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.
Add Comment 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. Little Endian SpectrumWorx 2 06/11/2011
Review of Little Endian SpectrumWorx 2: SpectrumWorx builds upon the old Delaydots and works by processing the incoming sounds on separate frequencies rather than the signal as a whole. Is SpectrumWorx a tool for the most extreme of sound pushers, or can it also satisfy the needs of producers who want something different but doesn't necessarily want nuke the whole incoming signal? The answer, my friends, is a bit of both.  SpectrumWorx. Not long time ago, I was very close to sell my Virus TI and the only reason why I didn't was because I - by accident - routed it through my old Ensoniq DP/4 - it was like a door swung open in my face. What a sound! What possibilities! So let there be no doubt that a good effect can turn something meh into something hot. In some respects a good effect is more inspirational than a new sound library. A good effect can transform your old sounds, synthesizers and samples into something totally different.
But an effect can also complicate things and ultimately create a mushy soup of the material. It all depends on the usage and the effect. More complex effects are by nature more versatile but also more difficult to master. Yes, Native Instruments Reaktor. I am looking at you. I cannot think of any more advanced sound mangler than Reaktor and although I've had my share of fun with it - I honestly can't say much of the insane effects of the user library have ever ended up in any of my productions. Synapse Audio Dune 01/15/2011
Review of Synapse Audio Dune: After years of hibernation old softsynth maestros Synapse Audio once again show their skill in creating synthesizers. Dune is a synth clearly aimed for the electronic dance music scene, and gives synths such as Sylenth 1, ElectraX and even Nexus a tough run for the money.  I control the spice. Review of Synapse Audio Dune: After years of hibernation old softsynth maestros Synapse Audio once again show their skill in creating synthesizers. Dune is a synth clearly aimed for the electronic dance music scene, and gives synths such as Sylenth 1, ElectraX and even Nexus a tough run for the money. 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. Fxpansion DCAM Synth Squad Strobe 12/17/2009
Review of DCAM Synth Squad Strobe: the simplest synthesizer in the DCAM collection is by no means simple or basic. It's in fact one of the finest synthesizers ever made.  Despite all the initial hype about Fxpansions new synth trio DCAM Synth Squad, can't say it initially caught my interest. Boring bread and butter synthesizers, I thought. No, not just boring. Pointless. One one-oscillator synthesizer, one string synthesizer (yawn) and one half interesting analogue/FM-hybrid deal. Fxpansion must really have run out of ideas. One of the good things about being me, is that I never cease to be amazed how utterly stupid I can be. DCAM turned out to be one of the most important things that have happened in the software synth scene for a very long time. Audio Damage Ronin 09/27/2009
Review of Audio Damage Ronin: in contrast to the majority of the plugins from Audio Damage, Ronin is not an effect with a specialized use, but is rather a modulation toolbox aimed for the black belt audio ninja with a degree in audio pyrotechnics and sound mutilation.  Seen from a technical point of view, Ronin is a multi effect built around two independent delays, two filters and two saturators. There are two LFOs and one envelope follower that can be used to modulate your sound in various ways. Although Ronin isn't really a difficult plugin, this was the first time I had to really read the manual for an Audio Damage product.
The reason for this is that the signal path in Ronin is not fixed, but open for the user to decide. This radically expands the use of the plugin but also it's complexity. Waldorf Largo 09/01/2009
Waldorf Largo review: German synthmaker Waldorf truly masters the art of creating impressive synthesizers, but still hasn't got rid of its shadow of the past: it's very, very German.  Since the publication of my review of the Waldorf Largo in the Swedish magazine Studio, I've learned much more about the inner workings of Largo. I still think Largo is one damn fine instrument – in fact, it's one of the best software synthesizers on the market right now. But after working with it for a few months, I've also learned that Largo can be quite irritating and sometimes downright frustrating to use.
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