February 2003 Magazine Contents

Score = **** 4/5 stars. Named after Waldorf's Microwave synth of the same colour, Orange consists of 216 NN19 presets, 12 Redrum kits and 65 REX2 loops on a single CD-ROM.

**** Score = 4 stars. AMG add to their growing Catalyst series of sample libraries with this two CD collection.

The flagship of Behringer's newest line of mixers is a four-buss design with 26 inputs, four aux sends and an internal effects processor.

Blue Sky's new active studio monitors use cutting-edge cone technology and closed-box speaker loading for improved performance.

An awful lot of blowing went into Dan Dean's new orchestral release - but is this the wind of change, or just a great deal of hot air?

Dave Smith, creator of the Prophet 5 and Wavestation, moved into software synthesis in the '90s, but now he's back with what he calls 'the ultimate dongle' — a hardware analogue and digital synth. We find out if he's still evolving...

Edirol's latest audio and MIDI interface fills another niche in the increasingly competitive market for USB devices.

Emagic have launched two new classic keyboard emulations for Logic. We test them out.

Score = ***** 5/5 stars. Garritan has released GOS Lite, a three-CD version of GOS available in either Akai or Giga formats using samples from the full library.

Every pianist dreams of owning a grand piano, but is it really possible to combine the feel of a grand into a stage piano and combine it with great sounds and master-keyboard functionality?

Kurzweil are well known for their high-quality sounds, but less so for affordable hardware in which to house them. Is the new £350 ME1 the answer?

The AGNULA project is creating what is possibly the first computer system tailored specifically for musicians — and it's all based around the Linux operating system.

The monotimbral K-Station offered keyboard players an affordable Novation -- but now, for a bit more money, the company have released the KS4 and KS5, which add plenty of new features, better keyboards and multitimbrality. The perfect marriage at the perfect price? We find out.

A British company specialising in the maintenance and refurbishment of vintage Neve equipment have produced a new preamp design with a classic sound.

PreSonus' eight-channel Firewire interface is the first to use Yamaha's much-touted mLAN protocol. How does it compare to the proprietary driver systems developed by the likes of MOTU and Metric Halo?

**** Score = 4/5. Many libraries offer a French horn ensemble within their menu of brass sections, but this is the first horns-only release we've come across.

Spectrasonics' massive sample-based soft synth promises to be the ultimate source for pads, atmospheres and textures.

An affordable new multi-pattern mic with a subtle tube sound.

These two new rack processors from Vermona offer flexible filtering and phasing with a range of interesting modulation options.

WaveMachine Labs' sophisticated DirectX plug-in allows you to replace the sounds of individual drums with samples, while keeping the human feel of a performance.

The processing from the Maxxbass plug-in is now available in hardware format.

Although XTA are perhaps better known for their live sound processors, their new SIDD dynamics processor provides world-beating dynamics processing which is just as useful in the studio.

The successor to the MRS1044 has more of everything - tracks, inputs, sounds - at a very similar price. But with new fierce competition, is there still room for a Zoom?

Jack Wall is a leading light in the video game soundtrack industry, where his credits include the latest chapter in the best-selling Myst series of computer games.

There are many reasons why the digital delivery of media hasn't replaced traditional physical methods, but could one reason be that files just aren't very collectable?

The drum kit can be one of the most time-consuming and frustrating of instruments to record, so it's worth taking a structured approach.

A patchbay can make your studio much quicker to use, but can also be a nightmare to set up, so here's advice on which to choose and how to connect it up for the best results. Plus, tips on building and fitting racks for your gear.

The SOS team visit the sleepy Herefordshire town of Bromyard to help violinist Mike Burnham with his folk recordings.

Analogue synths can't synthesize every sound, but the attempts made to replicate the sound of orchestral strings were so successful that so-called string machines became much-loved instruments in their own right. We begin a voyage into the world of synthesized strings...

It's been 12 months since we first evaluated Windows XP as a music platform, and it now seems to be the OS of choice for most manufacturers. So should musicians who have been holding back now take the plunge and upgrade?

Where can I find a good sampled Joanna? Does processing degrade the quality of digital audio? How can I avoid effects being out of phase when I use Group Tracks in Cubase? How can I get six mono outputs from my VP9000? How can I eliminate hum in my studio? What are the advantages of higher sampling rates? Can you recommend a microphone for recording a guitar?

Many people love the idea of laptop recording, but few have put it into practice like 1 Giant Leap. Their acclaimed album and DVD project was recorded on an Apple Powerbook during a six-month journey round the world — with a little help from some friends...

More words of wisdom proferred by SOS Editor-in-Chief Paul White.

Producer and engineer Elliot Mazer is well known for his ongoing work with Neil Young, and was there at the birth of digital recording. Like Young, however, he's never been happy with the way it sounded — until now.

Well-known jazz musician John Scofield has spent the last five years updating his sound with the help of modern technology and new collaborators - including innovative guitarist Avi Bortnick.

When it comes to digital rights management, downloading music illegally isn't really the problem — it's our obsession with it.

In Part 5 we explained how a label can create its own distribution channels by selling merchandise on the Internet. This month we examine dedicated distribution companies, and how the smaller companies can serve niche record labels.