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Archive for July 21st, 2010

iceGear Argon

[ 0 ] 2010/07/21

It may be just a monophonic synth with a GUI that's prejudiced against fat fingers, but Argon has won our hearts. From wispy, nostalgic leads drowned in noise and delay, to formant wobbles, croaking basslines and the soft pulses of thirds and fifths, Argon can - and frequently does - sound awesome. It's not a broad palette, trapped somewhere between 1972 and 1984, but it's a sound full of character, complexity and fun.

The GUI presents two horizontally scrolling layers. The topmost provides access to ten pages of parameters and each parameter is drawn in a radial, anti-aliased style that Ableton Live users will immediately recognise. The lower layer is a scrollable keyboard that lets you switch octaves by dragging the lower border.

Argon's incredible sound comes courtesy of a trio of oscillators and a Minimoog-like signal path. You can choose between saw, square, sine and noise for two oscillators, while a third adds formant generation. There's FM and AM, and six different filter types, with 24, 18, 12 and 6dB/oct low-pass modes. An ADSR and LFO give amplitude and filter modulation, and you get distortion, EQ and delay effects. There's even a visual step sequencer and a four-bar loop recorder that features overdubbing, so you can stack up parts to create a tune. You can save the output to an internal preset or beam a WAV across a WiFi connection.

We'd like to see named presets and fake velocity (ie, based on where you touch the keys), but all this is besides the point. Argon is the closet thing we've found to carrying a vintage monosynth with us on the bus, only it's far less obtrusive and costs less than the ticket home.

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Takashi Mizuhiki DXi FM synthesizer

[ 0 ] 2010/07/21

Yamaha's interpretation of Frequency Modulation synthesis needs no introduction. It's a sound splattered across many '80s synth classics, and recreated by various soft synths.

DXi brings FM to your phone, but it's closer to the DX27 than the legendary DX7. There are four operators rather than six and polyphony is reduced from 16 to three, from what we can tell. DXi also offers a neat 16-step sequencer and an effective XY performance pad, to mix operators and patterns in real time.

Sound editing is primitive. You can flick between eight algorithms and edit a four-stage amplitude envelope for each operator, but you can't listen to frequency and feedback changes as you make them - you need to press Audition again for these to be heard.

While DXi does sound good, and you can recreate many classic sounds, it lacks versatility for the experimentalists, and completeness for the purists, sort of defeating the point of it being a synth and not a ROMpler.

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Toontrack Electronic EZX

[ 0 ] 2010/07/21

The Toontrack name is synonymous with high-quality sampled acoustic drums, but Electronic EZX sees the company leaving its comfort zone to deliver 33 kits' worth of electronic percussion.

The sounds have been sampled from an extensive selection of gear, including '80s drum machines such as the Alesis HR-16 and Roland TR series, renowned synthesisers like the ARP 2600 and Access Virus, and even 8-bit home computers/consoles like the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64.

Much of the gear has been modified to give sounds outside its usual range, and numerous effects processors employed. To ensure that all this equipment was put to good use, Toontrack drafted in electronica maestro Richard Devine as lead sound designer.

Hands On

The first thing that hits you about this EZX is its 'alien' interface - we'd have preferred something less cryptic and more indicative of what sounds each pad offers.

You can build kits by selecting kicks, snares, etc from the dropdown menus, though it's not a totally open-ended system. For instance, there's only one kick pad per kit.

The 41 pads are grouped to a more sensible 13 channels in the mixer, where you'll also find six additional effects channels. The kits load very quickly because they don't use multisampling - velocity simply controls sample volume.

Standard drum kit mapping is not strictly adhered to, so tom pads won't necessarily trigger deep booming sounds, for instance. While this can be fun to play with, at times you may want more than simple sound selection and a fixed MIDI mapping.

EZdrummer might not be the most appropriate 'shell' for Electronic EZX, then, but the sounds are really excellent.

Classic drum machine punch, snap and sizzle is covered, but such samples are easily found elsewhere, in greater abundance.

What makes this pack shine is the plethora of esoteric sounds, ranging from fuzzy videogame-style bleeps; speaker-shaking booms and bangs; grungey clonks and clatters; synthetic creaks, gurgles and groans; vocoded robot-talk; spacey blips and pings; and the indescribable.

These sounds are fiercely electronic but not cold or characterless, and many are semi-rhythmical, making them inspiring to play.

As for effects, the Tape channel adds warmth; Attack lends transient bite; Bias gives further grinding grit; SubTube offers harsher distortion; Echo is a stereo reverb; and Chorus widens the sound. These can beef things up or radically reshape the overall sound.

Load Electronic EZX into Superior Drummer 2.0 and you'll gain per-pad control over pitch, level, effects amounts and amplitude envelope (great for shortening overly long sounds). You can also freely combine sounds using X-Drums, and create acoustic/electronic hybrid kits.

Sonically, Electronic EZX brims with character, charm and creativity. On the flip side, the lack of flexibility (at least with EZdrummer) and heavy slant towards unusual, experimental sounds means it's not a one-stop shop, so consider pairing it with a more meat-and-potatoes sample library.

Indeed, if you want complete control you may be better off with open-ended software like FXpansion Guru, NI Battery or Ableton Live and some quality samples from the likes of Goldbaby and Wave Alchemy.

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Alesis Palmtrack

[ 0 ] 2010/07/21

The number of portable digital stereo recorders on the market has really grown in the last couple of years.

However, the Alesis PalmTrack is slightly different from the norm as it boasts four onboard microphones and is designed to record stereo or four-capsule omni audio in any location.

You can choose two-mic or four-mic operation, the latter allowing you to place the PalmTrack in the middle of a rehearsal room to capture sound from all around.

External mic or line level signals are also accepted and you can hold the PalmTrack in your hand, place it on a flat surface or attach it to a camera tripod or, via an adapter, to a microphone stand.

Operation is very easy - you can be recording within seconds of switching the PalmTrack on, the gain being easily set by a high/low mic gain switch and up and down Record Gain incremental buttons.

Onboard processing includes optional vocal enhancement when recording for boosting vocal frequencies and you can treat your recorded audio to bass compensation for reducing the proximity effect in close-mic situations or add chorus, pitch shift, delay or reverb.

The PalmTrack has an onboard tuner but is not particularly set up for phrase-training as there is no option for altering audio speed. However, you can loop audio and there is a voice cancelling function that works on some audio