Most businesses these days are run with computers, marketing, and money. Even in the world of pro audio.

Therefore it's always refreshing when I find a company which is run by brains, engineering, and passion.Especially in the world of pro audio.

I was introduced to Brauner microphones by Brad Lunde of Transamerica Audio Group. Brad had heard about ProRec at an AES show and wondered if ProRec would be interested in hearing the Brauner microphone.

I was a little skeptical. Here at ProRec we're interested in the cutting edge of recording equipment. My concept of Brauner was that of a company that built new versions of classic microphone designs. So, where's the story?

I decided to audition a VM1 microphone, if only to justify my skepticism.

Overview

I recently came across a line of posts regarding ProRec in a popular discussion group.

The gist of the commentary was that ProRec is an interesting 'Zine, but it sure seemed like ProRec's authors were lackeys for certain pro audio companies. The author asked, could someone please recommend a trustworthy web site?

My blood boiled. TRUSTWORTHY?!!?

I wanted to flame the living shit out of the scumbag.

Then came our Roundtable on the future of the small studio business. That one stirred up a lot of misplaced emotion in various discussion forums. A lot of readers got the idea that ProRec was staffed by a bunch of "old timers" who desperately clung to their cushy big-studio jobs and who had a terrifying fear of competition from home recordists.

Yeah, right.

Later, as I calmed down, I started to realize that the people in these discussion groups just didn't understand m ... Read More »

Hey, if you've been coveting those groovy VST plugins floating around the web for free, but have a DirectX-only digital audio workstation, it's time for you to get happy. Amulet Audio Software, a UK-based software company, has released VST Adapter, a DirectX shell for VST plugins.

VST Adapter is great news for the musician on a budget. There are dozens of totally free VST plugins on the web that can be yours for the price of clicking a few links.

There's one minor catch: those plugins are free, but the VST Adapter is not. Price of admission is fifty bucks. Still, it's a pretty sweet deal. For the price of one cheap DirectX plugin, you get the dozens of freeware VST plugins that are out there already. New ones appear all the time. Some even come from Steinberg, including a very cool autopanner. Free.
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VST Adapter running in Sound ... Read More »

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Bruce Richardson

Drum-roll please…

Gadget Labs (http://www.gadgetlabs.com) redefined the standard of "More-for-Less" with their rock-solid Wave/4, so we've ALL been waiting for the scoop on this piece of gear. A 24-bit audio card with eight channels of balanced +4 analog I/O, built-in MIDI… and a MSRP of $499!

Ladies and Gentlemen: I welcome you to the Overview/Review of Gadget Labs' Wave/8*24.

Features

Probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in all of audio science is that of the decibel -- what it means, and what it doesn't mean. This really isn't very surprising. Most books you'll find on audio production gloss over the subject, offering a rudimentary explanation at best. What's worse, you'll often see the term "dB" bandied about with little consideration given to the context in which it's being used -- are they talking dBu, dbV, dBm, dbVU, dBFS, dBspl, or what? And being a rather complex concept, the term doesn't lend itself well to a one or two sentence glossary-style entry. For example, if you look up "decibel" in a book, you might read something like "the smallest increment of sound which the human ear can detect" -- which only happens to be true in general, but certainly isn't an accurate definition by any means.

What's more, this lack of understanding isn't limited to beginners. There are folks I know who've worked in this field for a long time who aren't clear on the ... Read More »

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

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 a ... Read More »

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 n ... Read More »

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

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

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

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 ... Read More »

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

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.

A ... Read More »

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Rip Rowan

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

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.

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 i ... Read More »

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 doe ... Read More »

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 lik ... Read More »