Review of Sidsonic Tubes! Tubes is a sample library specially designed for sounds passing of old dusty vacuum tubes. As with all products Sidsonic - Tubes is not for the person who enjoys tubification in small, well constrained, amounts. Ass-Blasters set to burn!

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Sidsonic Tubes!
Tubes, tubes, tubes. They are all the rage and fashion and have been popping up in all kinds of instruments, mixers and pedals, but also in quite unexpected gear, such as the 2002 Aopen PC mainboard with a built-in russian-made tube to ensure your pleasure while listening to Gorillaz.

It's all - of course - about distortion.

As with recording to magnetic tape, distorting a tube doesn't clip in the nasty way it does with a/d converters and transistors. The headroom brings something extra. You've all heard about the wonders and magic about TUBE SOUND that brings WARMTH to your mixes. If I sound less than convinced - let me explain my cynicism here. When I read about some hot-shot dance producer talk themselves wet over the WARM sound of their latest gear, I get so tired I cannot finish reading. You wanna hear the truth? You damn morons hear what you want to hear. Period.

 
 
Review of Sidsonic Libraries Circus Circuit Bending Library: German soundmakers take circuit bending to the next level.

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Circus Circuit Library
Berlin based soundmakers Sidsonic are relatively fresh on the library scene, but have succeeded to make quite some fuzz with their two first Kontakt-based libraries Circus Circuit Bending Library and Tubes! While this review only concentrates on Circus Circuit - it's quite clear that Sidsonic is not an ordinary bunch of sound designers. Circus Circuit is (obviously) about circuit bending and Tubes! is a library created from the mad innovations by Eric Barbour/Metasonix. In other words: these boys like it odd.

While circuit bending is widely known to most people by now, it doesn't hurt putting yourself in the right state mind seeing Picachu making funny noises while being electrocuted.

 
 
Review of Sample Magic Ultimate FX: While Ultimate FX offers all typical effects for the dance floor, it takes the concept of effect libraries one step further, by inviting you to lay the last finishing touches.

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"Genres come and go, dancefloor tastes change, new influences permeate studios but some things in dance music are staples: sonic fundamentals that are permanent fixtures in the producers’ arsenal. Effects are such staples."

The above is a direct quote from the manual of latest library from Sample Magic, Ultimate FX. During the last three-four years I've developed a habit of always reaching for my Vengeance effect libraries when in any kind of troubles during production. A few well-placed effects can spice up any track quite a few notches. Whatever people might be saying about Vengeance - for dance music - their effects libraries are among the best, if not the best. As being a serious effect junkie, my pulse took a bungy-jump the moment when I saw the words 'Sample Magic' combined with 'FX'. Being a fanboi is a double edged sword. I'm not only expecting to get a good library with effects, I'm expecting it to make my current libraries a thing of the past, make my upcoming 8-bit remix of Miami Porno Machine perfect and cure my aching tooth. Make no mistake you gentlemen over at Sample Magic. Fans are cool to have, but most of us are insane.

At the first glance, Ultimate FX seem to deviate little from the walked up path of dance effect libraries. We've got cymbal hits, down-falls, fills, hits, impacts, noise loops and uplifters. The usual gang. As with many releases from Sample Magic, the tempo dependent sounds come in two flavors: 125 and 128 bpm. While the tempo police and audio connoisseurs might appreciate the finer details of these two tempos, I personally feel it's a wasted opportunity. I am aware that not everybody lives in the world of simple elastic audio a la Ableton Live, so I won't take my criticism further. But still. I would have appreciated two more different tempos, such as 125 and 110. The good thing about it is that the 125 bpm sounds and the 128 bpm sounds are not the same. No wasted space on doubles in other words.

 
 
If you are a smart lazy person who collects all your news via RSS, you would do fine by changing your Plughugger-feed to this feed instead. While the old feed will still work, the new one combines all Plughugger feeds into one: reviews, interviews, technique, new sounds and my personal ramblings.
 
 
Review of Wave Alchemy Drum Tools 01 Minimal Techno sample library. Drum Tools 01 is a drum and percussion library which concentrates on synthetic drums.

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While there isn't really a shortage of electronic drum libraries on the market, Drum Tools 01 is well worth checking out. With well over 2000 samples (over 4300 depending on how you count) the main excitement is where the game is: the kicks and snares. Read on.

In my drum machine shootout, I've already showed how damn obsessed I am trying to find the perfect drum machine. Looking back, I believe this whole mania started way back in the 90s when I got a few floppies from Seba with his own assembled drum kits. The drum kits just suited me perfectly and since the departure of the EPS 16+ I still haven't found a drum kit I always reach for when starting to make music. Naturally, I am aware of the futility of my obsession, as the music I create have mutated many times since then, and in many respects, I am no longer the same person as I was back then. But, my need for finding that perfect drum kit seem to be etched into my DNA.

 
 
Review of Sample Magic The secrets of house music production.

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When renowned sampling masters Sample Magic takes on the subject of house music production, the expectations are very high. But after reading through the near 150 pages, it's clear that Sample Magic have created one of the most relevant texts about modern dance music production.
 
 
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.

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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.

 
 
Review of Loopmasters John 00 Fleming and The Digital Blonde sample library Variations in Trance. The latest library in Loopmasters Artist series put the focus on trance - and although trance by its definition is an energetic style of music - this library shows it can be done in a way that deviates from the norm.

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John Fleming, also known as JOOF, is a music producer who have been making club music for around twenty years, which is - in all honesty - quite some time. During twenty years - most people have time to either change style completely or they become illuminated audio kung-fu masters. I honestly don't know how deep John Flemings kung-fu really goes, but after watching an interview with him in a recent issue of Computer Music, J has all my respect. Production-wise, he has that rare discipline to keep a focused mind and not get lost in a production while still having a great deal of fun. Or to put it in fewer words: The Man Knows.
 
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.

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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.

 
 
Sonalksis TBK3 review: The TBK3 is a compressor unlike any other. If you have a fetish for anything that sounds hard this compressor is exactly what you are looking for.

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From a structured point of view, creating music is a two-stage process. We have the creative phase where the actual material is created, and there is the production phase, where the material gets shaped and improved.

In my opinion one of the keys of successful music making (and here I use the word successful as in creating material of good quality) is to have a clear distinction between the two phases. There is nothing more effective to kill a creative session than spending time looking for that perfect setting for the compressor – or that perfect kick drum. It's an instant sleeping pill. The gourmets should hold their horses until the production phase. Creating is about generating new material.