SOUND ON SOUND
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Based on the popular 9030, the Zoom 9050S offers combinations of up to eight simultaneous effects from a repertoire of 55 effect types. Paul White investigates the need for speed.
In an age of ever‑growing polyphony, Studio Electronics, best known for their vintage synth rebuilds, have returned to first principles — to create the first analogue monosynth for almost a decade. So how does this MIDI‑equipped modern classic measure up to its vintage forbears?
Audio software and PC soundcards are offering 20- or 24-bit recording capabilitiy at even more affordable prices — but whether the extra data on your hard disk will actually correspond to better sound quality depends on a host of other factors. Martin Walker tells you what you need to know when deciding if you should make the change.
These days, high-end PC soundcards offer much more than mere audio interfacing, incorporating mixing, synthesis, sampling and often powerful onboard processing facilities. Martin Walker finds the features of Creamware's new DSP-powered Music Production Environment' impressive even by modern standards.
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...
Punk, bass player, pioneer, mystic... Paul Tingen meets a musician who lives life at breakneck speed, and isn't afraid of the dark.
Two Dutch designers who were influential in the design of the cult '80s Synton Syrinx synth have recently returned to the field, coming up with the exclusive and highly idiosyncratic Fénix synthesizer.
Martin Russ gets his analogue teeth into the Marion Systems MSR2 mainframe and ASM analogue synth module.
With several successful dance-oriented synth successes to their name, Quasimidi attempt to buck the trend with their latest offering. The Polymorph does offer plenty to interest the dance fraternity — real-time modulation knobs, and an analogue-style sequencer and user interface — but behind the façade lurks a powerful synth.
FM synthesis was the success story of the mid-'80s, and synth based on its principles, like Yamaha's DX7, sold by the bucketload — until affordable sample-based synths arrived at the end of the decade. Now, with their new FS1R, Yamaha have updated the technology for the late '90s.
We've all lusted after the shiny new gear that appears month after month in the pages of Sound On Sound — but how do you know what will make a real difference to your recordings and what will be an expensive luxury? Paul White picks out the areas where money will be well spent, and the products that will take your sound up a gear.
Chris Carter looks at a new dedicated drum machine which could be the best 909 alternative yet.
Where can you go to mess about on a Mini Moog, do battle with a Bulcha, operate an Odyssey, programme a PolyVoks or make friends with a modular? The Museum of Synthesizer Technology has all this and much more, and was recently opened by none other than Bob Moog at a star-studded ceremony. Julian Colbeck reports.
With so many low-cost recording products coming onto the market every month, you may be tempted to ask what, if anything, is to be gained by buying more expensive models. Paul White attempts to answer.
A large, painstakingly assembled sample library is of little use if it's so badly organised that you can't separate your tablas from your trumpets. Dave Stewart gives some tips to help you make your library a model of accessibility.
Sixteen-part multitimbrality, 32-note polyphony and a respectable set of GM-mapped Tones join some usable and fun auto-accompaniment, and an absurdly low price tag, in a 'home' keyboard that deserves some attention from the studio musician. Julian Colbeck just wants to have fun...
Jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine is breaking down the barriers between acoustic and electronic sound generation, marrying jazz with modern forms such as hip hop in a cross-genre partnership which is partly forged in his own home studio. Paul White hears some Modern day jazz stories.
Clavia's latest product is something else; an affordable modular hardware synth whose selection of modules and signal routing is user-definable in software, offering the synthesist staggering scope for sound design. In the first of this two-part review, Paul Nagle cross-modulates his joy input with Rapture envelope and goes into self-oscillating ecstasy...
A new shape? A large LCD? Martin Russ finds out what Yamaha are up to with their latest expander, which aims to give GM compatibility ans a whole lot more...
Paul Nagle looks at adding MIDI and sounds to your PC setup.