Archives
January 2009
JANUARY 2009: THE WORLD OF SAMPLE LIBRARIES
Sample libraries and virtual instruments make it possible to collect entire symphony orchestras, jazz bands, world-music ensembles, and any other instrument you can think of, and put them into your computer for use in your songs. Pretty cool stuff... but there's a little bit of learning to do before you dive in. In this issue of Recording, we help you do just that.
You'll find articles on the passing of great sample-library technologies (Giga) and the birth of new ones (PLAY), in-depth reviews of astoundingly powerful virtual instruments from big-band jazz to soundtrack symphony, and an in-depth look at a sample recording session for a major library maker, with hints on how to get your own recordings library-ready.
All this plus a slate of really cool reviews, our monthly columns, Readers' Tapes with Marty Peters (now online), and much more. Dive into the world of sample libraries without fear, and learn lots more besides, in the January RECORDING! Pick it up now on the newsstand... and so you get your next issue early (and save on cost), why not hit the big red Subscribe Now button on this page and have RECORDING delivered to your door each month?
A-Designs HAMMER
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Reviewed by
Justin Peacock
A-Designs HAMMER |
Reviewed by
Justin Peacock
A rack eq that's equal parts science and magic.
“Are you serious?” asked Dave. We were cutting electric guitars and I had strapped the A-Designs Hammer eq across the channel. I was tweaking it and everyone loved the sound: Rickenbac......Expand
A rack eq that's equal parts science and magic.
“Are you serious?” asked Dave. We were cutting electric guitars and I had strapped the A-Designs Hammer eq across the channel. I was tweaking it and everyone loved the sound: Rickenbacker electric, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Fender Super Reverb, Royer R-122, A-Designs P-1 preamp, Universal Audio LA-2A compressor and, last but not least, the Hammer eq. “That’s a sweet signal chain!” I thought to myself.
Then, as I often do when I’m playing with a new eq, I bypassed the Hammer....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Frontier Design AlphaTrack
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Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
Frontier Design AlphaTrack |
Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a smart control surface with moving-fader automation in your laptop bag? Now you can.
Control surfaces are hot right now—everyone wants one, and several companies are making them. They can make you more e......Expand
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a smart control surface with moving-fader automation in your laptop bag? Now you can.
Control surfaces are hot right now—everyone wants one, and several companies are making them. They can make you more efficient during both tracking and mixing, and often help create a more organic and interesting mix. However, standard control surfaces can take a lot of desk space, while many project studios are already terribly short of desk space.
Frontier Designs has created an alternative to the mixing-desk-style control surface: the AlphaTrack. While still a desktop unit, it saves an enormous amount of space by reducing the fader count to one (!) while still attempting to provide all of the functions you would find necessary in a smaller studio....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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EASTWEST Quantum Leap StormDrum 2 and Quantum Leap Pianos
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Reviewed by
Devon Brent and Gary Eskow
EASTWEST Quantum Leap StormDrum 2 and Quantum Leap Pianos |
Reviewed by
Devon Brent and Gary Eskow
The new PLAY engine makes its debut in a pair of stunning sound libraries.
EASTWEST, a visionary company since the early days of sampling, has clearly designed Quantum Leap Pianos with the next generation of computers in mind—and th......Expand
The new PLAY engine makes its debut in a pair of stunning sound libraries.
EASTWEST, a visionary company since the early days of sampling, has clearly designed Quantum Leap Pianos with the next generation of computers in mind—and the time when all popular DAW formats will be 64-bit compatible. The PLAY engine, made by East West for this new library and its siblings like StormDrum 2 (reviewed by Devon Brent elsewhere in this article), is fully 64-bit to take advantage of more system RAM...
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Sonic Reality Ocean Way Drums
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Reviewed by
Nick Casares
Sonic Reality Ocean Way Drums |
Reviewed by
Nick Casares
We’ve discussed the technology and shown you the recording sessions: now it’s time to review the results.
More hit records have been recorded at Ocean Way Studios than you would probably believe. Dig through the liner notes on your ......Expand
We’ve discussed the technology and shown you the recording sessions: now it’s time to review the results.
More hit records have been recorded at Ocean Way Studios than you would probably believe. Dig through the liner notes on your favorite CDs and you’ll no doubt find tracks that were recorded or mixed at this illustrious studio. From Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, nearly all of the modern greats have stepped inside the halls of Ocean Way at some point in their career.
Why have some many musical giants flocked to Ocean Way to record? Aside from the world-class producers and engineers that frequent its control rooms, Ocean Way has a sound and equipment list that’s hard find anywhere else. Through an almost magical combination of acoustics and equipment, Ocean Way has “the” sound that has shaped so many modern hits.
A large part of “that” sound comes from great drum tracks... and great drum tracks come from, you guessed it, great drum sounds. But how can you get those sounds if you’re not an A-list artist with a million dollar budget and a world-class engineer?
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Reviewed and Revisited: BIAS Peak Pro XT 6
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Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
Reviewed and Revisited: BIAS Peak Pro XT 6 |
Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
This popular Mac editing/mastering/burning software gains interface clarity, new features, and a powerful set of optional add-ons.
One of the oldest of Mac-based audio tools is BIAS Inc.’s Peak editor. Dating back to the days of OS ......Expand
This popular Mac editing/mastering/burning software gains interface clarity, new features, and a powerful set of optional add-ons.
One of the oldest of Mac-based audio tools is BIAS Inc.’s Peak editor. Dating back to the days of OS 7, Peak is a workhorse for the most demanding editing tasks available. As the software has grown, so have its capabilities; it now includes advanced playlist editing and CD mastering, many new DSP effects, and a slick new interface. But at the core of Peak’s popularity have always been its amazingly fast editing functions and pro-level formatting capabilities. Luckily for us users, these advantages have not only been maintained but also improved....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Fable Sounds Broadway Big Band
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Reviewed by
Gary Eskow
Fable Sounds Broadway Big Band |
Reviewed by
Gary Eskow
The feel and power of a jazz and theater orchestra, with impressive results.
Early last year Fable Sounds released a new virtual instrument called Broadway Big Band, distributed exclusively by the Massachusetts-based sample library ......Expand
The feel and power of a jazz and theater orchestra, with impressive results.
Early last year Fable Sounds released a new virtual instrument called Broadway Big Band, distributed exclusively by the Massachusetts-based sample library developer SONiVOX. Based on the quality of the pre-release demos circulating on the internet, this widely anticipated title—the brainchild of Yuval Shrem and Amit Itzkovich, founders of Fable Sounds (www.fablesounds.com)—had attracted lots of attention, particularly among musicians anxious to acquire horn samples that can help them shape pop, Latin, and big-band lines comparable to those crafted by composers who emulate orchestral performances....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Project SAM Symphobia
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Reviewed by
Kevin Fletcher Tweedy
Project SAM Symphobia |
Reviewed by
Kevin Fletcher Tweedy
A new high-end orchestral sample library with stunning sounds and a powerful performance software layer.
Vincent Beijer, Marco Deegenaars and Maarten Spruijt founded Project SAM in the Netherlands in 2002 in a manner that seems shar......Expand
A new high-end orchestral sample library with stunning sounds and a powerful performance software layer.
Vincent Beijer, Marco Deegenaars and Maarten Spruijt founded Project SAM in the Netherlands in 2002 in a manner that seems shared by a number of other high-quality libraries: out of the necessity to have quality resources for their own work. From the time the three joined forces, they have produced sample libraries specially aimed at film, television and game composers, including True Strike, True Strike 2, Flute and Piccolo Effects, SAM Organ Mystique, SAM Solo Sessions, SAM Trumpets, SAM Trombones, and SAM Horns....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Redmatica Compendium
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Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
Redmatica Compendium |
Reviewed by
Darwin Grosse
Three tools that will have you cleaning up your samples and building your own virtual instruments in no time.
The Logic community (now supported by Apple) is large, technically savvy and demanding. Chief among Logic’s many bundled p......Expand
Three tools that will have you cleaning up your samples and building your own virtual instruments in no time.
The Logic community (now supported by Apple) is large, technically savvy and demanding. Chief among Logic’s many bundled plug-ins is the EXS24 software sampler—arguably the most powerful “free” sampler plug-in available. In some ways, though, its strengths (massive sample support, flawless integration with Logic) can also be frustrating; neither sample management nor instrument editing are particularly sophisticated. EXS24 has been around for a long time and hasn’t been updated lately, and it shows.
Redmatica Srl, based out of Italy, has created some relief for EXS users, offering products for sample management, automatic sound sampling and instrument editing. The company has combined all of these products into one massive bundle called Compendium, with a surprising number of features at a very reasonable price, and it’s now easy to get here in the USA....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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sE Electronics SE220OA Mic
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Reviewed by
Fernando Curiel
sE Electronics SE220OA Mic |
Reviewed by
Fernando Curiel
This large-diaphragm condenser mic is a solid performer in the studio.
This large-diaphragm condenser mic is a solid performer in the studio.
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2008 AES Convention Report
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Written by
Mike Metlay
2008 AES Convention Report |
Written by
Mike Metlay
A quick look at some of the cool gear that we saw in San Francisco...
The tone at the 125th AES Convention in San Francisco, October 3–5, 2008, was surprisingly upbeat considering the state of the economy. The show was a bit smaller......Expand
A quick look at some of the cool gear that we saw in San Francisco...
The tone at the 125th AES Convention in San Francisco, October 3–5, 2008, was surprisingly upbeat considering the state of the economy. The show was a bit smaller than in previous years, moving to a slightly smaller hall at the Moscone Center, but there was a lot of foot traffic among the exhibitor booths, and the people at the show were interested and excited about the new technology coming online in 2009....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Sonic Reality Drum Sampling Sessions
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Written by
Mark Hornsby
Sonic Reality Drum Sampling Sessions |
Written by
Mark Hornsby
Drum sampling sessions with a difference—recreating classic sounds for the Studio ProFiles series.
Sampling has become a major part of music production over the past 20 years. Nowadays, there’s almost no type of sound you can’t dupl......Expand
Drum sampling sessions with a difference—recreating classic sounds for the Studio ProFiles series.
Sampling has become a major part of music production over the past 20 years. Nowadays, there’s almost no type of sound you can’t duplicate within a computer. With that, there is a major demand in some circles to re-create or capture the sounds of the classic records of years past.
When I met Dave Kerzner of Sonic Reality (Miroslav Philharmonik, Sonik Synth 2, and of course the Ocean Way Drums library whose recording was discussed in our October 2008 issue and which is itself reviewed this month), we instantly hit it off. We both had an appreciation for the record production of many different styles of music. Drums always being a popular topic, I told him that I thought we could re-create the sound of classic drum tracks like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Motown, Big Band, etc. if we could find a new and proactive way to present them to the public....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Getting Ready To PLAY
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Written by
Devon Brent
Getting Ready To PLAY |
Written by
Devon Brent
EASTWEST has made much of its new playback engine, PLAY... Here’s what you need to know before diving in.
Oh, how the times have changed! Sample libraries have now grown into multi-Gigabyte monstrosities with multiple velocity layer......Expand
EASTWEST has made much of its new playback engine, PLAY... Here’s what you need to know before diving in.
Oh, how the times have changed! Sample libraries have now grown into multi-Gigabyte monstrosities with multiple velocity layers, multiple articulations, no looping, and just plain more more more of everything... EASTWEST, one of the biggest sample content providers around recently shifted from using Native Instruments’ sample playback engine as its format of choice to its own custom-coded PLAY program to run its gargantuan libraries. What does one need to get in the game with PLAY? Let’s take a look....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Recording's Bass Column
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Written by
Dave Martin
Recording's Bass Column |
Written by
Dave Martin
More famous bass tracks! This time we head for Muscle Shoals and the recording of “I’ll Take You There.”
There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when rhythm sections defined the sound of the records that came from a given studio or ......Expand
More famous bass tracks! This time we head for Muscle Shoals and the recording of “I’ll Take You There.”
There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when rhythm sections defined the sound of the records that came from a given studio or record label—and producers and artists were willing to make the trek to some rather out-of-the-way locations to work with these groups of musicians.
As an example, there’s Muscle Shoals Sound in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The house band of this musician-owned studio included Roger Hawkins, David Hood, Barry Beckett and Jimmy Johnson. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section recorded hit records with everyone from Paul Simon (“Kodachrome”) to Bob Seger (“Old Time Rock and Roll”).
Today’s subject is David Hood’s bass track on the Staples Singers’ classic “I’ll Take You There”....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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The Death Of Giga
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Written by
Devon Brent
The Death Of Giga |
Written by
Devon Brent
GigaStudio is history—a lot of sample library users have been orphaned, but all is not lost...
Back in 1998, Nemesys Music Technology brought GigaSampler into the world— the first streaming-from-disk audio sampler for the PC. GigaSa......Expand
GigaStudio is history—a lot of sample library users have been orphaned, but all is not lost...
Back in 1998, Nemesys Music Technology brought GigaSampler into the world— the first streaming-from-disk audio sampler for the PC. GigaSampler warped into GigaStudio in its GigaStudio 96 and 160 guises in the year 2000. All was quiet on the version 3.0 front for many years, as TASCAM had gobbled up the mighty Nemesys in 2001.
Finally in 2004, TASCAM released GigaStudio 3 with some much needed improvements, but was it too little too late? Soon after the release of version 4 in May 2008, TASCAM chimed the death knell for the whole GigaStudio line, including the stand-alone GVI, or Giga Virtual Instrument edition, in July 2008. The multi-Gigabyte libraries available for GigaStudio enjoyed a huge popularity among professionals and hobbyist—what will fill the void?
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Recording's Vocal Column
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Written by
Michael Nickolas
Recording's Vocal Column |
Written by
Michael Nickolas
Recording children’s vocals is challenging but rewarding. Here are some tips to help get you started.
According to the New York Times, CD sales fell 9.5% in 2007 while Nielsen SoundScan reported that children’s music sales were up 3......Expand
Recording children’s vocals is challenging but rewarding. Here are some tips to help get you started.
According to the New York Times, CD sales fell 9.5% in 2007 while Nielsen SoundScan reported that children’s music sales were up 38% during the same year! Catering to clients and artists working in the children’s music business could augment the more typical band and singer-songwriter recording work you may already be doing....
Read more in the January 2009 issue of RECORDING!
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Fade Out
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Written by
Alex Hawley with Tom Hawley
Fade Out |
Written by
Alex Hawley with Tom Hawley
The TAXI Road Rally: A Young Songwriter’s-Eye View.
As soon as I walked through the door I knew this was going to be an amazing experience. The line for registration ran through the hotel lobby out the back door and into the parking......Expand
The TAXI Road Rally: A Young Songwriter’s-Eye View.
As soon as I walked through the door I knew this was going to be an amazing experience. The line for registration ran through the hotel lobby out the back door and into the parking garage. I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s a lot of songwriters all in one place!”
The rally seemed like a backstage pass to the music industry’s inner workings. It was a huge eye opener to me to see how everything really works. My experience there was nothing short of inspiring. After I got back from the rally, I really wanted to call in sick from school for an entire week just so I could lock myself in my studio. I took more notes in one weekend then I think I did all year at school! Yeah, I learned that much....
Read more in the January 2009 RECORDING!
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