April 2016 Magazine Contents

Will Alesis’s affordable sample–triggering percussion pad prove hard to beat?

GarageBand 2.1 now  supports the iPad Pro, but also has new features to benefit all users. When you start a new Song, you now have the option to use Tracks (as before) or the new Live Loops.

A fully-weighted master keyboard at this price is unheard of. Is the KeyLab 88 too good to be true?

The Amplifire promises great sound, plentiful options, ease of use — and the ability to load your own cabinet impulse responses.

So you think ribbon mics don’t belong in front of stage vocalists? This classy design from Beyer might make you change your mind...

Designed by Sonicsmiths and released through Big Fish Audio, The Foundry is a Kontakt 5 virtual instrument that is aimed most obviously at sound designers.

This new version of Dangerous Music’s popular summing amp incorporates both technical and practical improvements.

Heavyocity soar into orbit with a collection of dramatic scoring elements.

Polish company IGS Audio’s Tubecore is back, with more facilities and more options. What’s not to like?

Physically, the AXOS Panner is a compact free-standing control unit, which connects via a single USB cable to the DAW host....

Manikin have shrunk their Mellotron emulator down to desktop module size, but how will it measure up?

My pedalboard seems to be in a permanent state of being rebuilt, and this time around I decided I needed a better power supply...

If you’re wary of using closed–back headphones for mixing, this stylish design might just change your mind.

Rhythmic Robot strike again — and with a double whammy! I can only speculate about this labour of love, feeding an Emulator II with a near–endless supply of 5.25–inch floppy disks.

Soft-synth specialist Rob Papen has branched out into the world of processors — but his RP EQ is no ordinary equaliser.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Roger Linn’s latest creation aims to bring unprecedented expressivity to MIDI musicians.

By concentrating only on the components that matter, Roswell have managed to create a classic-sounding mic with a budget price tag.

These files accompany the Sample Shop articles in the April 2016 issue of SOS.

Schertler are no strangers to the art of amplifying stringed instruments, and their latest designs don’t disappoint.

The MV88 is entering a increasingly crowded market, so does it have what is needed to win it a good slice of the action?

The first product from Austrian developers Sonible aims to raise the IQ of EQ.

Venerable British company Soundcraft have delved into their past to create this analogue mixer with a USB–flavoured twist...

The latest Cubase update connects Steinberg’s DAW to the cloud, but also brings plenty of improvements for earthbound users.

As George Harrison once told my friend Martin Smith at Streetly Electronics, “History is bollocks. If you weren’t there, you don’t know.”

Small Upright is part of Toontrack’s EZkeys range of products which includes a virtual pipe organ, Mellotron, Clavinet...

We’ve all had those ‘if only I could get rid of the drums!’ moments. Zynaptiq’s innovative plug–in promises to do just that.

We explore the additive synthesis capabilities of Alchemy in Logic Pro X.

Recording the centrepiece of Spiritualized’s celebrated space rock masterpiece took engineer Darren Allison on a trip into the unexpected.

What do you get if you cross Frank Sinatra and Queen? Producer Jake Sinclair and mixer Claudius Mittendorfer helped Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie find out...

Live’s Simpler makes layering multiple sounds easy.

A directory of all media pages that hold the associated media files for April 2016 audio examples.

War Kites: We help a talented indie band achieve a more polished sound from their home recordings.

War Kites: We help a talented indie band achieve a more polished sound from their home recordings.

For 15 years, Marc Carolan has been in charge of the live sound for one of the biggest — and most technically ambitious — bands in the world.

Pro Tools 12.3 sees the introduction of the invaluable Fade Presets, as well as an improved Batch Fades dialogue.

Reaper 5.11’s new Subprojects facility opens up entirely new ways of working.

Reason’s Block feature is the key to turning loops and ideas into fully–fledged songs.

Use Sonar’s Z3TA+ synth to create exciting rhythmic effects.

Hannes Keseberg: our engineer helps an artist fake a big-ensemble sound by layering recordings of a string quintet.

Hannes Keseberg: our engineer helps an artist fake a big-ensemble sound by layering recordings of a string quintet.

Keep on top of fast-moving sessions with Studio One’s Layers and Versions.

What’s the ‘secret’? Shall I not bother with gating them.

Bearing in mind my room is untreated and I do the bulk of my mixing on headphones.

I’ve got to the point at mixdown where I’d usually be thinking about sending everything through a couple of global reverbs/delays with a view to simulating a soundstage. Would this have actually been possible for a mix engineer in that decade?

The humble speaker stand or desktop speaker platform can make a huge difference to the sound in your room.

I’m sure I recall being told that computers were invented in order to make life easier. While they can probably handle more calculations in a millisecond than I could in a lifetime, there are still aspects that are incredibly frustrating.

How do you extract a complete album from a dysfunctional band with no finished songs? Drag them to a remote residential studio — in winter...

We sit down with Chambers and producer/engineer Richard Flack (Joe Strummer, Rudimental, Paloma Faith) in Guy’s beautifully equipped Sleeper Sounds studio in West London.

This month Aaron Gill suggests you focus on what you have.

This month tracks from Krept & Konan, Fleur East, One Direction, Rod Stewart, Tame Impala and our Classic Mix is Britney Spears ‘Toxic’.

Many world-class recording facilities have built up their reputations over half a century or more. Clouds Hill, however, has risen to the top in a mere decade.

Sound libraries are great, but making your own sound effects is more fun — and more individual.

As the role of studios changes, so too must that of the new generation of studio managers.