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The 18-month gestation period behind Michael Jackson's Dangerous album and its lead single 'Black Or White' saw '80s studio perfectionism taken to extremes — and despite their success, the experience helped to convince co-writer, engineer and co-producer Bill Bottrell that there had to be another way to make records!

Although the Access Virus features one of the most knobby control surfaces amongst virtual analogue synths, there's a lot of programming flexibility available which isn't immediately obvious. We show you how to uncover the hidden possibilities?

We conclude our look at DP's Consoles, and suggests some ways of 'future-proofing' your Projects against the relentless flow of application and plug-in updates.

Get the most from your computer's CPU by learning how to put your effects plug-ins where they really count. Plus, find out how to increase your mixing power by incorporating hardware effects units into your software mixdown.

Thanks to the Internet and the generosity of talented programmers all over the world, it's possible to assemble a PC music software suite for no money at all. We round up some of the best download sites and freebie programs.

We explain how to transfer projects between DAWs that speak OMF, and look at some clever envelope tricks.

SOS's 2003 Reader Survey told us that you want our help in getting the best from this popular package — and we're happy to oblige with a new monthly column.

The SOS team help Peter May to brush up his drum sounds and put more life into his mixes.

The Harbal EQ-matching program benefits from some worthwhile tweaks. We report them, and discuss some new information about Longhorn: the next incarnation of the Windows OS.

After more than five years, Synth Secrets reaches its conclusion (and conclusions!). Will we ever look at synthesis in quite the same way again?

The launch of Mac OS 10.4, codenamed Tiger, is just around the corner, but in the meantime there's the 1.1 update of GarageBand to be going on with. We reveal the improvements, as well as investigate MIDI configuration problems in OS X.

The Aux object might seem a little arcane, but it's the key to a variety of useful Environment workarounds.

When Duran Duran began work on their third album in 1983, they were already one of the biggest bands in the world — and with eight months of studio time and half a million pounds spent, huge expectations surrounded Seven And The Ragged Tiger...

PT version 6.4 comes with some surprising and long-awaited new features.

The Key Editor is a seemingly straightforward MIDI editor, yet under its surface lie a number of features that can really speed up your editing tasks. We explain, as well as reporting on the new version 2.2 Cubase update.

Fancy turning your knob-laden MIDI synth into a control surface for tweaking plug-in synths? DP's Consoles make this kind of application possible.

A common occasion for grief in Pro Tools is when moving projects from one system to another. Here are some tips to help you keep your hair.

The story of a multi-miked location recording session, from pre-concert setup to the post-recording software-controlled mixdown.

This month, we find out whether Hyperthreading is hyper-helpful to the musician and discover some new freeware. First, though, it's time to spring-clean that Windows Registry...

In the penultimate instalment of this long-running series, we delve deeper into what can be achieved with just a few delays and some creative routing...