September 2010 Magazine Contents

Like Wile E. Coyotes spectacular mail-order Acme contraptions, the Opticom has few controls and plenty of attitude — but its rather more successful!

Acoustica's affordable DAW has acquired some significant new features, including video support, score editing and a fully fledged mixer. But has it retained its trademark ease of use?

Just how much does this compact mixer with a built-in audio interface and effects offer the home recordist?

Avid are looking to stay on top of the NLE game as they add a whole host of new features and brand-new editing tools to the latest version of their flagship editing software.

The latest version of BIASs popular restoration software aims to remove even more hassle along with your unwanted noise...

As any craftsman will tell you, if you get the basics right you can build with confidence. In this case we're not talking...

Theres a risk of over-hyping anything that has a link to the heyday of Abbey Road, and theres plenty of buzz about this EMI-inspired EQ — but it seems that in this case it isnt hype.

Take your front-row seat, sit back and enjoy the show — Hollywood Strings is here.

JoeMeek's GBQ pedal combines distortion with their three-band sweep Meequalizer EQ, and runs from an included external power...

Korgs latest keyboard blurs the boundaries between their affordable Micro range and their pro workstations.

In SOS mag's 25th anniversary year, it's nice to see a manufacturer naming their product in our honour. Seriously, though... Korg aim to break the mould with this pocket-sized stereo recorder, which offers overdubbing with no specified track-count limitation.

An electric guitar's tone is complex, but something that contributes to it is the electrical loading on the pickups. Guitars...

Hot on the heels of the impressive Genesis cardioid valve mic, MXL have unveiled their flagship multi-pattern model, the Revelation. Does it live up to its name?

These audio files accompany the SOS September 2010 review of the MXL Revelation microphone.

Sometimes, a dose of old-fashioned good engineering delivers something well worth listening to...

It may be small, but the RME Fireface UC is very powerful and boasts astonishingly low latency.

Rolands Octapad range has been with us in one form or another for an amazing 25 years. What does the latest addition to the family have to offer?

USB mics are nothing new, but the Samson Go Mic is probably the smallest and cutest I've seen to date. This metal-bodied mic,...

Shadow Hills pack a lot of punch into a tiny space, as they combine a hi-tech interior with classic styling in this new API Lunchbox-compatible compressor.

Shure's scantily-titled X2U is a USB mic preamp, and though there have been plenty of such products on the market recently,...

Tom Oberheim has returned to the analogue synth fold with a revised and updated version of his classic 70s monosynth, the celebrated Synthesizer Expander Module.

Given the title, there are no prizes for guessing that the recordings for this sample library were made in Nashville (well,...

Regular readers of our sample library reviews might be forgiven for thinking that Ueberschall's Score FX II is just the same...

Windchimes consists of 20 Kontakt instruments in all, between them featuring two soprano, two alto, three tenor and one bass set of windchimes, a set of horizontally mounted chime bars, small temple bells and a bonus set of rainsticks.

Dont let Vir2s inexplicable 6 put you off: their new virtual guitar instrument is quite special...

Yamahas DTX950K kit combines cutting-edge drum-pad technology, heavy-duty hardware and an advanced brain — but what does it sound like and how does it play?

New to the world of video production and unsure what gear to buy? Our guide to the five best options in three categories will get you started.

When you need to really open up your mix, it's time to employ some classic stereo widening tricks. We show you how to implement them in Pro Tools.

1977's Hotel California saw The Eagles abandon their country origins in favour of full-blown rock & roll, and made them one of the biggest-selling groups in the world. Producer Bill Szymczyk tells SOS how it happened.

Though often overlooked by beginners, colour adjustments can do a lot for footage, from fixing incorrect camera settings to adding some Hollywood sheen.

In SOUND ON SOUND September 2010s printed magazine (and digital editions), we introduced some innovative methods of recording and processing impulse responses. But if you know how to use a program like MATLAB, you can even generate them from scratch.

When is a reverb not a reverb? When it's a filter, of course! There's more to convolution than meets the ear, and creative processing of impulse responses can yield extraordinary results.

These audio files accompany the Creative Convolution: New Sounds From Impulse Responses article.

Learning how to extract MIDI data from Kontakt will allow our scripts to respond to different user actions in different ways, and even to control entire Kontakt Multis at once.

We look at how Live handles control surfaces, and offer some tips for configuring and using them.

If you ever intend to make music to complement visuals, youll need to know the basics of working with video content in Logic Pro.

Singer-songwriter Joe Murphy has been crafting tunes for a few years, but had hit a wall when it came to fine-tuning the arrangement and mix of ‘Casting Shadows’. This month, we embellish some repetitive drums by adding percussion, and get busy with the send effects.

These audio files accompany the Mix Rescue article.

In Cubase 5, Steinberg introduced some powerful batch-export options, which have removed many project archiving and transfer frustrations.

With official support for USB 3 sorely lacking, we'll just have to make the most of its predecessor.

Use Reaper to create an always-on recorder that captures all the inspiration, but none of the chit-chat.

Today's multi-gigabyte drum libraries include some fantastic sounds and groove presets — but they haven't taken all of the work out of creating a great drum part.

These audio files accompany the Programming Realistic Drum Parts article.

If youve never used your own samples in Reason, heres how...

Legendary Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne is still rocking in his sixties. The musical powerhouse behind his latest hit album Scream is producer, engineer, songwriter and instrumentalist Kevin Churko.

Although Snow Leopard is growing in popularity, its not without its problems. Lets look at the solution to one of them...

Sonar can help you produce great normal vocals — but it can also do all kinds of crazy things to your voice...

Vocal booths arent always the right solution to problems with live-room acoustics, but if you do need to build one, it can be done with some DIY skills and a lot of elbow-grease...

No matter how brilliant your music is, TV and film producers will never license it if they cant find it...

I want to get a pair of active monitors to do a bit of home recording and try my hand at producing. I'm not after professional...

I'm curious to know how common the use of re-amping is amongst producers, engineers and composers. There are so many...

I used to record in a very 'old school' way; as 'hot' as possible without clipping, and always watching the meters like a hawk...

To enable very quiet band rehearsals, I am thinking of feeding the whole band setup into my Behringer RX1602 Eurorack Pro...

I've worked with tape and ADAT in the past, but have been out of recording for a few years. I'm just getting back into it and...

Do you have any pointers on making a great sub‑bass synth sound to underpin bass lines? It seems to be one of those things...

While today's recording technology is far more affordable than it was when I started out, those early systems at least had the advantage of simplicity.

Session players add enormously to music of all kinds. But are we paying them enough to make it worth their while?

Nashville heavy-hitter Paul Worley was so impressed by Lady Antebellum that he gave up his high-profile job at Warner Bros to produce them. With Clarke Schleicher at the desk, the gamble paid off in style.

Ben Phelps * Sean Taylor * Deerstone Country * We Know Mason * Third Light * The Quays * A Torn Mind * Metamorphic * Empire State * The Constabulary

Some broadcasters will stop at nothing to save money, even if that means blatantly ripping off composers. So always look at the small print before you leap.