Digidesign’s AIR Vacuum plug-in is a virtual instrument that is new to Pro Tools 8 and comes free with it. It’s a synthesizer with a lot of control and a built in keyboard. It’s part of Digidesign’s (who is now solely under the parent name Avid), AIR line of plug-ins and virtual instruments, which stands for Advanced Instrument Research. You don’t need to take any action in order to install this software, as during the initial process of installing Pro Tools 8 it takes care of it and the other plug-ins that come with Pro Tools. There is definitely a lot going on with Vacuum, as I still feel that I’m learning new things about it each time that I use it. The vast array of parameters would take too long to list here, but it does have sections for two VTO’s (oscillators), two envelopes, a high and low pass filter, a mixer, and a modulation sections. I’m really just scratching the surface here, as the virtual synth really offers up a lot of control. If you’re new to virtual synthesizers and are unfamiliar with the parameters generally involved with synths, I’d recommend doing some research as I don’t know if there is manual for this outside of Pro Tools.


SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I’m currently running the Digidesign AIR Vacuum virtual synthesizer on a Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. You can only run this in Pro Tools 8, as I don’t believe that it can be purchased on it’s own, and I know that it can’t be used within any other DAW setting. I’ve only ever had a need to run one instance of this virtual synth at a time, so I can’t say I’ve tried to test it’s performance level. However, I would bet that most users out there will be using it in the same way that I am, as there is really no need to run multiple instances of this at once. If you’ve got Pro Tools 8 already, chances are that you’ve got a good enough system where the performance or Pro Tools 8 and this plug-in won’t be an issue.


OVERALL OPINION

Digidesign’s AIR Vacuum virtuall synthesizer is definitely one of my favorite new additions to Pro Tools 8. Previously Pro Tools didn’t have any synthesizers, let alone a nice sounding one like this. It’s capable of getting all sorts of synthesizer tones in the vein of the analog synth world. The control available here is awesome, as are many of the preset sounds. While I can’t say that this plug-in alone would be a good reason to get Pro Tools 8, if you have an earlier version of Pro Tools, this and the other free AIR plug-ins and instruments are definitely worth the upgrade price…