2008 EDITORS' CHOICE AWARDS

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By the EM Staff

PORTABLE DIGITAL STUDIO

Roland MV-8800
($2,295 [street])

Not many companies have as much experience manufacturing self-contained DAWs, groove boxes, and synthesizer workstations as Roland. And not many portable digital studios let you do as much as you can with the MV-8800. Combining a multitrack hard-disk recorder, a 64-track MIDI sequencer, drum pads, sample-playback synthesis, user sampling, and loads of effects, the MV-8800 is a complete production studio in a box. Just add a MIDI keyboard, a mouse, and a monitor, and it can perform virtually any production task a well-equipped computer-based studio can.

With lots of buttons, 8 faders, a data dial, and 16 Aftertouch- and Velocity-sensitive pads, the MV-8800 invites human interaction. You can load as many as 128 simultaneous instruments with 64-voice polyphony, drawing from a large internal sound library on a 40 GB hard drive. Loads of ready-to-use loops and vocal phrases let you build your tracks from scratch and then match their pitch and tempo. You get drum kits with sounds from the TR-808 and 15 other vintage Roland drum machines, as well as an effects collection with classic Roland reverbs, choruses, echoes, and more. When you're finished, take advantage of the parametric EQ, limiter, and multiband compressor designed for mastering, and then burn an audio disc on the built-in CD burner.

With its assortment of I/O ports, connecting to the outside world is a snap. In addition to balanced analog audio inputs and outputs on ¼-inch jacks, turntable inputs on RCA jacks, and a ¼-inch headphone output, the MV-8800 has coaxial and optical S/PDIF out, USB, mouse and VGA ports, a footswitch jack, and MIDI In, Out, and Thru. Need more? The MV-8800 is expandable. Options include multiport analog and digital I/O, additional sample libraries, and many more synth patches. In a product line that has grown more powerful with each generation, the MV-8800 represents just how far tabletop production studios can take you.

SIGNAL-PROCESSING SOFTWARE

Celemony Software Melodyne Studio 3.2.1
(Mac/Win, $699 [MSRP])

We've been big fans of Melodyne since it first appeared, and the 3.2.1 update shows that the program just gets better with age. New algorithms for analyzing percussion material enhance already powerful pitch-shifting and time-stretching tools, and the much-improved control over formants in polyphonic music means you'll be able to use Melodyne for even more musical material than before.

Melodyne provides lots of visual cues about the music you're processing, some of which are enhanced through its new zoom and scroll capabilities. You'll see small marks (called Blobs) that indicate what the base pitch is for the notes in your piece as well as other symbols that indicate pitch events such as scoops, falls, and vibrato. The amplitude of a note is also indicated clearly via the width of the Blob, so even a quick glance shows you what the program has found in the audio you feed it.

Once Melodyne has analyzed your audio, it's simple to edit the note data using the same types of techniques you'd find in a MIDI sequencer. In fact, you can even convert audio events to MIDI notes, and in our experience, the program is amazingly accurate in that task. Celemony now offers a plug-in version that will analyze the audio on a track in your DAW, then let you use its GUI to manipulate that material. Coupled with its support for ReWire and its improvements in many other areas, including work flow and activation, Melodyne will be a great complement to your other audio tools.

SOFTWARE SAMPLE PLAYER

SoniVox Muse 1.04
(Win, $495 [street])

When it comes to sample collections and the software instruments built around them, you'll find no shortage of choices. For most musicians, the best of the bunch offer the greatest variety of sounds, just like the finest keyboard workstations do. SoniVox (formerly Sonic Implants), a company long held in high regard for its outstanding soundware, has launched its first sample player that runs standalone and as a plug-in. Built around Tascam's Giga Virtual Instrument (GVI) platform, Muse comes with nearly 38 GB of 24-bit, 48 kHz content that includes some of SoniVox's finest efforts.

Vintage keyboards, classic synths, electric and acoustic guitars, powerful horns and saxes, and ethnic instruments from around the world are at your beck and call. You also get drum kits to suit any occasion, with percussion instruments from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. But the real stars of the show are Muse's orchestral sounds. Culled from the acclaimed Complete Symphonic Collection, the strings, brass, winds, and percussion make up more than half of the content and are among the finest samples you can buy.

Muse organizes its sounds into groups and subgroups you select from a pop-up menu, and you can layer just as many as your computer can handle. Instruments come in all forms, from resource-friendly EZ versions to a grand piano that takes more than 2 GB on your hard drive. If you're looking for a sample player that gives you every instrumental sound you're likely to need, Muse covers all the bases at a price that won't make you sorry.

SOFTWARE SAMPLER

Digidesign Structure
(Mac/Win, $499 [street])

In 1991, Digidesign became the first manufacturer to introduce a full-fledged sampler you could run on your computer: SampleCell. Since the subsequent Soft SampleCell was discontinued several years ago, however, samplers have been conspicuously absent from the company's offerings. That changed a few months ago.

Digidesign's Advanced Instrument Research division (A.I.R., formerly the wizards at Wizoo Sound Design) has been on a roll ever since Avid acquired the team in 2005. Software instruments specifically for Pro Tools are its stock-in-trade, and certainly the most powerful is Structure, an RTAS sampler plug-in. Structure maintains a tight integration with Pro Tools' audio engine, which manages its distribution of 128 parts and 1,024 simultaneous 24-bit voices at rates as high as 192 kHz. We're especially impressed that Digidesign launched Structure as a full-fledged and relatively mature sampling plug-in, with everything you need to create and refine your own multisampled instruments with drag-and-drop simplicity. It comes complete with more than 16 GB of original and EastWest content, as well as 40 GB that comprise a trial edition of EastWest Goliath.

Together with quick access to just about any parameter you can imagine, Structure's user interface provides keymapping and waveform editors you can stretch to any size. A robust effects-processing matrix delivers 20 algorithms ranging from tremolo and parametric EQ to quad rotation and surround convolution. Reassignable onscreen knobs respond to MIDI Control Changes, and you can use the MIDI Modules feature to control how instruments respond to your performance gestures. Sound-shaping functions run the gamut from 10-stage envelope generators to 20-mode resonant filters. Structure loads unencrypted Native Instruments Kontakt, EXS24, and SampleCell sample libraries, and it also has a sophisticated built-in REX player. All told, it's a powerful instrument, and we're giving it the kudos it deserves.

SOUNDS

HandHeld Sound FlyingHand Percussion
($259 [MSRP])

A couple of NAMM shows ago, when an early, unpublished version of this sound library was on display, it created quite a buzz among the EM editors who checked it out. We all hoped it would get to market, and in 2007, it did. FlyingHand Percussion is a remarkable hand-percussion library for the Kontakt 2 sampler, developed by HandHeld Sound and distributed by SoniVox. The product aims to make the experience of playing sampled percussion instruments as realistic as possible, and it succeeds.

FlyingHand Percussion comes on four DVDs and includes many thousands of multisamples. Focused primarily on individual hand-percussion instruments, the library's success lies in its excellent-sounding and extraordinarily detailed sound set. Multiple articulations, plentiful Velocity layers, and separate attack and release samples are included for all the instruments. In addition, you can choose samples miked from the top or bottom or through room mics.

You get samples of a range of world percussion instruments, including congas, bongos, djembe, timbales, clay drum, boomwhacker, ashiko, naal, and many others. Also included are a couple of nontraditional instruments: Morphosis is made from found sounds, and Mutants features repitched instruments that produce “cinematic” sounds.

The developer's incredible attention to detail, the multiple options, and, of course, the great-sounding samples make this a must-have library.