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Jun 30, 2009,
By Marty Cutler
Browsing through the categories in Alchemy’s banks of factory patches, you might think there is a preponderance of conventional instruments; the pull-down menu reveals guitars, woodwinds, mallets and drums among the choices. But because a who’s who of some of my favorite programmers created the presets, including the late Tim Conrardy, John Lehmkuhl, Biomechanoid, Richard Devine and Ian Boddy, most of these are conventional in name only....
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Jun 30, 2009,
By Brian Smithers
With a bit of thought, you could get even more out of the already well-integrated V-Studio 700. Press Shift-Sel on a channel strip to lock it and prevent it from scrolling with the other faders. Command-Sel toggles locked status on and off. Press Alt-Sel to enter Channel Branch mode, in which a track is focused on fader 1 while its sends are laid out across the remaining faders. ...
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Jun 30, 2009,
By Gino Robair
Producer/engineer/percussionist John McEntire is well known for his sophisticated use of analog synthesizers for audio processing with bands such as Tortoise, Stereolab and the Fiery Furnaces. (Read his EM feature interview.)
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Jun 4, 2009,
By Larry the O
Eric Persing is the founder and creative director of Spectrasonics, one of the leading virtual instrument developers, and producer of popular sample libraries such as Distorted Reality. Persing's experience in programming goes back 10 years before the founding of Spectrasonics...
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Jun 3, 2009,
By Jason Scott Alexander
Even before its release, Maschine caught the attention of serious beat producers for its promise of delivering MPC-like hardware control of a fresh new groove application. The aim was two-fold: to bridge the programming and editing gap that exists between traditional drum module plug-ins and host sequencers; and to give live performers an instrument of unprecedented flexibility through the boundless sonic resources of a well-stocked laptop. For such a setup to be successful, however, the integration of both hardware and software components must be tight and highly intuitive—an area in which Native Instruments has recently excelled.
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Jun 3, 2009,
By Len Sasso
Warping in Live has been completely redesigned and greatly improved with automatic transient detection and Warp markers now attached to the waveform rather than Live's time ruler....
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Jun 3, 2009,
By Nick Peck
Gigging with vintage keyboards is a mixed blessing. A well-maintained electromechanical beast of yesteryear is a thing of beauty; it feels and sounds terrific, and it looks great onstage to boot....
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Jun 3, 2009,
By Geary Yelton
My rig is kind of an octopus-like hybrid of old and new, analog and digital. It’s basically a massive Pro Tools HD3 with five [Digidesign] 192 I/O interfaces. ...
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May 15, 2009,
By Geary Yelton
Do you have a personal studio?
Hassell: No, not really. I just got conversant with [Digidesign] Pro Tools in the last year when I was working on this piece for a choral group in Norwich, England, in this beautiful cathedral. Peter will tell you the number of phone calls to him—what do I do here, what do I do there? That’s my first multitrack capability.
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May 5, 2009,
By Eli Crews
Solid State Logic’s mic preamps are renowned for their clean, open sound, and the X-Rack Mic Amp module ($975) is no exception. It’s based on the same circuit found in SSL’s mighty 9000 K Series console. In addition to the features you’d expect in a high-end mic pre...
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May 5, 2009,
By Michael Cooper
The spectrum analyzer in Ozone’s paragraphic equalizer module can show both peak and average spectra at once. You can take as many as eight snapshots of the spectra of one or more mixes, name the snapshots, and import and export them as files. ...
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Apr 7, 2009,
By Emile D. Menasche
If you like the convenience of sampled drums but have never quite warmed up to their mechanical quality, you may find Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 intriguing. For starters, the software boasts about 20 GB of drum samples. ...
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Apr 7, 2009,
By Jason Blum
Installing plug-ins on the V-Machine is easy—if you’re trying to set up a plug-in that already has a corresponding VFX Info file. At the time of this writing, more than 50 VST plug-ins have VFX Info files ready to go, ...
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Apr 7, 2009,
By Myles Boisen
It is common to encounter multiple reed instruments in jazz, classic R&B, reggae/ska, and classical ensembles. Sax quartets and other all-woodwind groupings provide additional levels of challenge for the engineer. ...
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Apr 7, 2009,
By Eli Crews
With each new release of its flagship software Pro Tools, Digidesign expands the plug-in bundle. ...
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Apr 3, 2009,
By David Franz
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Mar 11, 2009,
By Marty Cutler
I’ve often declared that MIDI guitars are, at least potentially, more expressive controllers than keyboards. I still stand by my claim, but the sad truth is that deeper levels of expression require deeper programming skills involving the controller as well as the synth. My muse has been squelched countless times by attempts to wring more expression from various controller and synth combinations. I’ve often noted that hardware and software instruments ...
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Mar 6, 2009,
By Mike Levine
In this portion of the interview, Tyler Bates discuses his gear and the way he’s expected to deliver mixes when he works on a movie.
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Mar 6, 2009,
By Eli Crews
While I was working on this review, version 5.2 of the UAD software came out, offering two brand-new plug-ins: the Harrison 32C Channel EQ and the Little Labs IBP Phase Alignment Tool. These are available for both the UAD-1 and UAD-2 platforms.
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Mar 5, 2009,
By Mike Levine
How many cues are there in a typical trailer?
The general form is that it will have three different acts, and an action trailer will have three different cues in it.
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Mar 5, 2009,
By Mike Levine
The following is an excerpt from EM's April cover story, an interview with Tyler Bates, who composed the music for the movie Watchmen (to be released on March 6th), along with such movies as 300, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Devil’s Rejects, and many more.
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Mar 5, 2009,
By Mike Levine
Kevin Teasley is a composer and the principal in the L.A. music company Distortion, which specializes in trailer music. He’s scored trailers for such movies as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Mummy 3, among many others....
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Mar 5, 2009,
By Marty Cutler
Sitar Nation: Classical Instruments of India ($119) is easily the best collection of sampled sitars I’ve ever played. Given some of the sampled sitars we’ve all heard...
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Feb 11, 2009,
By Mike Levine
Here’s more of my interview with Steven Wilson about his solo CD, Insurgentes.
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Feb 9, 2009,
By Jim Aikin
Roland’s Fantom-G workstation sports a new multitrack audio/MIDI sequencer with 128 tracks, including 24 tracks of audio, and a decent array of basic features. ...
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Camel Audio Alchemy 1.09 Review (Bonus Material)
Cakewalk SONAR V-Studio 700 Review (Bonus Material)
Make Mine Modular (Bonus Material)
Going Beyond Presets (Bonus Material)
Native Instruments Maschine Review (Bonus Material)
Ableton Live 8 Review (Bonus Material)
Clavia Nord Electro 3 Review (Bonus Material)
Hassell and Freeman in the Studio (Bonus Material)
Sneak Peak: An Interview With Jon Hassell
Solid State Logic Mynx Review (Bonus Material)
iZotope Ozone 4 (Mac/Win) Review (Bonus Material)
Review: Superior Drummer Toontrack (Bonus Material)
Review: SM Pro Audio V-Machine (Bonus Material)
Essential Reeding (Bonus Material)
Digidesign Pro Tools 8 Review (Bonus Material)
Digidesign Transfuser 1.0.1 Review
Even Harmonic Gtak 1.02 (Mac/Win) Review
Movie-Music Maestro Tyler Bates (Bonus Material) 
Universal Audio UAD-2 Review (Bonus Material) 
Industry Insider | Q&A: Kevin Teasley (Bonus Material)
Impact Soundworks Sitar Nation Review
Steven Wilson Interview (Bonus Material)
Roland Fantom-G6 Review (Bonus Material)