Digidesign AIR Stereo Width

The Digidesign AIR Stereo Width plug-in is one that is solely available with Pro Tools 8, and actually comes free with the software! There are a ton of AIR plug-ins available free with Pro Tools 8, AIR standing for Advanced Instrument Research. Digidesign's AIR Stereo Width plug-in is only available in Pro Tools 8 and no where else, so getting Pro Tools 8 is the only way to use it. You don't need to take any action to install the plug-in once Pro Tools 8 is installed, as this is taken care of in the initial process of installing the software. The interface of the plug-in is very straight forward and has the same look and design as all of the AIR plug-ins, making it as simple as possible to see everything going on. The plug-in has got parameters for mode, with adjust, comb, and phase to choose from, as well as parameters for low, mid, and high, overall level, pan, delay, and of course for width. I don't think that they make manuals for the AIR plug-ins, or at least I haven't seen any if there are.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Right now I'm running the Digidesign AIR Stereo Width plug-in on a Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I run the plug-in in Pro Tools 8, which again is the only place that you can use this plug-in. I run Pro Tools with a Digi 002R audio interface or a Digidesign Micro Box if I'm working on the go or not from home. I can't say I've had an issue to date running the AIR Stereo Width plug-in or any of the AIR plug-ins for that matter. In general they take up only a small amount of processing power, as Digidesign, who is now only under the Avid, wants to cater to those Pro Tools users who might not have the best system to run it on. I've only been using the plug-in for a few months since I upgraded from Pro Tools 7.4 to Pro Tools 8.

OVERALL OPINION

I've only tried out the Digidesign AIR Stereo Width on master faders to apply the plug-in to an overall mix, but you can use it for mixing and individual tracks as well if you'd like. For a stereo width expander type of plug-in, it does have a more than average amount of parameters, but in spite of this it isn't like you can get an all that varying amount of sounds. Either way, the AIR Stereo Width will definitely do an okay enough job of spreading a stereo sound well enough to be able to use it when you need it. This isn't the type of plug-in that I would have a need to go out and purchase, so getting a free one is definitely a nice thing. If you've got Pro Tools 8 this might not be the first AIR plug-in that you go out and try, but I'd encourage you to get around to it sooner or later for sure...