January 2006 Magazine Contents

With their new plug-in suite, Antares promise to let you change the character of the human voice.

We conclude our look at synth pioneer Don Buchla's extraordinary new 200e modular synth.

This new set of Chinese-built mics offers good-quality vocal and instrument recording on a budget.

A recording amp with switchable choice of output tube type...

Creamware's Minimax is certainly not the first digital emulation of a Minimoog to be released — nor even Creamware's first. But it bucks the recent trend for software recreations of vintage synths — by being hardware. Can it replace the real deal?

With new MIDI sequencing functionality among many other features, Pro Tools v7 is intended to be the ultimate audio and MIDI workstation. Will this release keep Digidesign on top?

The baby of the MSD series of stereo meters gets an overhaul with a new colour LCD panel.

This intriguing new unit from Drawmer lets you split a stereo signal into three bands and then process each band with a different piece of outboard.

Korg's newest workstation heavyweight boasts 32 recording tracks, a powerful 44:12:2 mixer, a programmable drum machine, and up to 11 simultaneous effects — all for under £1000. Read our hands-on report...

M Audio have packaged a fully featured control surface with motorised faders, an 18-input Firewire interface and eight mic preamps in one box — at a very competitive price.

Mackie's new 10-in, 10-out breakout box includes an internal DSP mixer, MIDI connectivity, and four of their high-spec Onyx preamps.

Since its launch in 2000, NI's B4 has been the software instrument of choice for those who want realistic tonewheel organ sounds from their computer. But NI are clearly convinced it can be better...

Where do you turn when you need a multicore that will handle two MIDI lines, a 9V DC power line and a voltage control line?

Sound designer Rob Papen may be best known to you as the man behind amazing sounds for the Access Virus or Alesis Andromeda. Now he's moved into producing software-based synths of his own. So how good is it?

This month: Funk University;  Koncept & Funktion; Chopped Guitars; Downtempo Guitars Volume 2 and Talkbox Guitar.

Dual-core CPUs promise a huge jump in performance at a modest price, while RAID disk arrays can provide both faster and more secure storage. Scan Computers' Athlon-based system features both technologies.

We check out the Takamine Cool Tube acoustic preamp and offer a technique for successfully combining mics and pickups in acoustic guitar recording.

Updating their successful Reveal range, Tannoy have included new high-resolution tweeter technology, sophisticated room-correction EQ, and digital interfacing.

If you fancy Tascam's FW series of Firewire interfaces but don't need their control-surface features, the new FW1804 might be just what you are looking for.

Straightforward facilities, built-in effects processing, and an affordable price make this analogue mixer a good choice for entry-level studio and live setups.

We'd probably all prefer to keep our music PCs insulated from viruses, spyware, adware, phishing and the general nastiness of the Internet, but the way music software is developing makes this increasingly difficult. Find out more...

If you've ever been confronted by the dreaded Blue Screen Of Death, suffered random reboots or faced the frustration of inexplicable PC crashes, read on for some preventative measures...

For the Staple Singers' landmark 1972 Stax album, engineer Terry Manning and producer Al Bell employed the talents of Memphis's finest musicians and two of the South's most famous studios.

Cubase contains many powerful features for processing MIDI data, such as the Logical Editor and Macros. This month we look at how using them together can create some powerful solutions to potentially tedious problems.

If you're ever going to make it in this game, you need a calling card, a way of impressing potential clients with your musical ability — you need a showreel. We explain what to do to create one...

Can you honestly say you use all the features of DP's plug-ins? If not, prepare to be intrigued, as we dig deeper into Dynamics, Multimode Filter, Sonic Modulator and more, in search of the facilities you didn't know were there.

We look at how to combine your hardware and the software-processing within Logic for mastering purposes.

Can't get your mix sounding right? Let SOS sort it out! This month we tackle some eastern European folk music.

With the new single-processor, dual-core Power Macs shipping, we continue to investigate the impact of PCI Express on the Mac audio and music world.

In the first instalment of this two-part article, we examine how you can use Live as a conventional digital audio workstation.

The SOS team get busy at the London studio of a band called South, by transforming the sound of their troublesome monitoring room.

We continue exploring what your sampler's synth engine can do to liven up bland self-sampled sounds, and explain the concepts of layering and multitimbrality.

The New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference has been running for five years, and is a great place to see and discuss new ideas that may provide the musical controllers of the future. SOS was in Vancouver to learn more...

The Cyclone 'groove sampler' DXi, bundled free with Sonar, is a powerful tool that allows loops of all kinds to be dissected, manipulated and generally bent to your will...

This Pro Tools workshop is the first in a series where we will explain how to use Digidesign's DAW to work to picture. First of all, we look at the decisions you need to make in setting up your system.

Here's a simple but highly effective technique for improving your acoustic guitar recordings, especially at home.

I've read about a technique that increases the perceived width of the stereo mix using phase inversion. Can I use this method even though my mixer doesn't have phase-invert buttons?

I'm interested in buying a pair of Alesis Monitor 1 MkIIs. Should I buy the passive versions and a good amp or just go for the active versions, which cost £100 more?

I recently started teaching music technology in a college and was asked to rebuild one of the studios. It uses a 32-channel...

With reference to A-D/D-A converters, what exactly is an 'alias'? How and when do they occur?

I'm looking for advice on what's the best next step for improving my signal chain. I've got a budget of about £1000. I'm writing music to picture...

I do recording work with a number of acoustic performers but I'm having trouble finding a suitable mic for recording vocals...

I'm using a Mackie Control control surface with Cubase SX, and it works fine on audio tracks. However, whenever I select a MIDI track within Cubase, pressing buttons on the Mackie Control seems to trigger random MIDI notes...

The likes of Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins and Nine Inch Nails all owe a sonic debt to engineer/producer John Fryer, who explains his approach to production.

Fast-forward ten years to 2016 and Editor In Chief Paul White pens another thought-provoking leader column...

Your monitoring system is so important that it affects the entire development of your listening and engineering skills.