap because most of the parameters are available in the main screen of the plug-in. Each part has controls for volume, pan, pitch, and polyphony along with two aux buses (Aux 1 and 2). There's even a Mastering section that includes 3-band EQ, a compressor, a limiter, and tube harmonics.

Want to make a sound stand out? Turn on the Mastering section and watch PlugSound Pro come alive. Captain's Log When I got the assignment to review this plug-in, I ran right to USB's Web site to start my research. The demo presets on the site only scratch the surface. I installed PlugSound Pro on a 17-inch MacBook Pro, which is a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo machine with 2 GB of RAM. (Note that according to the documentation, USB suggests placing the PlugsoundPro.ufs file on its own separate hard drive.) The entire installation, including authorization of my iLok Smart Key, went without a hitch.

I fired up PlugSound Pro in standalone mode and loaded a preset called Acoustic Grand Piano, an 11 MB masterpiece that is responsive and realistic in all registers. The collection of must-have Electric Pianos transported me back to the '70s. PlugSound Pro's Suitcase and Wurli sounds have that retro flavor, while the Electric CP patches (a nice re-creation of an electric grand) have the same bright, cutting tone as the original. Acoustic guitar sounds like the Guild, Mahura, and Martin are absolutely beautiful — the stereo spread versions will have you writing “unplugged” music with your computer.

Synth pads like Beend and Modeler sound like they came straight from a Korg Wavestation or Sequential Circuits Prophet VS. Dance producers will appreciate the extensive Synth Bass collection, and the Electric Bass collection will appeal to those with more organic tastes. Bass patches such as MusicM, Fend.Jazz, and RickenBass really sit nicely in a mix. Let's Lay One Down After auditioning PlugSound Pro's generous supply of sounds, I decided to do a short demo piece to see how the plug-in got along with Apple Logic. The Wurli samples put me in a funky mood, so that was the style I went with.

I started by making use of PlugSound Pro's Drag & Drop feature to fly a loop right into Logic. This feature couldn't be easier to use.