SOUND ON SOUND
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 24 years, rising through the SOS staff ranks until in 2020 he took over the Editor In Chief hotseat from Paul White.
Sam is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of two books: Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).
As well as writing, Sam can be found presenting SOS Podcasts and SOS TV YouTube Exhibition Videos on our channels.
I've been told that I should use an analogue compressor or voice channel with compression as a front end when recording digitally, as this will reduce the dynamic range of the input signal and make better use of the A-D converter's available bit depth. Is this true?
Antares certainly don't believe in the 'less is more' maxim, if this new filtering effect is anything to go by.
I have downloaded various MP3s from the Internet. I also buy vinyl, which I record into Steinberg Wavelab and convert to MP3. The Wavelab MP3s sound different to the downloaded ones and are generally quieter. Are there different MP3 types and how can they differ sonically?
Boss\'s range of digital multitrackers is designed to allow musicians to make recordings with a minimum of technical knowledge. The BR1600 is the most sophisticated yet, providing 16-track recording along with amp modelling, vocal harmony generation, and built-in drum machine and loop sequencer.
Comic actor, has been recording and editing his own radio series for years — and now he's putting his engineering skills centre stage.
If you want to trust your guitar sound to a plug-in rather than a real box of valves, there are already plenty of options — but McDSP's Chrome Tone is a little out of the ordinary.
Resynthesis promises to combine the realism of a sampler with the flexibility of a synth. A great idea, but no-one has really made it work — until now...
I have an Echo Darla20 soundcard and I'm concerned about the possibility of achieving zero latency when I'm using soft synths like those in Reason. Can you give me any advice?
Sampletank was a hit: a sample-based virtual instrument with great sounds and, at the time, not much competition. Two years on, there are plenty of fully-featured software samplers and non-sampling virtual instruments too. Can Sampletank 2 keep up?
Sound Toys claim that their new plug-in captures the sound of an analogue filter in digital form. We put it to the test...