SOUND ON SOUND
Paul White takes a SoundField ST250 Stereo Microphone to a live recording session to see if the reality lives up to the legend.
It's 28-voice polyphonic, with 128 sounds and a computer interface — and comes in a box the size of a video tape. Derek Johnson finds out whether size matters after all.
The JS30 forsakes the familiar rackmount sampler format for desktop presentation, and aims for simplicity and immediacy of operation. Derek Johnson checks it out.
The mid-priced XR7 is at the top of the new Fostex cassette multitracker range. Shirley Gray checks it out.
The SOS team explore a piece of kit designed to keep your studio organised.
Paul Ward gets bullish about one of Robert Moog's lesser-known creations - the Taurus bass foot pedals, famed for their thunderous sound and association with some of the 1970s prog rock scene's greatest stars.
Paul Farrer rotates his baseball cap through 180 degrees, sharpens his digital knife, and gets sample-slicing with Steinberg's ReCycle.
Microtech's original UM70 set the affordable capacitor mic ball rolling, but now there's a transformerless version featuring a new housing. Paul White took it for a test drive.
Though recording technology is turning increasingly to digital, there's still a ready market for the fun and easy to use analogue cassette multitracker, and Fostex have just released three new models. Derek Johnson looks at one of them.
Michael Anthony plays Orpheus in the underworld of home keyboards in an attempt to discover what level of technology lies beneath their distinctly untrendy exteriors.
With their background in home keyboards and high-quality electric pianos, it came as something of a surprise that Technics should enter the mainstream synth market with a physical modelling instrument. SOS attended the world preview.
Paul White intercepts another incoming Russian microphone, this time from Nevaton Ltd in St Petersburg.
Mike Collins gets to grips with GRM Tools and compares it to the latest incarnation of HyperPrism.
SPL have combined their Vitalizer circuitry with a powerful parametric/notch filter and added a low-noise mic preamp to create an extraordinary audio toolbox. Paul White takes the lid off and looks inside.
Paul White looks at the latest incarnation of the LXP15 and finds that it neatly bridges the gap between Lexicon's budget products and their top-of-the-range pro reverb units.
PC sound cards often provide surprisingly sophisticated facilities, only to fall down on the quality of their synth sounds. Panicos Georghiades takes a look at a new contender that ups the ante with a little help from Korg...
In a synth market dominated by the Japanese and American manufacturers, it's a pleasant surprise to be looking at a synth made in Sweden — especially when it's as technologically advanced as the Nord Lead. Gordon Reid sees red...
Paul White gets truly virtual with Roland's new physical modelling guitar product — and no, it's not a guitar synth!