I've been looking wistfully at the new generation of DSP-enabled audio cards. In particular the ability to run several bands of real-time EQ and compression on every channel is SO exciting. So you can imagine my surprise - and glee - when I stumbled across a demo download on the Waves site (http://www.waves.com) called AudioTrack and loaded it onto my computer. AudioTrack is the essential track insert. It is a self-contained DirectX processor that incorporates a 4-band paragraphic EQ, a compressor, and a noise gate in a single plugin. Waves AudioTrack

All the usual controls are provided. The EQ provides 4 bands with 5 curve types: peak / notch, low-pass, high-pass, low-shelf, and high-shelf. Each band has configurable gain, frequency, and Q controls. The curve is displayed on a graph with controls to adjust frequency and gain / cut directly from the graph. If you've...

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FX2 is a DirectX package consisting of Amp Sim and Tape Sim. It is available from Cakewalk and will work in your DirectX-capable digital audio software. It is one of the latest in a sea of "warmth" simulators available in the digital audio world. Fortunately, this package holds its own and is not just another "me too" application. FX2 Amp Simulator Cakewalk FX2 Amp Simulator is a distortion processor and speaker simulator. It is designed to be used primarily on guitar tracks, but there are many interesting uses for it. First off, guitar recording is my specialty. I love to capture guitar on tape. I guess it's all those years of listening to bands like AC/DC. I just love the sound of blistering distorted guitars. Secondly, I am NOT one of those people who will tell you there's one "right" sound. There are millions of interesting distortion sounds you can get from different combinations of guitars, amps, tubes, speakers, microphones, and mic placements. In fact it's the sheer variety of sounds...

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There's a difference between an invention and an innovation. Inventions are incarnations of a new idea. Innovations are revolutionary implementations of inventions. Inventions make suggestions of grand things to come. Innovations demand change. Inventions can be appreciated for what they might become. Innovations are amazing for what they do now. For example, Xerox invented the graphical user interface for computers. But Apple revolutionized the market with the innovative Macintosh. Cakewalk FX3 is not the first "virtual room" simulator. Other have invented those before. However, because of its innovative implementation, FX3 has revolutionized the way I will think about mixing. FX3 is a true innovation. Cakewalk FX3 Sound Stage Designer is a virtual room into which you place virtual performers and virtual microphones. You then "record" the sound in the virtual room. To understand why this product is so revolutionary, we must first discuss a little about stereo sound. When you hear,...

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Apology: When I wrote my review of the DSP Factory (DSPF) hardware, I honestly expected to have this software support article completed by the end of December. Turns out I was very, very wrong. My life has been consumed by the development of my own DSP Factory control program called "LUI (Little User Interface) for the DSP Factory". Then, just as LUI was released, a wicked crunch at the day gig kicked in. I'm finally getting my life back and have some time to devote to ProRec again. Overview This article will focus on software support for the DSP Factory. Software support is a critical issue for DSP Factory owners since the card doesn't come with any software to control it. To re-use my analogy from the review, it's like buying a really powerful mixer that doesn't come with any knobs, faders or switches to control it. Many of the big names in audio software have added support for the DSP Factory to their programs including Cakewalk,...

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The forces of life were against my trip to the Namm show this time. Everything conspired against me, but I did make it down for one day, and I took a bunch of pictures with a borrowed Sony DV Camcorder. (Techie corner - they were digitally transferred to an AVID and the stills were extracted from there). I've provided a little information on the stuff I saw that I liked, and some links to the respective companies if the products sound interesting to you. Down in the Basement If anyone was hoping for as spectacular a NAMM show as last year, they were somewhat disappointed. There were some interesting new things, but for the most part it was the same old stuff with a few little changes. The only place that truly had some major innovations was to be found in a corner of a basement of the convention center. Down there, clustered within a few booths of each other, were the softsynth manufacturers. Native Instruments, Bitheadz, and Sounds Logical were all promoting some hot new software sound generators, samplers...

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The landscape of Marketing History is littered with ill-fated products, saddled by their well-meaning creators with monikers meant to cash in on the glittering reputation of their legendary namesakes. As we've all learned, however, sharing a name with a classic isn't necessarily an indication of repeated glory. Remember the Mustang II? The Exorcist II? Or, God forbid... New Coke? The lesson learned here is that, if you're going to adopt a name synonymous with Greatness, that you'd better be able to walk your talk. The pressure to excel, to succeed, to live up to heightened expectations is tremendous. Many have tried. Many have failed. Few are up to the task. But every so often, these untested heroes with the oh-so-familiar names surprise, delight, and even astound us. It can be done. Just ask Ken Grffey, Jr. Or, for that matter, ask the developers at Waves Ltd., who are calling their latest bundle the "Native Power Pack II." Whoa... wait just a minute here! Heck, we all know that this new bundle...

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I can hear it now. "What do you wanna do tonight honey?" "I dunno. What do you wanna do?" "Why don't we design the best compressor in the world for under $1500?" "OK, dear. That sounds like fun" Not your ordinary domestic conversation, but the couple who designed and market the RNC (for Really Nice Compressor) aren't your ordinary couple. They are of course, both electronics engineers. Unsatisfied with the way that most compressors sounded, and in need of a high-quality compressor themselves, they simply designed their own unit. Well, one thing led to another and before long word got around that something special was happening in a little shop in Austin Texas. FMR Audio was born. Don't like to shop around and compare? Need a compressor? Don't have about two grand or so to spend? Save yourself some time and don't even bother to look at any thing else. This has got to be the all around best sounding compressor at anywhere near it's price and many hundreds of dollars above. I was simply astounded...

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It's been a while since Frontier released the world's first Lightpipe audio card, the WaveCenter. Without much hype, the WaveCenter managed to establish itself as a solid ‘workhorse' digital multi I/O audio card… and quietly helped to usher in a new era in PC Audio. At last, PC DAWs could digitally record/transfer 8 simultaneous channels of audio! That was roughly two years ago. So what has Frontier Design Group been up to lately? Well, I can say this much, they've done their homework and have come up with a powerful new ‘modular' series of audio hardware. Dakota Dakota is Frontier Design Group's new PCI Lightpipe audio card that comes stock with the following features. Two Optical Lightpipe Input ports - providing 16 simultaneous channels of digital audio input (software switchable to Optical S/PDIF) Two Optical Lightpipe Output ports - providing 16 simultaneous channels of digital audio output (software switchable to Optical S/PDIF) Coaxial S/PDIF digital I/O - via an included breakout cable...

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This shootout has been a long time coming and even a longer time waiting. I won't pretend that it isn't way overdue, so my apologies go out to everyone that's waited for it. Nevertheless, it's here! We're throwing a handful of the top of the line DirectX dynamics processors into the mix and seeing how they stack up. We're going to use and abuse each one of them. In the end, we will present a rating from 1 to 10 in terms of sound quality, ease of use, features, processor efficiency and an overall rating. Rather than presenting the overall rating as a composite of the other three categories, the overall rating will be this reviewer's subjective rating of the relative need-to-have factor. Note this is the third article in a series on compression. If you didn't read Part One or Part Two, you ought to go back and check them out. About the Evaluation The...

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I'm a big fan of new ideas. Whenever a product comes along that really pushes the envelope, I get excited. Hyperprism is one of those products. Like all boundary-stretching, paradigm-shattering products, Hyperprism does have its drawbacks and shortcomings. It is far from perfect. But Hyperprism does many things that no other processor plugins even attempt to do, and I applaud Arboretum Software for the creativity embodied in this package. Overview First of all, Hyperprism is the broadest, most comprehensive set of DirectX plugins available. With 32 different effects, including compression, EQ, stereo enhancement, vocoder, frequency and pitch shifting, distortion, and more, Hyperprism offers a studio-full of processors with a single friendly price tag. These effects tend to be simple and straightforward with excellent efficiency when used as real-time processes. Therefore they make great track inserts on a multitrack mix. Secondly, Arboretum has conceived...

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Note from the Editor: Waves sent us a full CD of software for review. Always the overachiever, Pete reviewed all the software sent to him - many of which are not included in the Native Power Pack. The Native Power Pack includes the Q10 EQ, the C1 compressor, the S1 StereoImager, the L1 Ultramaximizer, and the TrueVerb. The other plugins reviewed here - Renaissance Compressor, DeEsser, and MaxxBass - are part of the Native Power Pack II. You can read a full review of NPP II here. Either ya's got class or ya' ain't. The '57 Chevy is a classic. The '62 Stratocaster is a classic. So are the Rolling Stones. Add to the list the Waves Native Power Pack. The minute you first lay eyes on the box you begin to understand that Waves cares about quality. This is one product that wasn't rushed to market in a half-baked state. The abundance of quality is again apparent in the manual. A beautiful black loose-leaf type notebook with heavy...

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Ever heard this one? " If you spend one more *&^% penny on that &^%$ studio we're getting a divorce!" Well, I have some bad news for you. You are very likely going to spend that penny and a little more, because here is one product that you absolutely have to have. All of the tweaking, all of the endless hours you spend getting that "perfect" guitar tone, or that "killer" snare tuning doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you blow it all when you lay down the lead vocal. How many times have you put all your heart and soul into a lead vocal only to play it back and find that although the feeling was there, and the emotion was there, on a few phrases the pitch just wasn't quite in the pocket? Ok, here we go again. You punch in here, you punch in there, you finally get the intonation right, play it back and discover the emotion is gone, the moment is gone and you may just as well take it all from the top once again. Frustrating as hell isn't it? Well, thankfully and finally, that's no longer...

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Many people have expressed a desire for a transcription tool that would let them take the melodies they hear in their minds, and convert them to music notation, or to transcribe an instrumental solo in order to more easily learn it. Autoscore is a program from "Wildcat Canyon Software" (WCS) that attempts to fill this need. Although it isn't perfect, Autoscore does seem to do the job to some degree, but there may be some MIDI cleanup left to do afterwards. A skilled singer who can sing on key most of the time will get much more use out of this product than the average person. The product was sent to me in two flavors - Deluxe and Pro. Deluxe appears to allow step entry only. It comes with MidiSoft Studio for Windows, but will work with other sequencers, like Cakewalk. The Pro version ships with Cakewalk Home Studio, which is pretty much the old standard Cakewalk 3.01 sequencer, sans a few nice features. It appears to install Home Studio by default. Fortunately, it does work with the newer versions of...

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ProRec is considering a new style. We've been laboring under the assumption that you want to read about stuff monthly. We never bothered to check out the facts. We were trapped in our paradigms. Lost in our mental models. Sufferring terminal hardening of the categories. After all an e-zine is supposed to be an electronic magazine. Magazines don't send you articles one at a time as they're written. But we want to keep giving you the scoop. We were the first source with in-depth information on many of the leading products available today. Like DSP Factory, Layla, DSP/FX, and Pulsar. Nothing sucks worse than having the latest information on a killer product and sitting on it for two weeks while we get the 'zine complete for the month. So we're planning on dropping this monthly convention in favor of a new model of continual news and information as it becomes available. Does this sound like a good idea or not? If you like it - or not, we need to know.Tell us!...

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The time has finally arrived. Your latest and greatest work is almost done. You started with what you feel is a damn fine song. You carefully planned the arrangement. You've captured some killer tracks. And then, you sweated every detail of the mix. You tweaked, pulled, pummeled, and then re-tweaked, re-pulled, and re-pummeled those tracks until it all sounded something like what you thought you were hearing in your head when you started. And finally, you now hold in your hands The Final Mix. No more hedging. You're ready to commit forever. This is the sound you're going to leave to posterity. Your magnum opus is now ready to be mastered. Right? Well, maybe. Or, maybe not. One of the most important things you should expect from any good mastering facility is a well-trained set of ears listening to and evaluating every minute detail of your music. That facility should then give you a brutally honest, totally objective opinion of the quality of your music and mixdown, presented in a constructive...

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Frequency filters A frequency filter modifies the amplitude response into a determined bandwidth. What we know in the audio world as an equalizer is a frequency filter. I won't cover here a description of audio equalizers from a usage point of view, what surely you know well. If it is not so, you might want to read the series about equalizers from Lionel L. Dumond. What I'll explain here are some basic properties of digital filters. Filters change audio in two ways: by changing the amplitude vs. frequency, and by changing the pahse vs. frequency. The amplitude response is represented by a graph where the X axis is the frequency and the Y axis the amplitude gain. The phase response is represented by a graph where the X axis is the frequency and the Y axis is the phase. There are two main kinds of digital filters: IIR (Infinite Impulse Response), and FIR (Finite Impulse Response). IIR filters An IIR filter is the mathematical...

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What in the world have we here? Can it really be true? An $85 high quality sampler? Well, err, yes! It seems so! For years the very word "SoundBlaster" has been enough to send shivers up and down the spine of any self respecting digital audiophile, and rightfully so! From poorly written drivers to, shall we say, "somewhat misleading" advertisements, to package info that boldly claimed "full duplex" when such was not the case at all has left a bitter taste in the mouth of those who have attempted to use these cards with a digital audio sequencing app. The real truth is that these cards were not primarily designed for digital audio they were designed for gaming and here, as any rabid "Unreal" player will tell you, they have greatly succeeded. However, in an attempt to garner a bigger market share, Creative Labs decided to try and grab a share of the rapidly rising "computer musician" market. With the release of the SoundBlaster 32 series of cards, Creative labs introduced something called a "Soundfont"....

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I just love microphones. I am constantly scouring the classies, garage sales, web sites, and music stores for deals and steals -- the vintage, the obscure, and the just plain weird. I have a smattering of just about everything, from the common workhorses to the all-time classics to the super-el-cheapo pieces of junk. None of them are the perfect mic for everything (I don't believe any one mic can be), but all of them (well, at least the ones that function!) are the perfect mic for something. As my dear mother used to say, "there's somebody out there for everyone," and so I believe it is with microphones as well -- for every task there exists the perfect mic, and for every mic there is a task to which it is perfectly suited. I also believe that if you can acquire the knack of choosing the proper microphone for the job, and can place it properly to obtain the sound you're striving for -- before that sound hits the rust -- your job as a recording engineer is about 80% accomplished. It's in this vein...

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Hello readers. This month I'd like to concentrate on the songwriting aspect of the music business, as I've come to know it. Over the past 8 years I have had as clients some of the biggest-selling songwriters in the music business. They are in addition to the other ‘as of yet unknown' writers who like what I bring to their songs. From working so close with these people I have come to learn a few things that seem to be consistent with all of them: 1. You are only as good as your current hit. 2. Nobody cares what you did yesterday. 3. Nobody cares at all which software or computer you wrote your song on 4. Nobody cares. I had always assumed that just because you had a few big-time, #1 records to your credit, that automatically entitled you to special consideration by every record company A & R person when it came time to pick songs to be recorded by an artist. No such luck. Just because you had a big hit on Toni Braxton's last album, don't expect her to come running to you for material for her next one....

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Mastering. The word is a meaningless black cloud to many musicians and amateur engineers. And, sad to say, some pros. I used to wonder what the hell the mastering engineer even did. After all, the song is mixed, right? What else really needs to be done? Also I got really suspicious when the same names kept popping up. Bob Ludwig. Bernie Grundmann. Eddie Schreyer. Ted Jensen. Stephen Marcussen. Do these guys ever sleep? Maybe - MAYBE - they really don't do anything at all. Or maybe they are the operators of the Magic Mastering Machine - one button, that's all. Feed your mix in and out comes the mastered product. Well, this is sheer balderdash. Mastering is one of the most important and least understood roles in commercial music production, and you have to understand it if you're going to engineer a product that will stand up on CD, on tape, on RealAudio, and most importantly, on the radio. This article does not presume to teach anyone how to master music. Instead, it should illuminate the important...

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