February 2002 Magazine Contents

Ableton's Live allows the user to create and record musical performances by combining sampled loops in real time, with high‑quality pitch‑shifting, time‑stretching and audio effects.

The new tapeless ADAT provides 24 tracks of hard disk recording at less than the price of the original eight-track.

The Ondes Martenot was one of the earliest 20th-century electronic musical instruments, and found favour with composers of avant-garde orchestral works for many years. Now, thanks to Cornish company Analogue Systems, it's getting a new lease of life...

Aphex update their famous Aural Exciter and Big Bottom processes for the 21st century.

Since 1999, Bob Moog's Big Briar company has been making analogue filters and effects pedals based on his original Moog module designs. Now there's a central control unit, so that you can use them all together as a complete processing system.

Not only is this new cardioid condenser microphone extremely striking to look at, but it also boasts performance which is well out of the ordinary.

Flying in the face of the 'digital all-in-one' trend, the Freque II unashamedly provides specialist analogue processing for the audiophile.

Housed in a tough stainless steel chassis, the Pedaltone uses four twin-triode valves, one of which is in the output stage, enabling power amp saturation to be replicated. A speaker simulator is included for recording or DI'ing.

The all-time best-selling synthesizer, Korg's M1 laid the groundwork for synths that followed. We go behind the scenes to reveal the secrets of its success.

Line 6's acclaimed Delay Modeler pedal gets a rackmount makeover.

M-Audio's first foray into active nearfield monitors is certainly extremely affordable, but could it be a false economy for the home recordist?

RME's DIGI range of soundcards offers comprehensive cross-platform support, high audio quality and lots of extras, such as digital format conversion.

Korg's Triton has dominated the workstation synth market for several years, but the past 12 months have seen challenges to this position firstly from Yamaha, with their Motif, and now from Roland. Does this Fantom have what it takes?

The SPD6 MIDI percussion pad features 113 internal drum sounds, with six rubber playing pads and can run from an optional power adaptor or from batteries.

SPL's new surround-ready stereo compressor offers clever programme-adaptive compression, as well as decompression and tube-saturation functions.

Try these tips and techniques for creating more convincing programmed rhythm parts in your sequencer.

Recording a large orchestra can be fairly tricky, even in the most well-equipped of studios, but trying to get a great sound on location, using only the gear you can fit into your car, adds challenges all of its own.

Moving from last month's theoretical bass drum synth patch to its practical application on affordable analogue synths, we also take a look at how the world's most famous drum machines produce this fundamental rhythm sound.

We consider some of the pros and cons of mixing in surround, and hear how experienced surround producers take advantage of the format, and tackle the problems.

The flexibility of the effects assignment in modern MIDI + Audio sequencers (DAWs) can be daunting, so here's some advice on how to sort out the routing and order of your plug-ins for common recording and mixing tasks.

Windows XP is probably the most important PC operating system upgrade since Windows 95, but as always, its new features come at a cost. Should you upgrade your computer? Here's the definitive guide...

What causes soft-synth latency? What's the best thing to do when my old gear begins to wear out? What extra gear should I buy to make dance music? How can I stop my music annoying my neighbour? Can I ensure that my CDs will play on all hi-fi systems?

One of the original pioneers of electronic music in Britain, David Vorhaus has remained at the cutting edge of the genre for over 30 years.

Software samplers are revolutionising studio recording, but can they replace their hardware counterparts in live performance? Jazz keyboardist Django Bates is in the process of finding out...

If we are going to get behind surround sound and help drive the industry to its next level, we're going to need the right tools at the right price.

This month's Readerzone doesn't have a home studio at all, but instead has chosen to concentrate on location recording — and with his modest Portastudio-based setup he's achieving a degree of local success.

Is modern music more concerned with good sounds than with good ideas?