The Plugin Issue

Turn On, Plugin, and
Rock Out!

Welcome to the September issue of RECORDING Magazine. The focus of this issue is all about plugins! We love plugins, and face it, your DAW would be a lonely place without a healthy complement of the latest and greatest plugins and soft-synths to keep your sessions super-charged and creative.

Reviews

We have 15 new products on review this month, and eight of them are, you guessed it–plugins!

For our reverb-focused friends, we bring you the Strymon Cloudburst, Soundtoys SpaceBlender and sonible smart:reverb 2. We bounce around the room with the latest 1.5 update to InDelay from Sound Particles.

Next, we check out the PSPaudioware PSP DRC dynamic range compressor, Baby Audio Smooth Operator Pro and the vocal processing-focused Noiseworks DynAssist. Once again, we have a product (in this case, another plugin) so hot off the presses that we can’t talk about it just yet.

Shifting our focus from plugins to soft synths, we have a play with the latest synth offerings in the Arturia V-Collection 11.

Also in the software realm, we find out the “score” with Steinberg Dorico 6.

Straddling both the hardware and software worlds, we have the new Slate Digital ML-1A virtual modeling microphone.

Moving to the hardware synth arena, we bring you the new Moog Messenger and the SOMA Labs Lyra 4.

Last but absolutely not least, we dig into the world of Dante connectivity with the just-released RedNet TNX Thunderbolt and Dante interface alongside the RedNet A16R MkII 16-channel Dante interface, both from Focusrite.

Interview

Norman Petty Studios
Located in Clovis, New Mexico, Norman Petty Recording Studio is one of the most famous recording studios that you have probably never heard of. Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Waylon Jennings all recorded there. Our editor, Paul Vnuk Jr., traveled there to learn about the history of the studio, check out the space and the gear in what is considered one of, if not the most authentic, vintage recording studios in the world. We sit down with studio historian Ron Skinner, and we also talk with Matt Kleinman, CEO of KIT plugins, to hear about the partnership between this classic studio and this noted plugin company. [GET IT HERE]

Features

Textural Tactics—Plugins for video game sound design
Multi-award-winning composer and technical music designer, Chase Bethea, returns to the pages of RECORDING with a look at some of his favorite plugins that he uses in the world of video game design. [GET IT HERE]

In Studio 101, Joe Albano continues his year-long series of setting up a personal studio with the first of a two-part look at, you guessed it—plugins. [GET IT HERE]

Dave Martin also talks about plugins in this month’s RECORDING Techniques with consideration of analog mixing desks and their plugin counterparts. [GET IT HERE]

Giles Reaves is back with another round of RECORDING Field Notes [GET IT HERE], Mark Hornsby is back with Inside the Studio [GET IT HERE], and in our Fade Out this month, we welcome Nithin Cherian with his take on AI in the audio world.

All this and more awaits in the September issue. It’s a great time to get Plugged In to RECORDING.