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Archive for July 29th, 2010

4Pockets Aurora Sound Studio HD

[ 0 ] 2010/07/29

The preview video for Aurora Sound Studio HD had certain team members compulsively checking the App Store for its release, for it promised a full production studio for the iPad. Not a DAW, mind you - no audio recording would be provided, for one thing - but an electronic studio with everything you need to compose and perform electronic music: drums, subtractive and waveshaping synthesisers, a sampler, mixer and effects, all tied to a multitouch grid interface resembling the iconic Yamaha Tenori-On.

Aurora HD delivers on its promise in spades, albeit with a couple of caveats. The interface is divided into tabbed pages, some of which are geared towards arranging your sequences, while others are aimed at live performance with instruments and effects. Sequences are arranged in 14 layers, each with a fully editable instrument assigned.

Each layer has three send knobs, for routing the signal to a trio of aux send channels, with a choice of nine effects for each. Additionally, you can apply the Atomizer and M-Gun functions in real time, the former being a sort of sample-and-hold function (think Ableton Live's Beat Repeat), while the latter is a per-sound 'drum roll' function.

Songs can be exported as WAV and AAC files, or even as MIDI. The latter ensures that compositions sketched out on Aurora can be reworked using your DAW's instruments and effects.

So what are those caveats we mentioned earlier? Well, the big one is that there's no way to write any sort of velocity data to the individual layers. You can, however, fake it using the synthesiser's built-in MSEQ function, but this is only available to the analogue synth.

Also, a mere three effects slots seems miserly, and there's no compressor. In addition, while you can upload and share songs via an online Song Library, this can't be done with songs that include your own samples.

Nevertheless, 4Pockets has brought in a winner, albeit one that carries a price tag considerably higher than those to which App Store customers are currently accustomed. The problems are few and do nothing to get in the way of what is a truly inspiring production environment. If you're an iPad owner in the market for a portable production tool, you definitely won't want to pass this one up.

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Wizdom Music MorphWiz

[ 0 ] 2010/07/29

Kevin Chartier and keyboardist extraordinaire Jordan Rudess have teamed up to bring us what may be the first serious performance instrument designed specifically for the iPad. Inspired by Lippold Haken's Continuum controller, MorphWiz presents a control system wherein notes of a given (and user-definable) scale are laid out across the screen as vertical lines.

As on a traditional keyboard, notes range from low to high as you travel from left to right. However, sounds can morph from one timbre to another as you drag your finger vertically along a given note. You can also play between the notes by placing your finger just between the B and C lines. Additionally, MorphWiz taps the iPad's accelerometer - you can tilt the device to tweak the sound of the built-in synthesiser.

On that synthesiser, it's refreshingly direct, with a smattering of parameters that draw upon basic waveshaping, FM and 'Wavesync' synthesis to shape the sounds, with a few effects to spice things up. While FM synthesis is tricky to master, even the greenest neophyte isn't going to get lost with MorphWiz's simple implementation. There's just enough flexibility to personalise the sound, but not enough to distract you from the performance.

And that's what MorphWiz is all about: performance. Rudess's experience shows in the design of the instrument and the immediately playable factory patches.

MorphWiz provides a built-in recording function with looped overdubbing capabilities. You can adjust the number of beats and measures and there's a metronome to guide you. The results can be exported, emailed or sent to apps that support AudioPaste.

MorphWiz turns the iPad into an expressive performance instrument. Is it perfect? No. There are a lot of pages to work through and there's no MIDI-over-Wi-Fi, unfortunately. Even these drawbacks aren't enough to tear us away from it, however.

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Toontrack Beatstation

[ 0 ] 2010/07/29

When Beatstation was announced, it wasn't clear what it was or who it was designed for. And even after spending some time with it, we're not sure we can answer either of these questions. Stranger still, we're not sure Toontrack could either.

They call it "a tonal and percussive open surface new generation virtual instrument", which is accurate enough, but tellingly, the sell line for Beatstation is vague and non-committal: "It's what you want it to be."

"Ultimately, it's hard to say exactly what you will find it useful for - if anything - until you actually give it a go."

Beatstation has the look of a groovebox, with the main part of the interface taken up by a bank of sample-based pads. You can add and remove pads, drag them around and select from four pad styles: one square and three circular ones of different sizes.

The pads are designed for rhythmic sounds but there are also Bass and Lead 'pads' (actually mini virtual keyboards) for instrument sounds. You can change the look by loading up skins, and you can design your own with the Skin Tool. The pads can be filled up with samples from the browser sitting to the left.

Beatstation ships with content in Lowbit, Organic and Synthetix categories, and in each of these you get drum kits/instruments, MIDI grooves, REX files and individual sounds. You can load up sounds as a whole kit or on a pad-by-pad basis.

Music library

The quality of the library is generally good, with the acoustic drums being particularly impressive. There's plenty for those who aren't so keen on 'real' sounds too, though, with dance music and hip-hop fans well catered for.

Crucially, it's possible to bring your own samples and loops in. MP3 and WAV formats are supported, and MIDI and REX files can be imported.

You can also use expansion packs in Toontrack's EZX and SDX drum kit formats, as well as the new Beatstation-specific BTX format.

Below the browser are REX and MIDI file players, which can run independently or (in sync) together. To hear everything you've got loaded, just hit the play/pause button.

To the right of this are two FX busses, a master effect and a master volume control. The effects come from Overloud, which ensures better than average quality, and the range is extensive, with categories including Bitcrush, Chorus, Compressor, Delay, Distortion, EQ and Reverb, as well as instrument-specific ones for piano, bass, snare, vocals, etc. Each effect has just a single slider to play with, enabling you to dial in 'more' or 'less' of that effect.

And that, on a basic level, is it. If you want to use Beatstation very simply, run it standalone, load some sounds and/or a MIDI/REX file and click the pads or press play.

There's not a lot you can do with your sounds, though, as parts can't be edited and there's no sequencer. Thankfully, Beatstation also works as a plug-in instrument, so you can use it to make songs in conjunction with a compatible sequencer/DAW program.

Under the skin

You might be thinking that Beatstation is very much a beginners' tool, but if you look below the surface, it's surprisingly capable. Open a pad's Properties window and you'll find some fairly powerful sound design features - up to five samples can be layered on each pad simply by dragging and dropping, and each layer can be tweaked individually.

The likes of volume, ADSR, pan and pitch can be adjusted, and there are reverse and offset options, making it quick and easy to build up layered sounds.

There's no dedicated filtering or EQ, but you get one insert effect slot per pad, for which EQ/filters are an option.

In standalone mode, you can record your samples via the built-in recorder.

Recording and sampling

Although Beatstation doesn't have its own sequencer, when you're running it in standalone mode, it does boast a sound recorder and editor, and this proves to be very easy to use.

Once you've opened the dedicated window, you simply select your audio input, hit the record button and make some noise. Once you've recorded your sounds, you can normalise the resulting audio file, crop it to remove any unwanted silence and adjust the fade handles. Drag the audio file onto a pad and it instantly becomes one of said pad's layers.

It's also worth noting that if you do this with a melodic sound and you put it on either the Bass or Lead pad, you can tell Beatstation what note it is, so the software can pitch it across the keyboard.

The patches you can generate in this way might not be up to velocity-layered, multisampled standard, but if you want an incredibly quick and easy way of creating playable sounds, you've got it.

Handily, this also works with your own imported samples and REX slices, giving you more flexibility, though it would have been nice if the software could automatically detect pitch, as this would help beginners who might not necessarily know anything about musical notes.

Then there's that REX file player. As well as being able to play back REX files, you can also drag a complete REX file onto a pad, or just a slice from it. So, if you just want to use one hit from a loop in your drum kit, it's easy to get at it.

The MIDI file player offers velocity, swing, drum flam and transpose controls. You can drag and drop MIDI parts from Beatstation onto tracks in your DAW, or convert them to audio.

Plug in a MIDI keyboard and you'll find that the lower register plays the bass instrument, the middle area fires off the pads and the upper octaves are dedicated to your lead sound.

The downside is that the mapping is fixed so you can't, for example, plug in a drum pad controller and assign the pads as you want them.

When you're using Beatstation as a plug-in in your DAW, there's just a single stereo output, which won't please those who want each sound popping up on a different DAW channel for easy mixing and application of plug-in effects.

So, how to sum up Beatstation? The more you use it, the more potential uses spring to mind. There's plenty for anyone who wants a quick groove or an easy way of building a layered and processed custom drum kit.

That said, beginners might be put off by the fact that it's not a self-contained production package, while pros will bemoan the lack of comprehensive controller support and multiple outputs.

The documentation is also flimsy, consisting of a few annotated images pointing out what the interface does, plus some videos on the website.

Ultimately, it's hard to say exactly what you will find it useful for - if anything - until you actually give it a go, and unfortunately there's no demo. For some users, it will feel like less than the sum of its parts, while others will find that it slots seamlessly into their workflow.

Listen to a few examples of Beatstation's sounds:

Lowbit - Step1 kit

Organic - DC kit

Synthetic - Krush kit

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Steinberg Nuendo 5

[ 0 ] 2010/07/29

Whereas Cubase has long been a staple product for computer musicians, those working in post-production for film, TV and radio are more likely to turn to its sibling, Nuendo. The two apps are superficially similar, but each has its own exclusive features.

Post-production is where music, sound effects, actors' dialogue, etc, are compiled into a finished stream of audio in a specific format - it might be in surround sound, too.

"Surround Panner v5 makes the previous effort look chunky."

This is where Nuendo steps in, with features such as extensive surround support (up to 12 speakers), pro video and sync functionality, import/export of a wider range of formats, and network collaboration.

Traditionally, certain features in Nuendo have filtered through to Cubase (and vice versa), and in fact, there are a few things in Nuendo 5 that are also in the recent free Cubase 5.5 update.

Of course, here we'll focus on the musical side of Nuendo 5.

Dialogue box

The Cubase/Nuendo MediaBay is something that, until now, hasn't really clicked with us. The idea is that you use it to index all the relevant data (audio, MIDI, projects, plug-in presets, etc) on your drives, so that you can browse, filter and preview it all at your leisure.

It's been overhauled for Nuendo 5 (and Cubase 5.5) and we're pleased to say, it's really making more sense now. The layout has been refined and it just seems more logical and friendly, not to mention swifter overall, making it something we actually want to use.

You need to tag all your data for it to be of much use, but that chore could well be worth the effort for post-production houses. Also new are Clip Packages, whereby you select a bunch of related audio clips and export them - you can later pull them from the MediaBay to recreate the original structure of clips.

Many music producers create beats with samples on audio tracks, and we found Clip Packages to be a great way of stashing away such 'composite beats' for later use.

New in the mixer is the Wave Meters view, which shows a visual recreation of the clips on the audio tracks scrolling upwards. It doesn't show the channel's output data, though, and while that does mean you can see what's coming up in advance, it still feels like an underdeveloped idea - you can't adjust the speed or scrub by dragging, for instance.

Next up is Direct Routing, enabling you to designate eight possible output destinations for each channel, and then flick between them with a single click. You can switch multiple channels at once, and even select multiple destinations, and it's all automatable.

It works nicely (aside from a momentary level increase during the change), though you can't set a level offset for each output. Note that you can now arm multiple channels for recording too.

Just drive!

There's a new pitchshifter plug-in, Pitch Driver, with a claimed range of "up to 24 semitones", but while you can go two octaves down, it seems you can only pitch up by one.

And the Detune parameter isn't in semitones - it's an arbitrary scale ranging from -98 to 98. Since it stops shy of -100/100, it's always a bit out of tune at its extremities. All of which is a shame because it sounds bloody good!

On vocals, you can get a natural-sounding shift with sensible values, or push it right down for creepy, 'slowed down tape' effects. We tried it on synths, too, and there are some impressive thickening choruses to be had, as well as deep sub-bass reinforcements. It even sounds cool on drums.

Elsewhere, you've got in-depth data tagging of markers, which is intended to facilitate spotting (ie, marking) of actors' dialogue that needs to be dubbed (eg, due to being recorded in a noisy location).

The slick Surround Panner v5 makes the previous effort look clunky, with crafty features like rotation and width/depth adjustment. The new QuickTime-based video engine offers improved performance and more functionality, and there's multi-mono file support (for Pro Tools compatibility).

There's also a new De-Esser plug-in that gives natural results with no fuss - it's simple but effective.

There are a bunch of new features from Cubase 5, the biggest being the PitchCorrect (Auto-Tune-alike) and REVerence (convolution reverb) plug-ins, and Melodyne-esque VariAudio graphical pitch/timing editor.

Automation station

Nuendo's automation system has always been more sophisticated than Cubase's, and the new Passes system is a case in point. Let's say you record a complex automation curve using multiple passes, but you're not happy with the last few passes and want to hear how it sounded earlier. The Passes panel shows each pass as a separate entry, and you can 'back up' through them, for immediate comparison.

The clever thing is that you can return to an earlier point, then record more passes, creating a new 'branch', shown in the right-hand area. You can do this as many times as you like, creating a tree representing your different efforts, then click on the nodes to flick through the various permutations until you find 'the one'. For anyone who records automation manually, this is pure gold.

Note that Nuendo's main undo system also offers branches functionality.

The enhanced Trim feature (which, unlike Passes, is in Cubase 5.5 too) is similarly superb. Click the Trim button and a secondary automation curve is layered over the primary one - you can shape it as normal, by recording or with the mouse, and it will influence the final shape, which is also depicted. You can now non-destructively create, say, a general level dip in the middle of a complex curve.

Like Cubase 5.5, Nuendo 5's performance has been sharpened - it's snappier overall, with fewer dropouts when running complex projects at low latencies - and the interface has been touched up a bit.

However, there's still no proper undo for mixer operations, and the 'window hell' of the Nuendo/Cubase interface doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. The timestretching algorithms are still only average, and while you can perform 'elastic audio'-style tricks, it's not handled as elegantly as in some other apps.

Bugs-wise, the improved 32-bit-to-64-bit plug-in bridge didn't play nice with all of our plug-ins (although it seems better than before), and oddly, Nuendo seems to cause a tiny fade-in whenever you hit play - very odd!

Steinberg has already issued one maintenance update during our review period, so here's hoping it keeps up the pace with the bug-crushing.

Overall, Nuendo remains a post-production powerhouse with an epic price tag to match.