Page 45 - Full Issue News Today

Orchestral Tools LA Sessions Berlin meets Los Angeles in a creative partnership no‑one saw coming! A surprise departure sees Orchestral Tools go west to look for America. It’s always good to see sound companies try something new. Some do it on a regular basis — Soniccouture are known for their experimental titles, Soundiron have a hot line in unusual instruments and Spitfire Audio usually have something unpredictable in the pipeline. Other developers veer off course in a sudden rad...

Korg Opsix Korg’s Opsix takes FM synthesis to places it’s never been before. When Korg showed a couple of concept synths at the 2020 NAMM Convention many eyes turned to something called the Opsix, which looked much like a 21st‑century DX7; solid, and complete with a full‑size five‑octave keyboard. But when the pre‑production Opsix was deposited on my doorstep a few months ago it was a very different beastie — small, light, and with a 37‑note keyboard. So, how well has Ko...

Sequential Prophet-5 & Prophet-10 A conquering hero returns to the fray after long years in exile. Does the new Prophet Rev 4 still have the power to take on the world? Great excitement here at Stewart HQ as a courier drops off an eagerly anticipated package. No reflection on the UPS delivery service, but I’ve been waiting 20 years for this: since reluctantly putting my beloved Prophet‑5 analogue synth out to pasture in 2001 I’d lived in hope of finding a suitable replacement but, des...

Digital Performer: Bounce To Disk Options MOTU Digital Performer Tips & Techniques Starting with version 10.1, MOTU added significant new functionality to DP’s Bounce‑to‑Disk window. In DP 10.1, MOTU significantly expanded Bounce To Disk with the addition of real‑time, multi‑output, and track‑by‑track bouncing. Digital Performer has always had a robust Bounce To Disk (BTD) implementation, but starting in DP 10.1, MOTU significantly expanded it. Most notable is the addition...

Logic Pro & External Hardware Screen 1: Setting up your ins and outs. It’s not always obvious in Logic Pro X how to go about incorporating hardware into your workflow; we show you how. Almost as soon as music began to be recorded digitally, engineers felt they were losing a certain ‘something’ from not driving the audio through tubes, transistors and transformers. As the emulation of analogue electronics has improved, many have moved completely ‘in the box’ for convenience and recal...

Scoring With Studio One 5.1 PreSonus Studio One Tips & Techniques Metadata such as title, artist and composer that you enter into the Song Setup window will be displayed on the score. Version 5.1 recently dropped and it includes score printing and more besides. We explore the new features in the Score Editor. One of the brand‑new features of Studio One 5 was the Score Editor. Composers and the musically adept could now view their music in a more traditional form. This has been possib...

NUGEN Audio Paragon Have you ever wished convolution reverbs could be a little more malleable? If the name Paragon sounds familiar, it might be because you read Sam Inglis’ article in SOS November 2020 (https://sosm.ag/Paragon) about the genesis of this NUGEN Audio plug‑in. And if you haven’t read that article yet, I’d urge you to do so before reading this review, as Paragon is no ‘ordinary’ reverb plug‑in and Sam’s article provides helpful background to its development and und...

Korg Volca Sample 2 Korg rework their popular Volca Sample with some welcome additions. In his review of the original Korg Volca Sample in the SOS February 2015 edition, Paul Nagle believed it to be “the most versatile Volca yet,” and he’s not wrong. With the aptly named successor, the Volca Sample 2, it retains everything Paul liked about it and all the things he didn’t because it is almost entirely the same machine. The only noticeable changes to the exterior are a USB port that has...

Access Analog Love the sound of high‑end analogue kit, but don’t have the space or the money to buy it? No problem... Access Analog is both a business name and a mission statement. The goal is simple: to make high‑end studio equipment available to everyone who would like to use it. Perhaps you’d love to mix through analogue outboard, but can’t afford it. Maybe you work on the road and you can’t always be where your hardware is. Or possibly you’ve reluctantly given up on outboard...

Novation AFX Station Novation have injected the Bass Station II with a healthy dose of Aphex acid. Anything sporting the name of IDM superstar Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, aka AFX, is likely to get a lot of attention in synth circles. Novation got quite the scoop back in 2019 when they updated the original Bass Station II synth with ‘AFX Mode’ as a free software update for all users. They also added a slew of other new features since the Bass Station II’s original release back in ...