December 2021 Magazine Contents

The SOS team pick their highlights from recent hardware and software launches.

Reunited with the much‑loved Alice brand after many years, has Ted Fletcher managed to breathe new life into this classic compact mixer?

Alto’s new TX range is portable, compact and cost‑effective. What’s not to like?

Do Arturia’s MiniFuses go off with a bang or fizzle out with a whimper?

British bass‑amp brand Ashdown’s debut monitor is inspired by the classic BBC LS3/5a. How does it compare with the real deal?

Audix are renowned for their dynamic mics, but their latest model is a high‑end electret design intended to compete with some of the best instrument mics in the world.

Austrian Audio deliver a 21st Century take on a famous ‘pencil’ mic design.

Blackstar Dept. 10 Boost is part of a series of pedals that use full‑voltage, dual‑triode valves to provide the touch responsiveness of a valve amplifier.

Cherry Audio recreate Moog’s classic polysynth at a fraction of a fraction of the price of an original.

FAC Drumkit is a flexible drum synth and sample player.

The latest addition to Focusrite’s AI‑powered Collective makes great‑sounding reverbs easy to achieve.

This keenly priced device offers a bit more control than most valve compressors.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. These cinematic libraries focus on bowed guitar and bowed piano textures.

It may be super-compact, but the MX5 punches well above its price tag. What’s not to like?

IK go pro with desktop and keyboard versions of their expanded UNO Synth.

This upgraded sequencer module maintains all the key traits that made its predecessor a hit while expanding its horizons with a second gate and CV track, three auxiliary inputs, two assignable control knobs, on‑the‑fly playability and a cavalcade of new modulation options.

iZotope’s popular audio restoration tool has been treated to some significant improvements.

M‑Audio go Pro with a new Oxygen controller keyboard.

Novation’s Circuit Rhythm offers portable immediacy and a surprising amount of depth.

A four‑band side‑chain EQ is just one of many nice touches in this new take on an analogue classic.

Session Recall is a boon for those who still mix out of the box using a plethora of non‑recallable analogue equipment.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Bold is a sound library with a colourful user interface that features sampled drums, effects/Foley, keys and bass sounds.

At heart, it models the same hardware as Slate’s FG‑2A, but Custom Opto’s tweaks make it useful on so many more sources!

Have Slate Digital perfected real‑time pitch‑correction?

As well as upgrades to its fundamental algorithms, Gullfoss now includes both low‑latency Live and high‑resolution Mastering editions.

Spitfire’s blockbuster percussion library makes a big impact.

This 8‑pole variable character stereo filter has an analogue core with digital control...

The latest lavish offering from Bjooks collects some of the world’s rarest and most desirable synths between its covers.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. If your next musical project needs to create the authentic sound of an old‑school, late‑night jazz club, Ueberschall’s Jazz Works series might make a great place to start.

Universal Audio target newcomers to recording with a range of affordable USB interfaces.

The Wangulator is a performance controller for Eurorack that was designed by someone with a need to get all their fingers modulating different things all at once.

With user-adjustable crossover points, Spread splits the audio signal into four bands, each of which can be adjusted for stereo width and ‘tilt’.

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. This loop‑based instrument uses threerhythmic layers plus processing to create rhythm loops, sequencer‑like riffs, pulses, grooves and even shifting textures.

The three albums Mike Thorne produced for Wire showed that there was much, much more to punk than met the eye.

Want to create your own signature sounds? Cubase makes sound design easy.

These audio files and captions accompany December 2021's Cubase Sound Design main article.

Elfman recently released his latest solo album, Big Mess, and chose a track from the album as his favourite sonic achievement.

British guitar band The Lathums achieved the rare feat of topping the charts with their debut album. Mix engineer Caesar Edmunds was at the controls.

We dig deeper into the audio and MIDI effects included with Live 11.

Logic Pro X contains everything you need to add high‑quality audio to your videos. Let's find out how...

The epic soundtrack to the Guardians Of The Galaxy video game is one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by a single composer. In our exclusive feature, Richard Jacques describes how he created nearly six hours of high-impact orchestral music

Navigating the Edit Window is key to speeding up your Pro Tools workflow.

The new 5.4 update includes intelligent chord detection, plug-in nap, M1 compatibility and much more.

The creator of the Blumlein‑Pfanzagl‑Triple mic array describes its development, as well as its use at a recent Salzburg Festival event.

To transform multiple takes into truly great vocal tracks, you might need to look further than your DAW’s built‑in comping tools.

I’m about to be given an old mixer to play with in my studio and am planning to check each input and output, check the EQ does...

If I open a 16‑bit, 96kHz audio file, resample it to 48kHz, and then export it again, still at 16 bits, do I need to apply dither?

I got a separate 1TB drive to use with NI Komplete and told NI’s Native Access installer app to put the plug‑ins/apps on the system drive and the sample data on the external drive, and left it overnight...

Comping is an intrinsic part of modern record production. It’s something we all have to do...

Rob Puricelli talks to Ian Boddy, who has been a fixture on the electronic music scene for over 40 years, as an artist, a sound designer and a label owner.

One of Ireland’s busiest producers, John Murphy applies his love of studio experimentation to noise‑rock and traditional folk alike.

Synth Gems 1 sets out to document, both visually and in words, some of the most incredible keyboard synthesizers ever made. Hear how it came to be...

Newcastle‑based singer and producer Beth Jeans Houghton, aka Du Blonde, enters the quick-fire questions round...

SOS reader Ashley Pomeroy celebrates the creative power of gates.

Daniel Blackmer, Director of Engineering at Earthworks Audio, explains the company's distinctive approach to microphone design.