Computer / Software

Martin Walker's looking through tinted glasses at this latest offering from Prosoniq...

Paul White cruises down memory lane in style, with the bargain-priced M-Tron Mellotron soundalike VST Instrument plug-in.

Bucking the trend for elaborate 'virtual studio' graphic interfaces and bloated feature sets, Making Waves is designed to allow you to get into making music quickly and straightforwardly, on even a modestly specified PC. John Walden puts it through its paces.

Nicholas Rowland tries out the new features in MOTU's ever-evolving flagship Macintosh sequencing package.

Paul White boldy goes where no man has been B4!

Nemesys' Gigasampler proved that a fast PC could compete with the latest hardware samplers, and provided some features they simply couldn't match — such as sampled instruments many gigabytes in size. Now the company has updated the range to include two new products. Martin Walker asks if rackmount samplers have finally met their Nemesys...

Paul White evaluates the latest Logic Audio update and discovers that as well as a host of new features, Windows users also get a brand-new audio engine.

PC users have had to wait almost two years for many of the improvements which graced version 4 of Steinberg's popular sequencing package on the Mac platform. Now, however, they've leapfrogged straight to version 5, a major upgrade which incorporates all of those improvements and more. Martin Walker finds out if the wait was worthwhile.

TC have come up with a new twist on the analogue synth emulation theme by providing modular oscillator, filter and envelope blocks that can be combined with VST effects. Paul White tries a few variations.

Waldorf have emulated the original PPG Wave digital synthesizer in software for use as a VST Instrument. Paul White tries out the virtual Wave.

Emagic's virtual sampler provides Logic Audio users with a practical alternative to hardware-based sampling. Paul White puts it to the test.

Adaptec's Toast is already the most widely used CD-burning software for the Mac, thanks to licensing deals that have seen it given away with most CD writers. The latest update sees it now being sold as part of a tasty bundle, incorporating other useful applications and a CD labelling device. Mike Simmons finds out if it's too good to be true...

Auto‑Tune first started out as a TDM plug‑in (reviewed in SOS August '97), but subsequently...

Formats: Mac VST, PC VST, Wavelab, DirectX

Reviewed: PC versions

Steinberg's Mastering Edition...

Bitheadz' Unity DS1 is one of the best-established software samplers, and the latest incarnation offers several major new features, including DirectConnect support for use with Pro Tools. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser sample its delights.

Style-generation software Band-in-a-box is one of the many still-thriving music programs that started life on the Atari. These days, it's very much a home in the latest Mac- and PC-based studios, as Vic Lennard and Martin Walker discovers.

Though high-quality, real-time pitch-shifting is now becoming a reality, this technology comes with a high price tag. Many musicians will therefore continue to rely on offline processes to carry out pitch and timing manipulations. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser do just that, with Prosoniq's Time Factory...

Physical modelling may be fashionable, but it isn't always very controllable. AAS aim to change all that for PC owners, by equipping their Tassman software synth with an easy-to-use front end. Martin Walker enters a new world of generators and resonators.

Effectively a drum machine in plug-in form, Steinberg's new LM4 offers the seamless integration with Cubase that is the boon of all VST instruments, as well as claiming far better timing than any MIDI device. Martin Walker pounds the PC beat, while Paul Ward delivers the Mac perspective.

We already have software to sort out tuning problems and now Synchro Arts are providing AudioSuite tools to cure timing problems. Paul White's musical skills prove ideal to test this software to the full!

The ability to record multitrack audio with 24/96 capability is something you'd expect from any modern MIDI + Audio sequencer. SEKD's flagship software package does this and a whole lot more besides, including 5.1 and two-channel surround mixing and direct CD burning without the need for a separate application. Martin Walker finds out how it's done.