SOUND ON SOUND
There's more to building a serious mic front end than putting a standard circuit in a flashy box. Fortunately, SPL's circuit design is even more impressive than their custom anodised front panels, as Paul White discovers.
This unconventional sequencer program aims to let musicians work like musicians rather than computer programmers, and has already met with an enthusiastic response in its original Mac version. Paul Nagle hand-picks his virtual musicians and gets jamming.
ADAT is dead, long live the ADAT XT. Paul White reports on the rebirth of a classic.
Paul White visits the future of home recording, where tape heads never need cleaning, cassettes never jam and mistakes can be undone at the touch of a button.
Long-time Akai sampler user Paul Ward tries to stop his credit card from leaping out of his pocket as he gets to grips with the tempting additions to Akai's mid-range sampler.
Derek Johnson opens up the latest effects box from Ensoniq and finds that they do sometimes do things by halves!
The latest big thing in computer-based sequencing is the integration of real-world audio and MIDI data within the same program. Mike Collins puts the four leading Macintosh contenders head to head to see how they compare across a range of facilities.
Paul White tests Audio Technica's latest low-cost back-electret mic and discovers thats its performance is out of all proportion to its size.
Paul White tries out a new overdrive pedal that was clearly named after a very large T-shirt.
With hardware almost becoming a 'taboo' word these days, David Mellor investigates what Digidesign's hardware-free recording software can offer the budget-conscious musician.
Anyone into sampling or hard disk recording appreciates the need for a low-cost, high-capacity, archivable storage medium — and that's exactly what Iomega's Zip 100 drive delivers. Paul White gives it a spin...
Panicos Georghiades and Gabriel Jacobs checks out the long-awaited upgrade of this popular and professional PC sampler editor.
Windows users looking for comprehensive and professional editor/librarian support for their MIDI instruments may not need to look any further. Paul Nagle perks up his patches with Unisyn.
Technics' first foray into the pro synth market, the WSA1, catapults them to the front of the pack. Martin Russ discovers whether acoustic modelling synthesis really can create gold sounds from base metal.
Emu's Sound Engine is the first dedicated General MIDI module from the USA. Derek Johnson explores GM the American way.
Korg shook the hi-tech recording world in 1988 with the introduction of the M1 workstation. With their new Trinity range, Korg are attempting to update the workstation concept for the 1990s. In the first instalment of this two-part review, Gordon Reid assesses how they have fared.
Paul White checks out what must be one of the smallest serious monitors ever.
BBE's new Sonic Maximizer combines enhancement with single-ended noise reduction. Paul White finds out whether the marriage of the two systems is a happy one.