UVI Emulation II 01/30/2012
Review of UVI Emulation II: For lovers of the sounds of the 80s - Emulation II is a sound library not to be missed. While it has its limitations - it's easy the best 80s sound library on the market.  Revival of the 80s. Although that the 80s had its particular sound in terms of production, such as huge gated snares and cheesy synthesizers, I always look back on the 80s as the time when the soul and definition of pop really got nailed. Sure, what we call pop today springs from many sources such as soul, disco and even rock - but the core of all those catchy melodies and massive intros we're hearing today is so 80s it possibly can be.
Click here to hear (and see) a demo of UVI Emulation II. Add Comment Fxpansion Tremor 01/17/2012
Review of Fxpansion Tremor: the latest drum machine coming out from the labs of Fxpansion focus entirely on synthesis. Another 909-clone you might ask? Far from it. Tremor takes drum synthesis way more serious than that.  Fxpansion Tremor. In all its essence, Tremor is a drum synthesizer combined with a pattern sequencer. The synthesis method in Tremor is built upon Fxpansions DCAM Synth Squad engine. If you've been using DCAM before, you probably know what this means: authentic analog tones, excellent modulation capabilities, no support for samples, and hard on the cpu.
TR-909 Shootout: The best TR-909 drums 09/27/2011
Review of Audiorealism ADM, D16 Drumazon and Sounds Outside the Lines Revolution-909: in this test we are comparing three of the most detailed recreations of the most famous of drum machines in all time: the Roland TR-909.  The famous 909 kick. When Tadao Kikumoto where designing the TR-909 for Roland, he could never had imagined that his skills in engineering would be standard and after 30 years after it's release, still rule the dance floors. It's quite amazing actually.
While the TR-808 and TR-606 also have their product ids burned down in history books, compared with the TR-909 they are stuff for the gourmet, while the TR-909 is for the masses. Even if you are massively bored with the sound of the 909 there is no escape from that the kick, snare and hats together with modern processing create new variations, bringing the sound from 1983 way to the current sound of the dance floors. As some Know-It-All-Person told me 6+ years ago: trance, my friend, is going to die out. We all know what happened with trance. It fused with pop and is now ruling the charts harder than ever. I think we safely can predict that the 909 will be at the centre of dance music for a long long time. Fxpansion Geist 01/05/2011
Review of Fxpansion Geist: The followup to the legendary drum sequencer Guru is finally here, but it's not Guru 2 - it's a whole new product called Geist.  Geist. While Guru was an extremely powerful and versatile sample based drum sequencer - it was still only that. A drum sequencer. The new Geist is still a drum sequencer, but takes the concept a few steps further, streamlines it and the result is something that is starting to touch pattern-based sequencers. While the acronym DAW is not appropriate - it's most definitely getting closer with Geist. Just to be clear. Altough this text focus on Geist, I'll be throwing in references and comparisons to Guru and also to native Instruments Maschine as I see fit. Audiospillage Drumspillage 09/13/2010
Review of Audiospillage Drumspillage: Tired of overprocessed sampled drum kits where nothing is left for your imagination? Drumspillage is a drum synthesizer that goes back to the roots of drum boxes.  Drumspillage Anyone who's following this blog, probably knows about my quest for finding the perfect drum machine. I am aware of that it's just a futile dream - but as with so much in life, the search is often a desirable goal by itself. So with that in mind, my spirit got filled with nice white noise when I got contacted by Stephen from Audiospillage asking me if I would be interested to take the latest version of Drumspillage for a test drive. Audiospillage is a young company. Their first release, Minispillage, came out last year and is a free drum synthesis plugin and was later followed up by The Real Deal Drumspillage, which quote Audiospillage "with an emphasis on creative electronic percussion synthesis." Is this a contender for the mighty Microtonic we see on the horizon? Read on. Drum machine shootout 02/03/2010
Review of Audio Damage Tattoo, Audiorealism ADM and Sonic Charge Microtonic. This review compares three software drum machines and how they stand against each other. Three audioguns, twenty one sonic bullets. Two swedes and one american. Drum roll, please...  While there are a whole bunch of drum synthesizers on the market and many of them are very competent - my selection ended up with Audio Damage Tattoo, Audiorealism ADM and Sonic Charge Microtonic. My primary criteria was that they should be available for both PC and Mac - and they should be able to create more than one type of overall sound. I chose not to include any of the drum machines from the polish developer D16, as each and every drum machine is locked to a specific model and besides - I don't own licenses for any of them. Waldorf Attack is a classic that I seriously considered to include, but decided against as it doesn't contain a sequencer. Also, three products against each other is clear as a german sausage soup. But the Waldorf Attack is a fantastic drum synthesizer, especially for creating weird electronic percussion noises. | Subscribe news
   CategoriesAll ArchivesJanuary 2012 |
