Reviews

Not only is this new cardioid condenser microphone extremely striking to look at, but it also boasts performance which is well out of the ordinary.

The all-time best-selling synthesizer, Korg's M1 laid the groundwork for synths that followed. We go behind the scenes to reveal the secrets of its success.

Ableton's Live allows the user to create and record musical performances by combining sampled loops in real time, with high‑quality pitch‑shifting, time‑stretching and audio effects.

Since 1999, Bob Moog's Big Briar company has been making analogue filters and effects pedals based on his original Moog module designs. Now there's a central control unit, so that you can use them all together as a complete processing system.

Korg's Triton has dominated the workstation synth market for several years, but the past 12 months have seen challenges to this position firstly from Yamaha, with their Motif, and now from Roland. Does this Fantom have what it takes?

SPL's new surround-ready stereo compressor offers clever programme-adaptive compression, as well as decompression and tube-saturation functions.

The new tapeless ADAT provides 24 tracks of hard disk recording at less than the price of the original eight-track.

RME's DIGI range of soundcards offers comprehensive cross-platform support, high audio quality and lots of extras, such as digital format conversion.

Flying in the face of the 'digital all-in-one' trend, the Freque II unashamedly provides specialist analogue processing for the audiophile.

Line 6's acclaimed Delay Modeler pedal gets a rackmount makeover.

Aphex update their famous Aural Exciter and Big Bottom processes for the 21st century.

The SPD6 MIDI percussion pad features 113 internal drum sounds, with six rubber playing pads and can run from an optional power adaptor or from batteries.

Housed in a tough stainless steel chassis, the Pedaltone uses four twin-triode valves, one of which is in the output stage, enabling power amp saturation to be replicated. A speaker simulator is included for recording or DI'ing.

Korg have dominated the top-end workstation market for several years with their Triton range, but apart from the rack version, there have been no lower-priced spin-offs. The Triton Le keyboard changes that, offering many of the Triton's powerful features at a more affordable price.

***** Score = 5/5 stars. Return serves up 76 tracks of live beats ranging from 57 to 169bpm (though one loop pogos in at 194bpm).

Boss' latest multi-effects processor for guitarists gets the SOS review treatment...

Although all-valve mixers can really warm up sounds prior to digital recording, they're usually too large and expensive for the project studio. However, TL Audio's hybrid M3 now brings valve mixing within the reach of the home musician.

The unique C-Loops from Red Sound Systems can automatically detect the tempo of incoming audio, sample it and chop it to length ready for re‑triggering, as well as automatically timestretching all its on‑board loops to match any new tempo it receives.

Sonic Foundry were the pioneers of loop-based PC sequencing with the initial release of Acid. More than three years on it's more popular than ever, and the latest version includes MIDI and video support among other new features.

**** Score = 4/5 stars. Vinyl Frontier 2 focuses on urban breakbeat styles such as hip-hop and drum and bass.