Virtual Instrument

Arturia have pointed their considerable modelling experience at recreating a ‘60s classic.

Drum Spillage 2 lets you get down and dirty with synthesized drum sounds.

Arpology combines Sample Logic's wealth of sampled sounds with a sophisticated arpeggiator to create a unique virtual instrument.

Having done electric guitars, Vir2 turn their attention to acoustics, but the inexplicable '6' remains intact...

The Minimoog is not exactly short of software tributes. How does NI's measure up?

Rob Papen's venerable soft synth gets a comprehensive update.

Hardware systems for generating MIDI output from guitars are often expensive, impractical and unreliable. Jam Origin's revolutionary software alternative is none of these things.

Have Toontrack improved their popular EZdrummer software without compromising its fundamental 'easy' approach?

With today's sophisticated virtual-instrument technology, it's never been easier to create realistic drum...

Apps based on existing software are far from unusual, but Wolfgang Palm has chosen to go the other way.

Rhythmic Robot’s Shortwave is a Kontakt instrument crammed with ghostly voices, radio tuning sweeps, morse code bleeps and an assortment of hisses, crackles and pulses.

Hatsune Miku is the name of a fictional 16-year old girl, who can be made to sing using Yamaha’s Vocaloid 3 synthesizer engine.

Apple iPad Air • Mellotronics M3000

BFD2 was always going to be a hard one to top, but that hasn’t stopped FXpansion from trying. Have they succeeded?

The latest version of iZotope’s RX restoration suite does more than before — and does it faster!

If you fancy a break from traditional musical interfaces, or merely want a fetching accessory for the dashboard of your spaceship, the AlphaSphere could be just the thing.

Vocal Lix's samples are designed to be used in dance tracks and lean towards R&B in style.

Taking the idea of 'found sounds' to another level, Soniccouture's Geosonics plunders the natural world for its most unnatural sounds.

The third instalment in Quantum Leap's Stormdrum series explores the private percussion collection of a legendary American drummer.

Audio files to accompany the article.

Competition for the accolade of best software sampler is fierce, despite some contenders having fallen away in recent years. Has MOTU's MachFive 3 got what it takes to come out on top?