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Archive for June, 2010

Echo Audio AudioFire Pre8

[ 0 ] 2010/06/30

The market for audio interfaces is incredibly competitive, as several companies now have fully-featured units which manage to pack seriously impressive feature sets into boxes with prices that won't frighten your bank manager.

Due to the high visibility of its rivals, Echo Digital Audio isn't perhaps the first name which springs to mind for those considering an interface purchase, yet this Californian firm has a proud pedigree, and its latest model, the AudioFire Pre8, combines the company's established interface know-how with a set of its mic preamps.

In detail

The package includes the now familiar combination of the hardware interface itself and a dedicated piece of software to help configure its assorted ins and outs, which we'll get to shortly. The hardware is a robust, 1U rackmountable affair with two switchable mic/line/instrument inputs on the far-left of the front panel.

Next to these are their extended controls, with gain dials and additional buttons to control or select phantom power, phase inversion, low impedance, DI, pad and bass roll-off below 80Hz. To the right of these you'll find gain knobs for inputs three to eight with a global phantom power switch for these to their right.

Two headphone outputs feature on the far right-hand side alongside the main output, while the back panel completes the physical I/O, with mic/ line inputs for channels three to eight, eight 1/4-jack outs, channel inserts for inputs one and two, plus In and Out ports for MIDI, S/PDIF, ADAT and Word Clock. Twin FireWire 400 ports and the power inlet complete the feature set.

The AudioFire Pre8 can record audio at specs up to 96kHz at 24-bit (selected via software) and through the FireWire connection, recording latency is impressively low.

In use

We plugged the AudioFire directly into our Mac to discover that installation was driver free - Logic found the interface immediately and was only too happy to do business. However, the bundled CD does contain the AudioFire Console which helps configure settings and provide visual feedback during use, and this application can simply be dragged across to your hard drive to run alongside your DAW whenever you like. Separate tabs are provided for analogue and digital connections, so setting up the interface the way you want is child's play.

In terms of sound quality, particular note must go to the celebrated mic pres which certainly live up to their reputation. They're clear and rich and, as there's so much I/O, we'd happily use this interface as a hub and trust the inputs to accurately transfer the sound of our hardware synths to our computer without need for further processing. Fire fighter

Summary

Those who have been following Echo's product line closely will be aware that the company already has a line of AudioFire interfaces, but the addition of the 'Pre' in the title here reveals all, as the first in what may well become a line of much more flexible, hands-on interfaces.

The addition of eight high-quality mic pres is welcome, as is the array of digital I/O options featured as standard, and features like these propel the interface's standing up a fair few rungs of the ladder.

As we mentioned at the start, when it comes to middle-market interfaces, it's a certainly a hugely competitive market, but Echo's AudioFire Pre8 more than stands its ground among the competition.



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XILS-lab PolyKB

[ 0 ] 2010/06/29

XILS-lab is fairly new on the software scene, but has already garnered praise for its emulation of the classic EMS VCS3. For its next trick, it's hunted down one of the rarest analogue poly synths known to mankind in the form of the RSF Poly Kobol.

Around 30 of these beasts were made between 1979 and 1982, so the chances of comparing the softy to the real thing are slim. For the most part, the PolyKB is faithful to the original spec and follows the classic subtractive architecture of two oscillators, low-pass filter, dual oscillators and envelopes, mod matrix and polyphonic sequencer.

As we have come to expect, the layout has been meticulously copied right down to the shade of the wood panelling and side cheeks. When it first loads, the GUI is enormous - too big, in fact, for most laptops - so you will probably need to reduce the GUI size in the options menu and reload the plug-in so it fits.

In detail

The synth is split into two main sections with the knobs up top and the keyboard below. The synth parameters are on the right, the modulation section in the middle and the sequencer/arpeggiator over on the left - just like the hardware.

There are two LFOs sharing the same spot on the panel, which might cause some initial confusion. To switch between them, you will need to click on the heading and the controls will swap over. They offer four waveforms along with S+H and can be free running, synced to tempo and key re-triggered.

All modulation sources are applied in the same way. The choice of destinations is limited to VCO pitch, waveform shape and filter cutoff and the amount is applied to all of the selected routings.

Tucked behind what looks like a metal plate concealing what was the cassette storage mechanism are the stereo space and sequencer modules. The stereo positioner allows you to place each voice in the 2D plane, not only from left-to-right, but also in distance from the virtual microphones.

"There are two LFOs sharing the same spot on the panel, which might cause some initial confusion."

We found the sequencer easy to record, but a bit fiddly for editing, as the small work area is quite restrictive. You can't edit the note pitch manually and the manual doesn't inform you of what the different colours represent.

As this is an emulation of vintage gear, the sound definitely leans towards the old-school and it's shown off throughout the banks of presets. There are plenty of lush pads, screaming sync leads and weird radiophonic style effects. The raw sound of the oscillators is thick and present, while the low-pass filter is smooth and will self oscillate and scream when pushed with the drive. The analogue PWM might have been a unique feature for a true analogue poly but in today's digital studio it's just another nice sound design option.

In summary, the PolyKB offers a huge sound and a huge GUI and is a faithful recreation.

Listen to what the PolyKB can do:

Arp 1

Paranormal

Filter scream

Zequence

Squares

Prodigal

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Analogue Solutions Tereshkova

[ 0 ] 2010/06/29

On the surface, Analogue Solutions' new Tereshkova appears very similar to the Vostok suitcase synth which arrived on the scene back in 2003. However, the Vostok has seen significant development since that original version, and the Tereshkova builds upon the latest version with an additional LFO and two more VCAs.

The suitcase design might make comparisons inevitable, but be under no illusions that the Tereshkova is a Synthi clone. This is an original synth with a sound all of its own.

The Tereshkova follows a semi-modular design, built into a surprisingly light steel suitcase with a removable lid. Connections are made via 3.5mm mini-jacks and the case has been designed so you can close the lid with the patch leads in place. Handy if you need to make a swift getaway half way through programming a sound, although we dread to think what customs would make of the Communist styling if you tried to carry this synth as hand luggage.

In detail

Firing the Tereshkova up, we put together a basic patch to get a feel of things. Our first impression was that MIDI-to-CV conversion is a little on the basic side. With only one controller CV output, you're restricted to either mod wheel or velocity. There's also no pitch bend or aftertouch, which is in keeping with the vintage aesthetic but limits your potential range of expression. A couple of extra outputs for the pitch CV and note on/off gate signals would also be nice here, given how much blank space there is on the panel.

It's no problem to split the signals up, but it uses up sets of multiples which could otherwise take care of something else. For a synth of this complexity, we'd also like to have seen a MIDI clock to gate converter for tempo-synced modulation.

VCO1 offers triangle, sawtooth and square outputs, while VCOs 2 and 3 ditch the triangle and offer pulse outputs with a pulse width modulation CV input for lovely creamy PWM sounds. VCOs 2 and 3 each offer three sub oscillator outputs: one, two and three octaves down from the pulse wave respectively.

"The Tereshkova follows a semi-modular design, built into a surprisingly light steel suitcase with a removable lid."

Once tuned, the oscillators are stable and the tracking remains consistent across a broad range of frequencies, but the lack of separate coarse and fine tuning knobs means you need the delicate fingers of a safe cracker to get all three singing in harmony. The absence of range switches on VCO2 and 3 means that if you want to jump up an octave (or down with triangle or sawtooth waves) you'll have to dial it in manually with the pitch control. The tuning knob on VCO1 can be pulled out to drop an octave but you'll inevitably knock the tuning out as you do so. A separate switch would be preferable.

The filter section is claimed to be based on the Korg MS20's 12dB/oct multi-mode VCF but to our ears it's not as harsh. The high-pass and low-pass sections are in series so they can be used simultaneously to create a band-pass effect but this means there are no separate outputs for the two sections. Cranking the Q control up to maximum allows both filter sections to be pushed into self-oscillation. It's a nice versatile unit but with three oscillators to play with we kept finding ourselves wishing we had another filter so we could really get some freaky sounds going.

On the plus side, CV modulation of the filter cutoff is effective and nicely adjustable, offering some seriously nasty effects when modulated with audio rate signals.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)

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Fender G-DEC 3 30 guitar amp

[ 0 ] 2010/06/28

Like us, many of you will probably have less-than-fond memories of your first practice amp. Often a single-channel affair, even those graced with such luxury features as an overdrive switch tended to rasp harder than a surform in a wasps' nest – the AM radio in your parents' kitchen probably had a richer bottom-end response.

Hang on a minute though, it's 2010. Most of us are walking around with telephones in our pockets that allow us shoot video, access the internet and listen to our entire record collection. And thanks to AmpliTube for iPhone, we'll soon be using our mobiles as headphone amps too. That's considerably more practical, not to mention rocking, than anything Tomorrow's World ever promised.

"Anything that makes practising this enjoyable is a winner in our book."

It stands to reason then that the touchscreen generation expects more from a practice amp than such trifling functionality as merely amplifying the sound of electric guitars. While the likes of Vox and Line 6 have packed a smorgasbord of sonic treats and tricks into their entry-level amps over the last few years, it was Fender – whose fifties Tweed and sixties 'Blackface' designs are still the high watermark for most tonehounds – that launched the most complete do-it-all practice solution yet in 2007.

More than just a practice amp, the original G-DEC was a 'Guitar Digital Entertainment Center', crammed with innovative features and impressive enough to get a four star review. But digital technology moves fast. Just as this year's king of the smartphone hill won't look quite so clever in the not-too-distant future, three years on, the first incarnation of the G-DEC sounds a little dated with its MIDI muzak backing tracks and sometimes over-egged sounds that just don't get the adrenaline pumping.

Enter G-DEC 3. This time around, things are very different. G-DEC 3 features banks of sounds and backing tracks created in the studio by genuine Premier League rock, metal, blues and country stars such as Eric Johnson, John 5 and Brad Paisley, along with members of Fall Out Boy, Def Leppard, Anthrax, Sepultura and many more. It's easy to see how this makes G-DEC 3 the next logical step for budding players whose appetites have been whetted by the wildly popular Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games.

Sounds

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Straight out of the box, you're just a twist of the large Encoder knob away from being able to jam along with a range of backing tracks, and there's enough variety to suit players of almost any persuasion.

Not only is each backing track matched to an appropriate preset guitar tone – although you can change it if you want to – but it can also be set up to loop perpetually. This means that you can carry on trying to perfect that tricky lick over and over again without having to reach for the amp controls and risk breaking your concentration – a nice touch.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)



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Roland Lucina AX-09

[ 0 ] 2010/06/16

Roland has been busy lately, and its latest is a slimmed-down version of the AX-Synth keytar (or shoulder synth, as Roland would have it). The Lucina AX-09 can be run on mains or battery power and has plenty onboard in terms of sounds and features.

One thing's for sure, this is a unique looking keyboard. It's space age and toy-like but professional at the same time, with a good measure of home keyboard feel thrown in too. Not since the Jupiter-4 have we seen controls below the keyboard, either!

Build-quality is similar to its more expensive brother (though still pretty plasticky) and the off-white case looks a little uninspiring. However, for a little more outlay, there is a black version available that looks more serious. Yes, you have to pay £50 for that 'black sparkle' privilege.

In use

The Lucina is nicely balanced once strapped on, though accessing some performance controls involves a big readjustment of hand position. For example, if you have your hand clasped around the modulation bar/handle and want to use the D-beam, or any of its selectors (for filter/pitch/assignable duties), you'll need to let go and move your hand into a completely different position.

Another issue with the Lucina (and that we also had with the AX-synth) is the height of the mod bar. It really gets in the way of the ribbon controller below it (used for pitch-bending) which is a pain for those with smaller hands. It's workable, but still not ideal.

Roland lucina rear

To the right of the mod bar are octave/transpose switches, while underneath the keyboard lie all the patch selection buttons (six banks, 144 sounds and six special tones), covering pretty much every staple sound you might want for most styles of music. There's also a small red numeric display to denote which patch is selected within each bank and a facility to store favourite patches for quick recall.

The controls generally work well in this position and don't get in the way of the keyboard when playing, plus there's a Lock button to prevent accidental patch switching. More importantly, the 37-note keyboard itself has a nice feel, is fast to play standing and not too stiffly sprung.

Sound-wise, the quality is generally good, though some of the patches are swamped in delay and reverb. Effect level (plus attack/release/cutoff and resonance parameters) can be adjusted using the Shift+Tone buttons.

Standout sounds include the woodwind, brass samples, synth pads and strings, plus there are some good organs, pianos and electric pianos too and a good range of bread and butter leads, basses and guitar sounds, all with a very digital sound.

Summary

The Lucina is a suitable first and fun purchase for any aspiring keyboardist, though it's also professional enough to use on stage in a more serious capacity, either using its onboard sounds or MIDI'd to a sound source of choice. Also, the MP3/ WAV/AIFF USB playback functionality and MP3 player input are very slick.

All in all, the Lucina is a decent little keyboard that covers a lot of bases in a portable and easy-to-use package. We can imagine newcomers and pros being equally enchanted, but £549 for a fun keytar is pushing things a bit for both potential markets. It works well, looks good and sounds good, but it's no bargain.

Listen to some of the Lucina AX-09's sounds:

Piano

Unison synth

Synth strings

Electric bass guitar

Cello

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Apple iPad

[ 0 ] 2010/06/16

Unless you've been deliberately avoiding it, you can't have missed the hype surrounding the launch of Apple's iPad. And on May 28th, the UK finally got its collective hands on this long-awaited tablet computer.

We've got hold a 16GB Wi-Fi model to put through its paces. We know its media and gaming skills, but what does it offer us musicians and producers?

In detail

The first thing you notice about the iPad is its outstanding build quality. The case feels tough while remaining light and easily portable. We wouldn't want to throw it straight into a bag without a case to protect the glass screen, but it certainly feels very solid.

We found the LED-backlit screen to be exceptionally clear and the multi-touch easily tracks ten separate finger gestures at once (in fact, the iPad actually responds to eleven simultaneous gestures). The accelerometer ensures that the screen remains upright, but the orientation can also be locked using a sliding switch.

Firing up some music apps, the iPad's sound quality is impressive, with plenty of power for a unit of this size and bass response that's easily on a par with a MacBook. The one flaw is that Apple has made the strange decision to position the iPad's two speakers adjacent to each other by the dock connector, meaning that the sound output is effectively mixed to mono. This is most likely a space-saving measure, but true stereo speakers would have been much better.

As such, you'll need to plug in a pair of headphones or speakers to get the best results and, thankfully, the 3.5mm audio output has a low noise floor and clean digital-to-analogue conversion.

"No multi-touch controller comes close to the iPad in terms of value for money, versatility and power."

The wide variety of music apps already available for the iPad make it useable straight out of the box. As a multi-touch controller running TouchOSC the iPad is fantastic, offering most of the functionality of a dedicated device like JazzMutant's Lemur or Dexter for just a fraction of the cost.

TouchOSC alone could be the killer app necessary to win over electronic musicians. At less than a third of the price of the Dexter, no multi-touch controller comes close to the iPad in terms of value for money, versatility and power.

As far as it being a 'Lemur-killer', if you'll excuse the hyperbole, it's yet to be seen how the iPad survives in the beer-soaked, reckless arena of live performance, so no conclusions can be drawn as yet.

Apps like TouchOSC rely on Wi-Fi connections and having heard reports from the US of cripplingly unreliable reception we feared the worst, but over the course of a couple of weeks testing in a number of locations, we didn't experience any problems.

Whether it's as a result of the wireless card or (as we suspect) the iPad's version of Safari, web browsing is also lightning fast, with pages loading quicker than they do on our MacBook Pro.

And even with Wi-Fi on, battery life was even better than the claimed 10 hours. After leaving videos playing for 10 hours, we were amazed to see that the iPad still displayed 12% battery life remaining.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)



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Nice New Mac Mini now with HDMI and more . . . .

[ 0 ] 2010/06/15
Apple have introduced a great looking new version of their entry level desktop Mac, the new Mac Mini is greatly refined and now offers a great feature set, the most important one being that it’s a Mac! 7.7 inches square and 1.4 inches thin. It also has a built-in power supply, which means it lacks a [...]
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Slate Digital Trigger Platinum

[ 0 ] 2010/06/15

Slate Digital's debut product is Trigger, a drum replacement plug-in. You feed drum parts (ie, from multitrack recordings) into it and it outputs 'triggered' audio, or a blend of the dry/wet signals.

Before you can dial in the triggering settings, you need to load up a sound. We're reviewing the Platinum edition of Trigger here, which is currently the only version (the EX edition should be out by the time you read this), and it comes with more than 30 kicks, eight banks of toms and 45 snares, accessible via the instrument browser.

The samples offer direct mics, stereo overheads, room mics, and some reverbed sounds too. They're all fantastic quality - we actually had trouble finding any we didn't like!

The bundled samples feature 'articulation modes', which can give a harder or softer overall sound. Up to six sounds can be layered, each with volume, tune, pan, amplitude envelope, etc. There are dynamics and velocity response curves too. Trigger imports WAV/AIFF and can output MIDI, so you could use it to drive a drum instrument like Battery, BFD2, etc.

In detail

The upper part of Trigger's interface shows the incoming audio level in blue, with orange flags whenever a trigger point is generated. The display also houses controls for the high-pass filter, Leakage Suppression (more on this shortly) and dry/wet mix.

Getting Trigger to track the input is easy. First adjust the input level, then increase the Detail dial until the line representing it is just above the 'noise floor'. The Sensitivity knob is set according to the playing intricacy, while the Retrigger control can help alleviate flamming.

Trigger offers a Live mode with 2ms latency (potentially for stage use with a laptop, or for studio monitoring when recording) and Accurate, at 11ms. Live mode is comparable to a high-quality hardware drum module (eg, ddrum), while for mixing, Accurate mode claims to align the samples to be precisely in phase with the original audio.

When recording drums, it's inevitable that hits from all around the kit will bleed into every mic to some degree. This can play havoc with drum replacement, as a loud tom hit might inadvertently trigger a snare drum sample, for example.

To combat this, Trigger has the innovative aforementioned feature called Leakage Suppression. To use it, you send the drum channel to be triggered (eg, snare) to Trigger's left input, and the channels that are leaking onto it (eg, toms, hi-hat) to the right - now trigger can exclude the leaking hits from the triggering process. In use, this can vastly improve tracking, especially on complex snare parts when there's a lot going on elsewhere. Trigger is thus able to track ghost notes more accurately, ensuring that the life is not sucked out of a performance

Setting up the routing can be fiddly, but you only have to do it once per song, and you can always make a template for it.

In use

We tested Trigger using a variety of material, from rock drumming to hard-to-track material involving double strokes around the entire kit. We also recorded some deliberately variable, inconsistent parts - this kind of playing is a prime candidate for being triggered to MIDI so that the timing can be corrected, but it can be a challenge to trigger properly in the first place.

Amazingly, Trigger handled everything we threw at it - even soft ghost notes amid busy tom fills were picked up thanks to the superb Leakage Suppression feature. Once dialled in properly, mistriggers were very occasional, and nothing that a little automation or MIDI editing couldn't fix. The Accurate mode really works too, maximising coherency and tightness when the samples are blended with the audio.

We have to say that Slate's offering beats anything else we've tried, raising the bar considerably for all would-be competitors.

Hear what Trigger can do:

Blastbeat - dry

Blast beat - 50/50 Accurate mode

Blast beat - 50/50 Live mode

Blast beat - triggered Accurate mode

Blast beat - triggered Live mode



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