Number of tumbleweeds spotted blowing through the aisles of the 2009 NAMM Show: 0.
Number of dopedy-dope new products for DJs and producers of electronic and hip-hop music: at least the following 13.
While attendance at the annual Anaheim, CA trade show occurring Jan. 15-18 may have been down a bit, attitudes were upbeat, and booths were filled with new innovations for making 2009 another year sacrificed to the art of making music.
This quick snapshot of 13 hits only represents a slice of the newness on offer, and we’ll be following up this week with full, more detailed show reports on the new hardware and software from NAMM 2009.
You didn’t think this German freight train was derailed did you?
Like clockwork, Ableton cranks out a major update of Live per year, and there’s always reason to take notice. Live 8 ($449 download) includes a new groove engine that includes extracting grooves from audio or MIDI and real-time groove quantize; retooled warping abilities, such as warping audio events by adjusting the events on the timeline, a new Complex Warp Mode and slicing audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients; live looping; track grouping; a revamped MIDI editor; crossfades in the Arrangement view; and five new effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Limiter and Frequency Shifter.
Live 8 is scheduled for availability this spring, along with Ableton Suite 8 ($699 download), which includes Live 8, a massive sound collection and many virtual instruments, including the new Latin Percussion acoustic drum collection and the Collision mallet instrument. Ableton’s first soft synth, Operator, has also been updated with new filter types, more modulation options and additive wavetable synthesis.
When Ableton first announced this at their press conference, they should have handed out Depends, because people were peeing themselves over this thing. Perhaps *the* hit of the show for the Remix crowd, the APC40 represents a collaboration between Akai and Ableton to create a dedicated controller for Live 7 and higher. Intended for real-time mixing, remixing and production, the APC40’s 109 buttons, 16 endless encoders with LED rings, nine 45 mm faders and a replaceable crossfader give you complete control of Live’s Session view, effect devices and virtual instruments with little need for a mouse.
The controller’s multi-colored backlit buttons let you know what’s loaded, what’s playing and what’s being recorded. For the $399 retail price, the APC40 comes with a specially designed version of Live Lite, so whether you use that version, Live 7 or the new Live 8, the APC40 automatically works over a USB connection, with no drivers or mapping required.
Arturia did a great job modeling the Minimoog in its first version of Minimoog V, and Arturia was clear to us that it didn’t want to change the sound of the instrument. So what was there to improve upon? A fresh batch of presets is nice, and recording automation within each preset for up to four parameters opens a ton of possibilities. But that’s just the beginning.
Arturia added a Vocal Filter, which works almost as if to make the Minimoog talk. The new Vocal Filter, as well as Pan, can be used as destinations for an expanded modulation matrix.
Best of all, a new Sound Map lays out the hundreds of preset sounds in a sortable two-dimensional space as a new and effective way for zeroing in on the sound(s) you want. While that’s helpful, the Sound Map’s morphing might blow your mind. By clicking multiple sounds within the map, you can morph between them.
Back at the 2008 Musik Messe in Frankfurt, Germany, Celemony undoubtedly stole the show with it’s DNA feature–Direct Note Access–for Melodyne. DNA lets you access and edit individual chord tones in audio recordings. Those extrapolated chord notes can be edited like other notes within Melodyne, by altering the pitch, position and duration of the note detected, make it louder or quieter, copy/cut/paste and so on.
The first product using DNA was supposed to be Melodyne Plug-in 2 last fall, but since then, Celemony had rebuilt the product around DNA functions to the extent that a new name was in order. Melodyne Editor ($349) is set to come out this spring and will work as a stand-alone app, as well as a plug-in.
It’s easy to get lost in specs, concepts and jargon at NAMM, but fantastic sounds still rise above all the rest. For Quantum Leap Silk - Masters of the Silk Road ($595), producer/composer Nick Phoenix recorded renowned musicians playing dozens of authentic instruments from China, India and Persia to create a brilliantly sounding and ambitious 25 GB collection of ethnic instruments.
Recorded at major studios using vintage Neumann microphones, Neve consoles and Meitner converters, Silk also takes advantage of EastWest’s new Play 64-bit sample engine, which includes scripting, micro-tuning and a convolution reverb.
Edirol has transferred sister company Roland’s moxy for audio samplers into the video realm with this compact box. The P-10 allows you to capture video clips from DVDs, video cameras and other sources and then trigger them in tempo with effects and with the audio optionally intact if you want to play full music videos for example.
You can also capture still images from video clips and play sets of images as slideshows. The P-10 uses SD memory cards up to 16 GB, which would give you 4 hours of video storage in the Motion JPEG format it uses. With 12 pads and 72 pad banks, you have potentially hundreds of video clips at your disposal. A live input lets you capture videos of your surrounding and immediately play them back to the crowd.
Falling into the gap between the original MicroKorg and the Korg R3 synth, the MicroKorg XL ($750) features the acclaimed analog modeling from Korg’s Radias synth engine, a built-in 16-band vocoder (gooseneck mic included) and a simplified editing system using three large dials and a backlit LCD menu. With its 37-note velocity sensitive mini-keyboard and optional battery power, the MicroKorg XL is compact and ready to fit into a cramped studio or live setup.
While small, this full-featured keyboard includes USB and MIDI controller capability, audio inputs for the vocoder, an editable arpeggiator, 17 effects from the Korg Kaoss series, and it excels in a wide variety of sounds from filthy basses to sharp lead synths and lush, evolving pads.
Although frequently unsung, MOTU’s virtual instruments carry famously deep functionality to go along with impeccable sound. It’s latest effort, BPM, a beat production tool for urban and electronic music, continues that tradition.
With the intent of letting you make beats almost as fast as you can hear them in your head, and to stop you from relying on someone else’s loops, BPM gives you 15 GB of 24-bit/96 kHz of percussive material, but you can also sample your own sounds or drag-and-drop sound from your desktop to BPM’s pads, which are compatible with any MIDI pad controller on the market.
Just a few of BPM’s seemingly infinite features include drum layering, patterning sequencing, loop slicing, groove quantizing and unlimited effects processing with its included effects. You can create your entire rhythm track in BPM as a stand-alone app, but it’s not meant to be a one-stop-shop only. With universal plug-in compatibility, it features multiple outputs and many export options for you to use your beats in a DAW session or transfer them elsewhere.
One of the few “from out of nowhere” surprises at NAMM, MOTU introduced Volta, a virtual instrument plug-in that allows users to play and automate modular synthesizers–and other hardware equipped with control voltage (CV) inputs–right from their workstation software.
To pull off that task, which no other software has done before, Volta receives conventional virtual instrument MIDI note, automation and controller data and then converts it to a control voltage signal, which it sends through an audio interface as DC voltage that can drive a standard CV input. It’s important to point out that the audio interface must have DC-coupled outputs;
Volta also has a Calibration button that can automatically tune analog synths by sending voltages and measuring the pitch response. It can even tune self-oscillating filters.
Scheduled to ship in the first quarter of this year as an Audio Units plug-in, Volta does not have a price attached yet. Its capabilities are vast, but the bottom line is that Volta gives you the same or comparable access to sequence, control and automate your modular and other analog synths, Moogerfoogers and other CV gear that you have over your current soft synths.
We’ve all heard a lot about the combining of software functionality with hardware control. However, until now, the combination has usually come from a fairly traditional piece of hardware having a software component to it, or software being controlled by a piece of general-use hardware. Native Instruments wants to change the game with Maschine ($669), an instrument in the tradition of the tried and true “groovebox,” but made from the ground up to combine the tactile control of hardware with the modern immense capabilities of software. And unlike many other music products before it, Maschine’s hardware is made to work with its software 100 percent, and vice versa.
If you’re used to the traditional groovebox and drum machine workflow, you should have no problem diving into Maschine. You get 16 pressure-sensitive drum pads that illuminate to reflect sequenced patterns, eight rotary encoders and plenty of buttons to keep your hand off the computer’s keyboard and mouse. The package comes with several gigabytes of sampled material for you to make your music, and the hardware doubles as a MIDI controller for your DAW and other instruments.
Open Labs has been going as crazy as its hip-hop endorsers over the last year. At NAMM, it unveiled updated hardware specs and a much-improved software OS for it’s all-encompassing, computer-in-a-keyboard workstations. Among a full line of introductions, the Miko LXD stood out for the Remix crowd.
The 37-key workstation comes with a full software bundle including 60+ virtual instruments, including FXpansion Guru and the Livid Instruments Cell VJ software, all running over Windows XP Home. And you can load your own PC-compatible DAW, DJ and other software into the Miko. In addition Open Labs, has developed Riff, its new virtual instrument host software that makes switching between instruments seemless, and lets you create real-time virtual controls that can be mapped to effects or other parameters.
Miko LXD includes the touch-sensitive computer display and three built-in control modules, two of which are new. The new Bump MP module gives you Akai MPC-style controls such as note repeat, as well as transport controls, hold, pad tune and more. As an original innovation, Open Labs has included a 17th pad called Last Pad. This pad basically plays whatever the sound is of the last pad you hit, letting you perform fast rolls more comfortable on two pads instead of one.
Also new, the Mix/Edit controller gives you controller over as many as 128 channels of audio from within one set of 8 encoders, 8 lighted buttons and 8 faders. Miko LXD begins as $4,599 and is available to order now.
In a coup for cash-strapped cats who want to get into music now, Sonivox Playa supplies the basic tools for urban music production in one stand-alone app or plug-in for $149. That price includes 400 Sonivox instruments (for reference, Sonivox created the instrument sounds for Ableton Live 7), including basses, brums, synths, ethnic sounds, guitars, strings, brass and more. There are also effects, EQ and 50 construction kit-style layouts for the 16 programmable and assignable virtual pads. With MIDI learn, Playa is compatible with any MIDI controller.
A lot of companies were trying to show off either their modeled brass or their sample-based brass collections at NAMM, but none that we heard were as impressive as Wallander Instruments Brass 1 ($599). Wallander’s acoustic behavioral modeling does a remarkable job of reproducing the nuances of notoriously difficult to replicate brass instruments. Brass 1 includes models of French Horns, Trumpets Trombones and Tubas and claims to be CPU friendly enough to produce full orchestra-worthy arrangements on a laptop. With modeling, you also don’t have to make room for gigabytes of audio material.
Ah, toys, gadgets, gear. Every week it’s something new that gets us excited about making music and questioning our commitment to financial responsibility.
This last week split my wig a few times with some cool announcements, so here are the best of the best, in a list as random and unorganized as my desk.
This touch-sensitive USB MIDI DJ controller, aka SCS.3d, promises fast response and easy customization. It can control an entire computer DJing system from one compact device or easily add to your existing system.
DaScratch introduces Stanton’s StanTouch technology, which is supposed to incorporate finger movements familiar to DJs, such as scratching, scrubbing and circular touch-pad navigating. The main surface works in three modes–Slider, Circle and Button–in which the surface responds to touches in different ways. In every mode, DaScratch responds to multiple simultaneous touches. If you buy more than one of the $249 units (available now), they can snap together to create a larger control surface.
OK, one question: Did it really take this long for someone to think of calling a MOnoPHOnic synthesizer the Mopho, or is Dave Smith just the first one with the cajones to do it? Well, I for one say bravo to curse word innuendo.
But moving on, the Mopho actually looks like an extremely badass synth for a $439 list price (available now). The one-note/two-oscillator analog synth features a synth engine based on the DSI Prophet ‘08–one of the greatest 21st-century analog synths–with the added bonus of two sub-octave generators–one per oscillator–for additional girth and crushing basses. It’s got an audio input for passing sounds through the legendary Curtis lowpass filter; it includes 5-pin MIDI ports; and at only 7.5-by-5 inches, it’s very portable.
Dude, these apps from Japanese company New Forestar are only in beta, but to my knowledge are the only apps for the iPhone/iPodTouch that attempt to turn them into mini CDJ-style audio players. Two iPhones and a mixer? That’s what up.
The features of these apps include a jog dial with virtual scratching and tap tempo, a pitch fader, play/pause button, cue button, forward and backward buttons, a seek bar and a time display. In addition, they’ll use the iPhone’s accelerometer to issue sound effects when you shake the device. No word yet on when the programs will become available.
What’s your favorite “mort?” Voldemort, Mort from Family Guy or maybe it’s the Decimort, the new bit-crusher plug-in from D16 Group. Decimort aims to recreate the highly sought after coloration of vintage samplers such as the E-Mu SP-12 and SP-1200 and the Akai MPC 60mkII that was the result of encoding techniques, lower sample and bit rates and conversion circuits.
Decimort’s main sections include a decimator with controls for bit rate and sample rate and a filter with four filter types and controls for cutoff and resonance. It’s available now for preorder at 29 euros. After the first week of October, the price will be set at 35 euros.
On the heels of it’s recently announced UAD-2 DSP platform, Universal Audio has announced the released of the Moog Multimode Filter plug-in for UAD-1. UAD-2 users who buy the UAD-1 version now ($199) will receive the UAD-2 version for free when it’s available.
How many times have you fired up your DAW with the intention of writing a track and sat there overwhelmed by too many options, or doodled around with creating the perfect synth sound that never comes, effected the same beat over and over or done everything but actually write some music?
Hopefully, never. And hopefully, you’re the A#1 chief badass of all time. But the reality is, most of us on some occasions get bogged down with all the other aspects of audio production that take time away from the actual songwriting. That’s why a good old fashioned acoustic piano or guitar can be vital. There’s nothing else to do with them but play music.
However, today I received a demo of a new software program that actually does something that’s pretty rare: It identifies a unique problem of the music producer that no one else has addressed, and attempts to solve it.
The program, Tanager SongFrame, is in a sense a pre-DAW. It’s chief focus is to assist you with the process of songwriting, without all the bells and whistles that are necessary for production in a DAW but can be distracting to songwriting. When you’re finished with a song, you simply export from SongFrame, which creates WAV Audio Tracks and MIDI files that show track markers and are compatible for importing in literally every DAW, to be used as scratch tracks for your full production.
SongFrame’s notable features include an audible chord library, thousands of possible chords progressions taken from popular songs and musical compositions from every era and genre, hundreds of placeholder drum patterns, VST plug-in hotsting, audio and MIDI recording, a lyrics module and a SongBit Notebook for saving ideas.
Check out Tanager’s videos for a run-through.
Tanager has also produced a couple of other very helpful musician’s apps. Chorducopia is an audible chord library with more than 50 chords per key to help you in practicing an instrument or with songwriting.
But for traveling laptop musicians and producers, Chirp could be indispensable. Whenever you’re in a spot where you want to make music but don’t have the luxury of playing a MIDI keyboard or other type of controller, you can use Chirp. It’s basically an 18-key musical keyboard and 10-drum pad MIDI controller in software form. It maps its triggers to your QWERTY keyboard and send MIDI messages to your software, just like a hardware MIDI controller does.
Richie Hawtin is always so far ahead of the DJing technology curve, it just may be futile to try to catch up. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be inspired by his innovation to do your own thing. In this video on ResidentAdvisor.net, Hawtin explains his current live setup using Native Instruments Traktor with four virtual decks and an Allen & Heath Xone mixer/MIDI controller (as well as an extra computer just for effects).
If you still think that it’s cheating for laptop DJs to use a software’s auto beat sync, allow Hawtin about 10 minutes of your time to justify himself for offloading that task to his computer helpers. As always, his endeavors are quite impressive.
Digital Music Doctor, a creator of pro audio video tutorials released the results of its quarterly survey, the Music Software Internet Popularity Index. Image Line FL Studio has placed second and Cakewalk Sonar has placed fourth now for two quarters in a row. Apple Logic moved up to seventh place and Cakewalk Project 5 knocked Sony Acid Pro out of the top 10. The results are based on recent search engine activity.
I’m surprised that Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason aren’t on the list; if you want to see where those two stand and more details on how DMD does this research, click here.
‘Free,” the magic words. HipHopMakers.com, a music production blog from 25-year-old Californian Mark V., has just released a collection of 100 downloadable drum sounds. Although it’s only 9 MB of 16-bit/44.1 kHz WAV files, the collection contains enough hot drum and percussion sounds to put beats together fast, including snares, kicks, toms, shakers, cymbals, hats, claps and more. Big ups to Mark for sharing.
Also check out the rest of the site, which is building up its content of production-oriented tips and advice, interviews, reviews and videos.
Every year, the NAMM Show is like a case of good news/bad news. The good is that there is always a butt load of new stuff to discover for making and performing music. And the bad news is that the show is so big, it’s all we can do to see everything there in the time allowed, without getting much opportunity to play with the goods. However, such is our duty, and without complaining, we scoured the Anaheim convention center Jan. 17-20 to track down the most promising gear for electronic and hip-hop producers, musicians and DJs. We already reported on the Urban music-focused products, and a special DJ-gear report will follow this week. So without much more ado, here’s a list of the overall Remix show hits.
Access Virus TI Snow
Legendary Virus TI power is now available in a small tabletop box with a stylish wooden front panel as the Virus TI Snow ($1,350). The Snow works with all TI-series patches and has a 50-note synth engine with four multitimbral parts, multiple oscillator models, a Moog cascade filter emulation and a deep effects section. While the front panel offers full programming capabilities, you can also edit and store sounds using the included Virus Control plug-in for VST/AU/RTAS hosts that, among other things, offers an intensely cool Easy Edit mode that adaptively assigns multiple parameters to the three Value knobs for quickly making sweeping changes with a single knob. With analog stereo inputs and outputs, MIDI I/O and USB, the Snow has Access Total Integration that can route sounds from a DAW to the Snow‘s filters and envelopes and back.
Novation Nocturn
To accompany the new Automap Universal 2.0 software at the NAMM Show, Novation announced the Automap-capable Nocturn ($199), the smallest device to support Automap. It sports a pro-grade 45 mm crossfader, eight rear-illuminated buttons and eight rotary encoders, each with bright 11-LED rings. There is also one of Novation‘s awesome Speed Dials, which can take control of anything your mouse pointer rests over, from DAW controls to other apps and OS controls. As you switch from DAW to plug-in and back, Automap automatically reassigns Nocturn‘s controls to the currently active program. Users can make their own MIDI Maps just as easily and then find them using Automap 2.0‘s browsing. Maps can be traded and shared, and Novation will undoubtedly have a growing downloadable collection. A side-mounted USB socket helps the Nocturn sit directly in front of your laptop‘s keyboard without a cable jutting out of the back.
Eurphonix MC Control and MC Mix
Using its EuCon control protocol with eight times the resolution and 250 times the speed of MIDI signals (using Ethernet), Euphonix has brought the power of its high-end large-format consoles to its Artist Series of incredibly thin and portable controllers. The MC Control ($1,999) and MC Mix ($1,399) create a modular editing/mixing system capable of controlling any software–DAW or otherwise. The MC Control offers a unique customizable touch-screen interface with 12 assignable soft keys that can send keystrokes–and customizable macro commands–to the foreground application, auto-switching between banks of assignments as you move from program to program. Four touch-sensitive motorized 100 mm faders can control any number of tracks, and eight touch-sensitive, push-button rotary encoders offer even deeper control. The MC Mix loses the touch screen and Transport section in lieu of a set of eight faders, as well as eight rotary encoders. Both devices are compatible with EuCon, HUI and Mackie Control protocols and can be chained for as many as 36 total faders (four MC Mix units and one MC Control). The included Studio Monitor Express matrix system controls your system‘s monitoring connections from the control surface, and there is full control integration for Apogee Ensemble, Symphony and Duet interfaces, as well as native Apple Logic Pro support. The MC units can control multiple applications and multiple workstations via Ethernet, a first for a small-format device. Like a full-size pro console in a tiny box, the MC Control and MC Mix can help you produce with speed and precision.
MOTU Digital Performer 6
This $795 DAW focuses on user-requested features. In addition to a full interface redesign, subtle but powerful improvements to DP6 include resizable tracks in the Tracklist, new “floating” Inspector palettes, window tabs and more. The powerful new Comp Track feature is similar to Logic‘s Quick-Swipe comping, and the new ProVerb convolution reverb is drastically more CPU-efficient and includes a cool Dynamic Mix feature that ducks the wet signal as the input level increases for a wetter mix without losing clarity. The new MasterWorks Leveler contains four LA-2A models (two classic, two modern) for smoothing out tracks beautifully. XML file import/export tightens up integration between DP6 and Final Cut Pro, making it easy to see changes to a new video edit from inside your DP6 session. DP6 also shows massive performance gains when using virtual instruments. Audio Units plug-in support has been expanded, now offering 100-percent sample-accurate timing, sidechaining and ramp-based automation. RTAS plug-in support, native AIFF and WAV file compatibility, support for interleaved audio files (stereo and surround), enhanced plug-in management and Direct-to-CD burning all demonstrate MOTU‘s commitment to its users.
Roland Fantom-G6
Composers looking for a single unit for writing, recording and performing can look to the quickly evolving keyboard workstations. To stay on top of the game, Roland updated its flagship line of Fantom workstations with the 61-key Fantom-G6 ($2,899). Featuring a brand new audio processor, the G6 doubles the available wave-ROM space of previous versions and expands the color LCD screen to a luxurious 8.5-inch widescreen. ARX card slots for two of Roland‘s unique SuperNatural behavior-modeling emulator expansion boards come packed with sounds. A revamped effects engine offers as many as 22 multi-effect routings per multitimbral patch group, plus global reverbs, choruses and mastering effects. Roland‘s new Power Sequencer is capable of 128 tracks (24 audio tracks) inside a fully integrated environment with mouse support. Assignable performance controls include eight sliders, four knobs and 10 buttons, and the performance-enhancing arpeggiator, D-Beam and Dynamic Pad section with 16 Velocity-sensitive drum pads afford you extended interaction with your sounds. The new line of Fantoms is also available in 73-key G7 ($3,349) and 88-key G8 ($3,999) versions.
In case you missed TLC‘s reality show, Street Customs, on Nov. 15, Snoop Dogg had his old Sprinter van converted into a mobile recording studio. It was a first for the car-remodeling company, West Coast Customs, featured on the show.
“We‘ve done a lot of projects involving extreme high-end car audio, and a number of mobile stage trucks with performance and DJ rigs, but professional recording gear has a whole different set of requirements,” West Coast Customs‘ Chad Utt says.
The van went from a beat-up shuttle vehicle with six rows of seats to a kick-ass mobile studio. First things first, West Coast Customs called Mackie, who outfitted the van with a Sony Vaio SZ491 2.16 GHz dual-core laptop running Mackie Tracktion 3 Ultimate Bundle software; Mackie Control Universal Pro, Extender Pro and C4 Pro control surfaces; Onyx 1200F FireWire interface; and 1521Z 15-inch active loudspeakers.
The van also does double duty as a video lounge. To that end, there‘s a Sony 46-inch Bravia flat panel display, Blueray DVD player, PlayStation 3 console, HR624mk2 studio monitors and an HRS120 12-inch studio subwoofer. And people sitting at stop lights next to Snoop won‘t be complaining from the racket, either: West Coast treated the entire van with Dynamat acoustical sound dampening material.
“Snoop is totally stoked,” Utt says. “He was looking around the van and saying ‘man, I gotta shut down my other studios and go on the road.‘ Everyone who sees it is just amazed. It‘s not some all-cosmetics project, just for TV. It‘s fully functional and it sounds awesome. This is the real deal.” Check it out!
Traditionally, the annual (American) convention of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) has been the playground for the recording industry elite, who labor behind Lexus-length SSL and Neve boards in multi-million dollar studios, rather than tiny MIDI controllers tucked into cramped bedrooms. You could think of AES as a luxury box at the Kentucky Derby as opposed to a NASCAR parking lot (which would represent, say, clearance day at your local pawn shop).
However, in the last few years, the AES show has been gaining steam as the “other NAMM” for computer-based project and home studios, an epicenter of music technology as companies such as the aforementioned SSL and Neve have started to adapt their products for the smaller-studio, computer-centric world.
DJ gear may be all but absent at an AES congregation, but there was plenty for elctronic-based producers and performers to drool over at this year’s AES convention, held October 5-8 in the Javits Center of New York City. Here are the top 13 products that rolled up a towel and snapped Remix in the ass.
ABLETON LIVE 7
Ableton previewed Live 7 ($599), which includes improved audio and MIDI engines to minimize jitter. Other upgrades include a new compressor effect with three compression models and side-chaining. The Gate and Auto Filter effects also have side-chaining, while the EQ Eight plug-in has an enhanced user interface and a 64-bit mode for greater accuracy. A new spectrum analyzer provides visual feedback for any audio.
Most interesting may be the new Drum Rack, which streamlines beat-making with a drag-and-drop interface and REX file compatibility for slicing and dicing.
Ableton is also stepping up its virtual instrument offering with featured add-on instruments based on Applied Accoustic Systems’ technology called Analog, Tension and Electric, as well as a larger comprehensive instrument suite.
APPLE LOGIC STUDIO
Apple updated its flagship Logic music/audio production software as a bundle called Logic Studio ($499), including Logic Pro 8, which includes a redesigned interface that speeds production; Soundtrack Pro 2, Studio Instruments, Studio Effects, including 80 plug-ins; Studio Sound Library, with 18,000 Apple Loops and 1,300 sampled instruments; and the new program MainStage, a new live performance rig that simplifies using software instruments or guitar/keys/bass onstage.
ARTURIA ANALOG FACTORY EXPERIENCE
Analog Factory Experience ($349) combines a 32-key MIDI keyboard with Analog Factory 2.0, a software instrument offering 3,500 acclaimed synthesizer sounds. You just plug the keyboard via USB and launch the software to play and easily control the plug-in instrument from the keyboard.
The presets were selected from the Arturia Classic Synths: the Minimoog V, the Prophet V,
the ARP 2600V, the Moog Modular V, the CS-80V and the recent Jupiter-8V. The product is compatible with Mac OS X (PPC and Intel) and Windows XP or Vista and a stand-alone program or VST, AU or RTAS plug-in.
The Analog Factory Keyboard is made of ultra-thin aluminium and wood, with 32 semi-weighted, Velocity-sensitive keys. It lets you control every aspect of the software, including selecting
Okay these these are two completely different products, but he who makes the rules breaks the rules, or something like that (see Congress for an example). Blue‘s clever new Snowflake ($79) USB mic clips to the screen of any laptop or desktop PC or folds into a desk stand.
The Joe ($499) cardioid condenser microphone is aimed at project studios. Joe’s attractive anodized design is hand-built with Blue‘s large diaphragm capsule and a Class A discrete amplifier circuit for rich lows and detailed highs. It has a unique swivel mount for easy positioning and comes with a velvet storage bag.
CAKEWALK SONAR 7
Cakewalk’s Sonar 7 software for the PC is packed with new features, such as enhanced MIDI editing with functions for splitting/gluing/muting notes, advanced multiband linear-phase mastering effects and an external hardware effects insert with automatic plug-in delay compensation. Other extras include the Z3TA+ waveshaping synth, Dimension LE, Rapture LE, DropZone and Roland V-Vocal 1.5 and tools for presenting/publishing music online.
HEIL SOUND THE FIN
For starters, just look it. Cool, right? Heil Sound‘s The Fin puts a cardioid dynamic element into a stylish, Art Deco housing, with four LEDs inside the mic that glow when connected to phantom power. It’s particularly suited to miking amps, vocals and harmonica.
IK MULTIMEDIA ARC
Accurate monitoring is one of the most key elements to creating exceptional mixes, and room ambience created by varieties of reflection and absorption can be difficult to conquer. IK Multimedia ARC ($699, Advanced Room Correction) System is designed to improve the accuracy and clarity of your studio monitoring, whatever your setting, with just a few simple steps. The stand-alone measurement program and VST/AU/RTAS-compatible EQ plug-in work together with the included 1/4-inch Omni Condenser Mic to deliver everything needed to compensate for even the more bizarrely shaped room. Simply open the measurement software, use it with the microphone to measure the acoustics of your room, and ARC will calculate an EQ correction to apply to your DAW’s master bus using the plug-in. ARC makes what can be a daunting process into a much easier one; room correction is something that studios of all sizes need, whether with ARC or in some other way. This is just the easier route.
IZOTOP RX AUDIO RESTORATION SOFTWARE
A jaw-dropper at the show, iZotope RX ($349 or $1,199 for iZotope RX Advanced) cleans and repairs audio, removes hiss/buzz, eliminates clicks/crackles and repairs clipping or gaps in audio. New technology provides noise reduction with less artifacts and a more natural sound than traditional techniques. RX‘s stand-alone environment includes an advanced spectrogram display, selective processing tools and innovative workflow features.
AES attendees gawked at impressive demos where an iZotope employee removed a door creaking sound from an audio recording. While RX may be targeted mainly toward for audio restoration and post-production professionals, musicians, engineers and sound designers could all find great uses for it.
MOTU MACH FIVE 2
Software sampling nuts, take heed. MOTU has release Mach Five 2, and it is DEEP. The attraction to the program is a combination of great audio quality, fast operation and across-the-board compatibility with all platforms and all major sample libraries. It also includes four DVDs with 32 GB of samples, including an 8GB sampled grand piano, many surround instruments and loops and the VSL Orchestra MachFive Edition: an exclusive collection of expressive orchestra sounds from the most respected name in orchestra sound libraries.
Just some of Mach Five 2′ many features include disk streaming and modular design for maximum CPU efficiency; 24/192 kHz sample playback; unlimited multi-timbral operation; unlimited polyphony; unlimited sample keygroups and keygroup layers; full-screen keygroup/sample editor with unlimited undo/redo, batch processing, and 47 DSP effects; advanced time-stretching and pitch-shifting engine; LoopLab beat-slicing editing of multi-channel loops; surround (5.1 to 7.1) capability; built-in graphic mixer with faders, FX inserts, metering; and a combination of traditional synthesis with samples.
PRESONUS MONITOR STATION
Monitor switching is becoming more popular even in smaller studios, so PreSonus has responded with the Monitor Station ($399) a fairly compact tabletop box with three stereo inputs (two balanced TRS, one RCA Aux/Phono) and three stereo outpus (three sets of balanced TRS speaker outputs each with level adjustment). That all facilitates quick switching of several input sources (such as a main audio interface or a reference CD player) to several sets of monitor speakers. Monitor Station also has four headphone amplifiers with separate volume control and independent input source selection and a talkback section including a built-in talkback microphone with volume control to feed the headphone and Cue outputs or an XLR input for external dynamic talkback microphone.
ROGER NICHOLS DIGITAL SPL-IZER
Roger Nichols Digital SPL-izer ($129) is an adjustable 3-band 24 dB/octave FIR frequency splitter that allows three bands to be isolated/routed to aux or instrument tracks for separate processing. Applications include reverb auxes, for no reverb on the low end, the original reverb on the mids and the same reverb but with reduced decay on the high end, or an acoustic guitar with the low end muted, mids unaffected and a short echo/chorus only on the highs. SPL-izer is available in RTAS , VST an AU for Mac and RTAS and VST for Windows XP and Vista.
SSL X-EQ and X-Comp
Owners of Solid State Logic’s Duende FireWire DSP plug-in host will have a new toy to play with called X-EQ ($599). It’s a 10-band parametric EQ that SSL claims can do basically anything that’s possible to do with an EQ. Bands 1 and 10 are high-cut and low-cut filters with five selectable topographies each. Bands 2 and 9 are Shelving EQ‘s with proportional Q values. Bands 3 to 8 are bell filters with 20 Hz to 20 kHz range and nine individually selectable EQ types. In addition, bands three to eight also can be switched between standard series and parallel signal flow for classic graphic EQ style operation. The extremely flexible plug-in has MIDI control over all it parameters.
SSL will follow X-EQ later on with X-Comp, a mastering grade stereo compressor also for the Duende platform. Another very versatile plug-in with full MIDI control of all parameters, X-Comp has an A/B switch to compare two compression settings and an amplitude histogram display that gives advanced real-time pre/post signal analysis.
SONY PCM-D50
The $599 handheld PCM-D50 field recorder from Sony Pro Audio features 96kHz/24-bit recording with two adjustable mics (XY or wide stereo) and PC/Mac file transfer via USB. Its 4GB of onboard memory stores six hours at 44.1kHz/16-bits or more via a Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo slot.
Digital Music Doctor, which produces DVD turtorials on different music software apps and techniques, released an interesting study today rating DAWs. While the analysis was performed completely in-house by the company and therefore due at least a minimum of skepticism, it still is a very interesting chart to look over.
Go to this Digital Music Doctor page to read the full details on how the analysis was performed. The publishing of this chart does not constitute any endorsements on the part of Remix.
