Spectrasonics Atmosphere MAS

This plug in is part of Dual 2.7 gHZ G5s Im running,OS 10.4.4 running in DP 4.61. SAGE version 1.1, 4.5 gig RAM
Im monitoring thru a Yamaha DM2000, Mackie HR824 OR SOny MDR 7506 headphones via a Grace M902 referencing headhone amp.

The software takes a while to install,plus internet authorization.
DP had no problem locating it as an instrument and off you go!
There is an included Quicktime tutorial that is VERY good that covers everything.
The manual is bit vague as to troubleshooting install problems when adding "Xpander" libraries.

This is a VERY intuitive plug in. Easy to get great sounds and create music.You can layer at will, play parts in on the fly and the permutations are endless, screw with: the time, the pitch,patterns, the samples.
The onboard FX are excellent. It integrates seamlessly into DP- no problems at all.

Its kind of on the expensive side, and the Xpander libraries are overpriced- not because they dont sound great but because they are not that big.I ordered 4 Xpander sets from them- no discount at a$100 a pop-ouch!The Persing created libraries are the bomb!
The only prob' I had was that Stylus would go out of sync with itself from time to time even though I wasnt pushing it that hard and no other plug-ins were running. I dont know if this was a CPU issue or not.
Presumeably, the one thing you want a "Drum" plug-in to do is STAY IN TIME!
Still, this is the only plug-in of its type. It's VERY easy to use and musical and should be part of any programmer's/composer's arsenal.

I have been professionaly composing music for TV Shows, feature films, documentarys, jingles and singles for 25 years. I don't know the software version for there is no application to "hi-lite" and get info on. I am using this plug-in on a Mac G4 dual processor, OS 9.22 running MOTU DP 3.11 thru a 1296 interface monitoring thru a pair of Yamaha 02Rs and Mackie HR 824R nearfields.

I had some severe, time-intensive, problems installing this plug-in.
I highly reccomend using OS 9.22 to circumvent the carbon lib extension problem ( you will need version 1.6) and I'd make a special extension set based on the "Base" extensions and turn that "file sharing" off! All of this covered in the well written manual.When installing the 2nd of 6 DS (big program!) I get a error message:
" A disk related error occured while joining segments". According to the tech support at Spectrasonics this can be solved by making disk images in the Mac's disk copy utility. This is a time intensive undertaking- about two hours.They ( Spectrasonics) would not ship me a new copy until I performed this disk-imaging operation first.I had to drag the plug-in extension into Motu's plug in folder (not covered) Pitty they didn't include this in the manual- I wasted days for response from them.

The overall sounds quality is excellent and organic sounding.
Polyphony is usally not a problem because you will be a one-note-wonder with most of these sounds. This plug-in is very simple to use and the controls work in real-time. Layering and editing is a breeze. Controllers are easy to assign.
Be adivsed, this a very west-coast sounding plug-in,slick and polished (no lo-fi grainy edgy stuff here) addresing the needs for film and TV composers/editors specificaly in the horror, monster, and mystery realms. Automation is limited to external MIDI control only- but this is not a problem given the nature of this plug-in. A complete MIDI CC chard is included in the manual-good goin'!

Is all of this worth it? Yes, if you are looking for complex, and long duration sounds of this nature for your work.However, if you still own Distorted Reality 1 & 2, and some Roland sample playback devices- be it an XV5080 or SP700 you might want to think twice before plunking down $375 for this plug-in. Eric Persing is a great programmer, but alot of these TYPE of sounds can be found on the aforementiond CDs and some select JV and SRX boards. I dont find the fidelity to be any better from the plug-ins verses the clarity I get from the CD-ROMs.
Latency problems occur with less than 128 meg alloted in the sample buffer,(on my G4), however, DP runs sluggish with this allotment and combined provision for the extra RAM needed assined to the DP application itself.I wish it had some of those wild percussive loops- (found in Distorted Reality)for there are none here.Furthermore, there are too many analog synth pads and solo synths- sort of boring and out of place with this kind of library. The only problem I have had is the modulation wheel often cuts off the sound in an ugly way- butI have had no crashes to date.