Computer / Software

Martin Walker's looking through tinted glasses at this latest offering from Prosoniq...

In the final part of this two-part Net Notes about broadcasting your audio and video on the Internet, Dave Shapton discusses error correction and quality control, helps you to prepare for your webcast and suggests some solutions for broadcasting live events.

Paul White cruises down memory lane in style, with the bargain-priced M-Tron Mellotron soundalike VST Instrument plug-in.

Bucking the trend for elaborate 'virtual studio' graphic interfaces and bloated feature sets, Making Waves is designed to allow you to get into making music quickly and straightforwardly, on even a modestly specified PC. John Walden puts it through its paces.

Nicholas Rowland tries out the new features in MOTU's ever-evolving flagship Macintosh sequencing package.

Paul White boldy goes where no man has been B4!

Nemesys' Gigasampler proved that a fast PC could compete with the latest hardware samplers, and provided some features they simply couldn't match — such as sampled instruments many gigabytes in size. Now the company has updated the range to include two new products. Martin Walker asks if rackmount samplers have finally met their Nemesys...

There was quite a buzz about mLAN at the recent American AES audio trade show. Paul Wiffen reports on the latest developments.

Software and hardware developments have made the 'studio in your PC' concept increasingly attractive, but many prospective users are put off by concerns about sound quality, timing, and the difficulty of adapting existing sample libraries. Many of these issues need no longer cause difficulty, however, as Martin Walker explains...

Paul White concludes this short series by considering a more sophisticated desktop studio incorprating an external digital mixer.

Paul White evaluates the latest Logic Audio update and discovers that as well as a host of new features, Windows users also get a brand-new audio engine.

PC users have had to wait almost two years for many of the improvements which graced version 4 of Steinberg's popular sequencing package on the Mac platform. Now, however, they've leapfrogged straight to version 5, a major upgrade which incorporates all of those improvements and more. Martin Walker finds out if the wait was worthwhile.

TC have come up with a new twist on the analogue synth emulation theme by providing modular oscillator, filter and envelope blocks that can be combined with VST effects. Paul White tries a few variations.

Waldorf have emulated the original PPG Wave digital synthesizer in software for use as a VST Instrument. Paul White tries out the virtual Wave.

I recently built a computer based on the Athlon 500 processor and am about to invest in the Digidesign Digi 001 recording...

Continuing his series on setting up a recording environment based around a Mac or PC computer, Paul White goes through the hardware and software options for recording audio alongside your MIDI tracks.

Emagic's virtual sampler provides Logic Audio users with a practical alternative to hardware-based sampling. Paul White puts it to the test.

Adaptec's Toast is already the most widely used CD-burning software for the Mac, thanks to licensing deals that have seen it given away with most CD writers. The latest update sees it now being sold as part of a tasty bundle, incorporating other useful applications and a CD labelling device. Mike Simmons finds out if it's too good to be true...

Auto‑Tune first started out as a TDM plug‑in (reviewed in SOS August '97), but subsequently...

Formats: Mac VST, PC VST, Wavelab, DirectX

Reviewed: PC versions

Steinberg's Mastering Edition...

Bitheadz' Unity DS1 is one of the best-established software samplers, and the latest incarnation offers several major new features, including DirectConnect support for use with Pro Tools. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser sample its delights.