By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The ART Pro Channel is a tube-based mic preamp, compressor / limiter, and four-band parametric EQ. It combines the essentials from ART's tube preamp, optical compressor, and EQ into a single, 2U package.

Features

The preamp section is a hybrid tube / solid-state preamp, incorporating a solid-state variable front end feeding a fixed-gain tube circuit. A variable (15 Hz - 150 Hz) low-cut control is provided. The preamp is controlled by two gain knobs and a +20 dB gain switch. The first gain knob and the switch control the solid-state amplification that feeds the tube circuit. The other gain knob is post-tube. The layout allows the user to control the amount of signal hitting the tube circuit.


A calibrated LED VU meter (labeled "Tube Character") monitors the signal coming off the tube circuit. The Tube Character indicates whethe ... Read More »

By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

If 1998 was the year of the large-diaphragm condenser mic, then 1999 was the year of the multi-function mic preamp. Companies are bundling tons of features into these new units, vying for the premium position in your gear rack.

But do these units perform? Is there really any benefit to be gained by these units, often costing as much as a small studio mixing console with 8 or more mic preamps? How important is it to have tons of features in a unit designed to facilitate tracking? And, more importantly, is it really possible to pack all those features into a $600 unit?

I set out to answer these questions and arrived at some interesting conclusions.

I reviewed five mic preamps in the under-$1000 price range. To be considered for this review, the units had to have at least a mic preamp, a compressor, and some kind of EQ circuit. Three of ths units I reviewed were solid-state units: the Focusrite VoiceMaster Platinum, the PreSonus VXP, and the Joemeek VC6Q. The other two uni ... Read More »

By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The Bellari RP533 is a tube-based mic preamp featuring compression and exciter circuits.

Like other units in Bellari's line of tube products, the RP533 is built into a two rack space enclosure with an "antiqued" gold front panel, utilitarian black knobs, and lighted analog meter. The unit has a very utilitarian vintage look - appealing if you like the look, which I do.

Features

The preamp is controlled with a simple gain knob that offers about 30 dB of gain. A phantom power switch is provided on the front panel. Inconveniently, the preamp's 30 dB pad and phase reverse switches are located on the back of the unit. The location of these switches left me scratching my head, wondering, "what were they thinking?" The RP533 does not offer a low-cut switch.

The preamp feeds an optocompressor with variable threshold, attack, re ... Read More »

By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The Joemeek VC6Q is a one rack space unit that includes a mic preamplifier, optical compressor, and three-band EQ.

Read More »

By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The Voicemaster Platinum from Focusrite is a multifunctional mic preamp featuring a discrete mic preamp, noise-reducing downward expander, vocal saturator, optocompressor, EQ, and de-esser in a single-space rack unit.

Read More »

By Rip Rowan on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

PreSonus has been the surprise of the audio industry since the company first popped up on the radar screen a few years ago. The company's 2 and 8 channel mic preamps have received excellent press, and their unique (if slightly simplistic) Blue Max compressor is both innovative and good-sounding.

I was therefore excited to review the VXP voice processor. The VXP is a feature-packed preamp offering a mic preamp, harmonic saturator, noise-reducing downward expander, de-esser, four-band parametric EQ, and peak limiter in a single unit. There's a lot to describe about this unit so let's do a quick run-down of the features.

Features

The mic preamp is simple and straightforward. If you're familiar with PreSonus' other preamps then you're already familiar with the preamp in the VXP. The preamp offers a gain knob, phantom power, and - ... Read More »

By Bob Lichty on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

"What a waste" and "what a shame" are two phrases I've heard a lot lately.

My father, John Lichty, after 20 clean and sober years, decided to fall off the wagon a few years back. Despite the best efforts of a family who has, quite frankly, seen enough alcohol related problems to fill an entire season of "The Young and the Restless", he has been unrelenting in his pursuit of distilled spirits. A few brief stays in detox did little to quench his thirst and a month ago he was finally arrested while driving under the influence of alcohol. This was his second time and he had no insurance and an expired license. The State of Michigan is not very tolerant toward these things (thankfully), so he is currently spending his days in a correctional facility located in the middle of the state.

Okay, so what does any of this have to do with audio? Well, to me, almost everything.

I have very few memories of the days when my parents were together and my dad was drinking. They divorced when I w ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

Sound design for theater was once very clean cut. Either you were working on a musical, which had songs, or a play which had only sound effects. Now, directors want a sonic experience on par with modern film scores. Audiences are accustomed to a full-bore listening experience, and the day of the mostly-bare soundscape in theater is long gone. It's a huge job.

Before computers, you went in with your sound cues, and worked with the stage manager and board operator to coordinate them with the play. When something didn't work, you went back to the studio and tried again. A play usually had 50 or less cues. It was not possible to do many more than that. There was just not enough time.

Enter DAW

The computer-based DAW has certainly helped along this revolution in theater composing and sound design.A Christmas Carol weighed in at a healthy 84 music cues, mostly components of scene-length sections. A play is a living object that changes and grows from night to ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The Big Experiment

Something I really made a point of doing for this edition was using GigaSampler's S-Converter utility. It converts Akai S1000 and S3000 libraries to GigaSampler format.

I was curious about it, and I knew the only way I'd ever make myself get into it would be to force my own hand. This came in the form of the Denny Jaeger Master Violin Library, from Reflective Arts International (http://www.quparts.com).

This is an extensive sample set of a studio violin section, with an overwhelming variety of detail. There are samples covering numerous intensities of section playing, with variations in volume and intensity of vibrato. Also covered are attacks from hard to soft and a complete array of effects, trems, trills, presses. You name it, if it can be done on a violin, there is some of it here.

My job: To get it out of the Akai format and into GigaSampler, while maintaining the mappings. All in less than an hour, ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

The Peter Ewers Symphonic Organ Samples are yet another example of the incredible toolset GigaSampler brings to orchestral composers.

The Peter Ewers Symphonic Organ Samples library serves up three different perspectives on one of the most significant pipe organs in the world, the Grand Cavaille-Coll Organ at the Eglise de la Sainte Madeleine in Paris. This organ was at the forefront of the transition to the modern pipe organ. But it is no dinosaur. To this day, it is widely recognized as one of the finest instruments ever constructed.

Folks, take a moment and really consider this. We can have the authentic sound of a 150 year-old pipe organ come alive in our studios and in our performances. And if that weren't enough, we get the sound of its build and decay into the cathedral itself.< ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

Here's a library that got extraordinary amounts of airplay on A Christmas Carol. The GigaHarp and Christmas go together like cabernet sauvignon, chocolate, and naughty supermodels. Classic winning combos.

This is a first-class library. Starting with KM-84s and Neve preamps through top shelf 24-bit converters, the path has never been shorter to a well recorded harp that's ready for serious programming. Each string has been sampled at four pluck levels, two harmonics, and a damping / muffling release trigger by a world-renowned, innovative harpist. You can easily control these sounds in realtime, and produce an absolutely genuine harp track in a single pass. The mapping is excellent, on par with the quality of the sounds themselves.

For instance, the melodic harp comes in two levels of sensitivity to velocity. You take your pi ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

There are a couple of orchestral libraries, both by EastWest, that don't really fit the mold of the traditional sample library.Scoring Tools and Symphonic Adventures provide users with a set of fully orchestrated phrase components that can be used in loops, or cobbled together into larger structures. Once these basic structures have been built, one only needs to fill in with some melodic content, and presto, instant score.

In many ways these libraries are more akin to loop collections than to the more common "note per key" GigaSampler libraries. As such, if you used them long enough you could easily construct pieces that would sound similar to those another user might build. Maybe exactly like it.

So, do they actually have value? Is there real work to be achieved with these collections?

Of course. You could just string together combinations of what's on the discs themselves, and make several hours o ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

Peter Siedlaczek's Advanced Orchestra for GigaSampler (distributed in the US by EastWest) may well be the most-used set of orchestral samples on the planet. Thanks to its wide-ranging palette and reasonable asking price, this is a product that easily qualifies for ProRec's more-for-less club.

Burned onto a five-CD collection, you'll find an extensive set of samples (5455 to be exact) covering the instrumentation of the modern large orchestra. Particularly valuable are the orchestral mallet instruments, including a well-recorded vibraphone. You also get a good collection of woodwind esoterica such as contrabassoon and alto flute. One won't lack for variety.

The Siedlaczek collection, like the Vitous, was originally released for hardware sampler formats, and similarly has received a complete refurbishing to take advantage of GigaSampler's strengths. You'll find an extensive key-switching scheme that allows instant access to standard articula ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

There are a couple of orchestral libraries, both by EastWest, that don't really fit the mold of the traditional sample library. Scoring Tools and Symphonic Adventures provide users with a set of fully orchestrated phrase components that can be used in loops, or cobbled together into larger structures. Once these basic structures have been built, one only needs to fill in with some melodic content, and presto, instant score.

In many ways these libraries are more akin to loop collections than to the more common "note per key" GigaSampler libraries. As such, if you used them long enough you could easily construct pie ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

Advanced samplers have facilitated the creation of advanced orchestral sample libraries. In my opinion, these new libraries are extremely important to anyone producing music today.

Before and during this review, I read user forums across the internet, attempting to do two things. First, I needed a context in which to judge my own impressions of the orchestral sample libraries I would be using for A Christmas Carol, since this is subjective stuff. Second, I wanted to get feel for how users were incorporating these collections into their work. Part of my exploration included listening to some of the work that's been distributed online.

Obvious patterns emerged.

1. People making amazing music with these tools are generally satisfied and complimentary of them.

2. People that are making less than amazing music with these tools are generally critical of the tools themselves.

... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Monday, January 31, 2000 6:00 PM

I've got to admit, there's a couple of things that made this particular review meaningful to me.

One was testing these samples in a real-world situation, rather than just casually playing through them. Most reviews, frankly, are written as a result of a couple days' tinkering on the workbench. That's just the way it is. If I have an article due on 12/20, and I get the material on 12/6 - and between that time I must write and the webmeisters must edit and publish... well, you can imagine how much time there is to actually explore possibilities. It makes a huge difference when you're actually on the front line, rather than just imagining how this or that sample MIGHT work out. When you've got to end up with a world class product, there's no gray area. Things either work or they don't.

Anyone who has even dabbled in orchestral samples knows about the Miroslav Vitous collection (available at http://www.marcati.com). From Hollywood to New York, and ... Read More »

By Bruce Richardson on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

One of the biggest gifts that GigaSampler has given the production world is the availability (at long last) of a realistic MIDI-driven piano. Until now, the available options were rated more in terms of irritation factor. They ranged from no good to pathetic to please kill me.

It's little wonder that Nemesys includes the GigaPiano with the fully-licensed GigaSampler application. Since the piano is a percussive instrument, and it does eventually decay into full silence, that makes it an instrument that can be almost completely captured and mapped, given GigaSampler's capability to provide unlimited sample length. It shows off the paradigm quickly and effectively.

With GigaSampler you can have a hyper-realistic piano sample. That's been proven. But the exciting thing is to be able to compare the hyper-real qualities of different source pianos.
Read More »

By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

Nullsoft Winamp is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity freeware music player for Windows 95/98/NT. Winamp supports MP3, CD, WMA, Audiosoft, Mjuice, MOD, WAV and other audio formats, custom appearances called skins and audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

The Power Mac G4 is quite simply the fastest machine ever designed to run audio applications.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

Sound Forge 4.5 is professional sound editing software for Windows that includes an extensive set of audio processes, tools, and effects for manipulating audio. Combine Sound Forge 4.5 with any Windows-compatible sound card to create, record, edit, and refine audio files. The clean interface and familiar Windows environment make editing fast and easy.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

ACID PRO 2.0 is a revolutionary loop-based music production tool that offers musicians unprecedented creative flexibility. ACID PRO 2.0 allows you to preview any loop before adding it to your mix, automatically matching the tempo and key in real time. Click-and-drag to easily add or delete loops. ACID PRO 2.0 allows real-time changes to pitch and tempo to unlimited tracks. Control the volume, pan, and effect envelopes for each track to create a perfect mix between loops.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

The MOTU PCI328 family of interfaces is a powerful system that allows you to build digital audio system of up to 72 inputs and outputs in virtually any conceivable configuration. Any combination of three interfaces may be used simultaneously. Supported formats include 24 bit balanced analog, ADAT optical, Tascam TDIF, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, and more.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

GigaSampler™ is the only music software product to stream samples - in real-time - directly from the hard disk when played via a keyboard controller or other MIDI device. By leveraging the hard disk for instrument playback, instead of RAM (as in conventional samplers), GigaSampler™ is capable of delivering complex, ultra-dynamic replicas of world-class instruments that load in seconds, not minutes.

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

This full rack mount unit packs the punch of the more expensive Joemeek equipment and offers identical sounds and quality to the home recordist and musicians at a fraction of the price. The VC6Q provides a Joemeek Microphone Pre Amplifier, the Joemeek compressor, the instrument pre amp on the front panel, and one channel of the stunning Joemeek EQ "Meekqualizer".

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By ProRec Editorial Staff on Friday, December 31, 1999 6:00 PM

The RØDE™ NT2 Large Diaphragm True Condenser Mic is hand-assembled in Australia. In the tradition of the great microphones, it's designed to furnish outstanding, vintage-flavored vocal or instrumentation miking at a truly untraditional, breakthrough price.