This supplemental describes how to program for the Motor Mix. I figured I'd give the hackers out there a head start on writing code to support the Motor Mix. I really like the unit and figure it can't hurt to get more people writing code for it. Maybe someone will write a user configurable mapping utility to convert Motor Mix actions into whatever MIDI data a music application might find useful (hint, hint).

Reference

Daisy Chains

Let's face it. Working with many music/audio programs using a mouse can be tedious. I love my "studio in a PC", but sometimes I just want to reach out and grab a fader or knob to get the job done.

It's more than an old habit that won't die. Hardware faders and knobs make good user interfaces. It's the same reason that we don't drive cars with joysticks or fly airplanes with steering wheels. A modern mixing console contains hundreds of knobs and dozens of faders. The knobs and faders are as small as they can practically be, and crammed onto a board that measures in terms of square feet. It is ridiculous to think that we can place all those controls onto a screen that measures in terms of square inches - and control them all with a single finger.

Enter control surfaces. Manufacturers have been scrambling to provide programmable boxes of faders and knobs that will easily integrate into the computer-based recording studio. By providing the user with a set of intuitive, tactile contro ... Read More »

Michael Laskow is no newcomer to the music business. With over three decades of recording, management and production experience, Michael has earned a place in the industry as a person who makes things happen.

Although he has worked with - and been a part of - some of the most successful musical projects and businesses of the last thirty years, Michael's most notable accomplishment may well be the company that he formed.TAXI exists to help unsigned, unknown artists get their material heard by the music industry's decisionmakers - an "Independent A&R Vehicle" that serves both the artist as well as the record industry.

TAXI has been the object of both praise and derision from both artists and management. With its unusual liaison role, TAXI cannot easily claim credit for its successes - after all, the artist that gets signed through a TAXI connection had to have been signable in the first place. And since TAXI charges the artist for its referral serv ... Read More »

Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) has a long pedigree in the short history of computer-based recording. Although strong in the running for Worst Company Name Ever - and the sure-fire-winner in the category of Silly Company Names Based On Legendary Beasts - MOTU is a serious pro audio company with a history of producing some workhorse studio hardware and software, including Digital Performer and the MIDI Timepiece AV.

More recently, MOTU has made a lot of noise in the DAW community with a line of products based around a standard PCI audio system. The products, including the 2408, 1224, 308, and 24i, comprise an interchangeable family of components that is capable of supporting extremely large and powerful disk-based recording systems.

Meet the Family

This may be the fastest I've ever been asked to review a piece of gear, and normally that would be a big drag. But I'm very excited to pass on the news about the new Delta 1010, from M Audio. It's also a pretty easy review, because the thing is good sounding, rock solid, and incredibly simple to install and use. I've had two days with the unit, and I'm comfortable with all its features.

M Audio is the most recent alter-ego of our old friend Midiman, Inc. Their early line of "DMAN" cards and a variety of useful music techno-paraphenalia have won them many friends over the years. Although one of their early products, the second-generation DMAN 2044, was problematic for some users, overall the Midiman line has represented tremendous value for the dollar and has enjoyed a great reputation among the user community.

At first glance, the Delta 1010 looks a lot like the Echo Layla. It ... Read More »

This past summer I had the immense pleasure of working with the legendary band "Chicago". I was hired to engineer, co-produce, and record the live portion of an album scheduled to be released in the middle of October, 1999. Since the last live album they recorded was over 30 years ago ("Chicago Live at Carnegie Hall"), the guys felt that it was a good time to let the public hear the current configuration of the band, which still has half of it's original members. All of the horn section is original (Jimmy Pankow on trombone, Lee Loughnane on trumpet, and Walt Parazaider on woodwinds), as is Robert Lamm on keyboards and vocals. The legendary Bill Champlin ("Sons Of Champlin") has been with the band around 15 years on keys, guitar, and vocals. Rounding out the band is one of the greatest drummers on the planet - Tris Imboden; Keith Howland, a great guitarist and the female fans' favorite; and Jason Scheff on killer electric bass and high Peter Cetera-type vocals. (His dad played bass ... Read More »

Dream Station, like ReBirth, gives users analog synthesis technology with built-in pattern based sequencing. It adds another layer to the paradigm, however, and allows users to drive the whole operation via MIDI.

Fuzzy, Buzzy, Fat and Fun

My first thought when introduced to GigaSampler was: why do I need this?

I had become accustomed to manipulating phrase and loop construction in ACID, and had really begun doing all my traditional "sampling tasks" in that environment. Imitative synthesis bores me to tears. Or so I thought.

GigaSampler is valuable for phrase-based sampling, no doubt. You can use giant chunks of audio with no limitations beyond drive space. But that's not what GigaSampler is really about.

Let me give you a little hint about Reaktor. You'll go cuckoo for Coco Puffs if you're an under-the-hood type. I'm going to have to write a bit more about Reaktor than some of the other models, just to explain the paradigm.

If you've been following software synthesis for any amount of time, you've seen Generator. The developers at Native Instruments have been woodshedding their synthesis modeling chops for a while. Reaktor is the combination of Generator and their sample-based product Transformator. I evaluated the Windows version, of course, but both Windows and Macintosh versions arrive on the same CD. For those that "studio hop," a very good deal.

Powerful Paradigm

You may wonder why ReBirth would be getting mention here. It's old news, after all, especially to anyone producing dance tracks.

What's important about this synth is that it quite possibly provided the push that started the revolution.

Before ReBirth, softsynths were strictly for the geek and tweak crowd. ReBirth changed all that, and got musicians all over the world to take notice. In its first edition, ReBirth popped onto your screen with the virtual graphic and sonic equivalent of two Roland 303s and an 808.

Retro AS-1 is a fully programmable virtual analog synth. It runs on PC and Mac platforms, and is capable of 32 voice polyphony. AS-1 is nicely appointed for either live use or for multi-channel configuration with a sequencer.

Retro features a single-page mixer app that makes multitimbral operation a snap. Instruments are assigned in a familiar channel strip fashion, one strip per MIDI channel. Retro ships with a Cakewalk StudioWare console as well, for editing within the sequencing application.

SurReal is a straightforward, single-page, polyphonic virtual MIDI module.

SurReal comes complete with the entire Reality sound set, and utilizes the same synthesizer engine and solid latency / polyphony performance that makes Reality such a workhorse. It also may be the very best and cheapest software Soundfont player available. Soundfont support by Seer Systems is as good as gold, and was developed and tested in cooperation with Emu. You can be sure that a Soundfont played on SurReal will be exactly as its author intended.

Reality users may well find themselves looking towards SurReal as a simple, low-overhead way to load up a full MIDI port. For live performance, it's a great front end.

VAZ definitely wins the award for the least-inspiring company name. Lucky for us, they're packing some powerful juice to offset that little liability.

VAZ is rather legendary in old-school softsynth circles. From freeware to shareware to retail product, they've come of age along the timeline of softsynthesis itself. You can download the earlier VAZ products for cheap or even free via their website. These are nowhere near as full-featured as VAZ Modular 2, but are certainly capable of making great sound.

VAZ Modular 2, the retail flagship of the VAZ line, is modeled after the grand modular synths of the late sixties and seventies. The first time I opened VAZ, I immediately was transported back to late nights at the old Electronic Music Lab, patching cords from module to module on the old Buchla, twisting knobs and trying to make that perfect new sound no one had yet coaxed from the the machine.

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Bruce Richardson

Spatial processors are all the rage. Just about every effects package comes with some kind of "stereoizer" effect. What do these effects really do? How should they be used? And which ones work the best? I spent some quality time getting my head into this technology, trying to understand what these different tools are doing, how they work, and which ones I like the best.

About Spatial Enhancers

Paul Mahern is a bit of a legend to us "Hoosiers" in this business. He has steadily been turning out very well produced, great sounding albums from right here in the heartland for close to twenty years.

Paul started with Indie-Rock bands like Antenna and The Blake Babies. He worked his way up to bands like the Judybats, The Mysteries Of Life, and the solo releases from Lisa Germano (best known as John Mellencamp's fiddle player). Just last year Paul achieved Indiana nirvana by working on John Mellencamp's most critically acclaimed album in years (his self-titled release and his first for Sony).

I caught up with Paul while he was mixing a project on which I had done some playing, arranging and producing. We were in Culver, Indiana at the Storyk Designed Galt Studios taking a break sitting out by the nearby lake. That's when I started the tape rolling.

So, how did you get started in this business?

Black and Whites is what BitHeadz calls "a tone module on a disc." What is included is an extensive set of acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes multisamples, along with some string sounds for layering, and a runtime edition of the Unity DS-1 sampler engine.

Unity users can also use Black and Whites as a content CD. Once installed to your Unity directories, Black and Whites appears in the instrument drop boxes just like other Unity instruments.

You won't see software publishers talk about it in their glossy product brochures or on their web sites. I've never seen it listed in an advertisement, and it is rarely mentioned in magazine product reviews. It affects almost everyone who buys software, yet vendors go to great lengths to avoid talking about it. I'm referring, of course, to software copy protection, the audio industry's dirty little secret. Traditionally, copy protection has been more of a burden for Mac than PC users, but I am greatly disturbed by the recent trend of PC programs to start using copy protection too. Let me state up front that I am vigorously opposed to software piracy, and my objections to copy protection are based solely on its negative impact for legitimate users.

Copy protection comes in many forms, and is an attempt by manufacturers to limit the use of their software to people who actually buy it. The simplest form of protection requires you to enter a serial number when the program is first installed. In practi ... Read More »

The time has come, Gentle Reader, for another rant.

I spend a little time out there on the popular Internet newsgroups, chat rooms, and discussion boards, surfing and listening. I like to lay low and read, and just absorb what people are thinking and saying.

Sometimes, the arrogant audio wannabes rear their ugly heads, and start spouting pure balderdash. The wannabes fall into two camps, who I refer to as the C12s and the 57s.

The C12s are the esoteric gear sluts. These are the guys that claim that everything digital sucks. Except maybe 24 bit recordings made at 192 KHz. Everything solid state sucks - all amplification must be provided by vacuum tubes. Pro Tools really sucks. The only good mics to use for vocals are vintage U67s and C12s, and actually, only certain runs of serial numbers within these products. All mixes should sum to mono. You can't get a good recording unless the room you're in has at least a 16 foot ceiling with at least one room dimension in excess ... Read More »

I was fortunate to receive a matched pair of Crown CM-700s for review almost two months ago. I have spent the better part of those months making extensive use of these microphones, and I am happy to report that we have a serious more-for-less contender in these mics.

Robin Hood Brians is a true Texas character. His studio, Robin Hood Studios in Tyler, Texas has been kicking out some of the great music of the last half-century, and has seen countless changes since its inception in 1963.

Over the years Robin has become a kind of folk hero in Tyler, a modest celebrity whose claim to fame to some of the more non-musical locals is that he has a pizza named after him. If you've never heard of Robin Hood, that's probably because, like any good Texas boy, he's not one for tooting his own horn. He never left Tyler for Nashville, LA, or New York; preferring to remain in his home town and just make music. But Robin has left a mark on music, and is a wealth of history, insights, techniques, and down-home storytelling.

Robin Hood Brians