So now we have four tracks worth of audio: a direct bass, a distorted bass, and a stereo drum track. Time to get busy with guitars!

Acoustic Guitars

MetaFlanger is a stereo flanger unit that offers all forms of flanging from subtle stereo widening to full-out jet takeoff effects. MetaFlanger's flexibility is a result of some intelligent decisions to provide the user with options not usually found on flangers.

Controls are provided to adjust the level and polarity of both the effect and the feedback loop. The dual phasing switches are a great feature that can really change the quality of the flanging effect. When setting up the effect I found myself trying all four different phasing configurations, and each one had its own use.

MetaFlanger

This is hands-down my favorite plug-in of the bunch. I've just used this effect to death. I love it. MondoMod is a perfect example of elegance and simplicity, and it just sounds great.

MondoMod is just three basic effects in one simple package: an amplitude modulator (tremelo), a frequency modulator (vibrato), and a pan modulator (autopanner). Don't let the simplicity bore you: MondoMod is capable of bizarre and lovely effects and is totally unique and cool.

MondoMod

There's an old saying that goes, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

There's a corollary to that saying. "If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?"

Followed closely by, "If you don't know where you're going, who knows where you'll end up."

There's a point to be made here.

Before I ever hit the record button, the first thing that must be determined is the artist's sonic goals. Sonic goals refer to the kind of outcome the artist wants to achieve. Should the overall sound be majestic and lush, or tight and defined? Will we be developing a Wall-of-Sound mix, or a sparse, "exposed" mix? Aggressive or approachable? Angry or melancholy? Lo-fi or hi-fi? Dramatic, or understated?

If you're the producer as well as the engineer, then these are decisions you'll make with the band or artist. If you're just the engineer, then you'll work with the producer to understand the sonic goals ... Read More »

Four Mile Mule had already recorded rhythm tracks for about twenty songs when "Black and White Movie" was written. We all felt strongly that it was the catchiest song in their catalog and decided to record it and package ten other songs with it as a demo CD.

With only 8 inputs into my recorder, we would cut drums and bass at the same time, then go back and add acoustic and electric guitars and vocals. We made the artistic decision to NOT use a metronome or click track for the rhythm tracks. We wanted to hear the natural ebb and flow of the tempo that you get when a band will "push" and "pull" the energy of the song. Therefore, even though we were only recording the bass and drums, the entire band would set up so that the rhythm tracks would be cut with the live feel.

The band wanted the CD to have a nice, polished sound, so I wanted to get a pure drum sound on tape. Setting the entire band up in the tracking room would create too much bleed on the drum mics, so the drummer set up in ... Read More »

SuperTap is Waves' entry into the delay category, and it leaves almost nothing to be desired. The plug-in comes in two flavors: a two-tap version and a six-tap version. Both are exactly alike except the number of delay taps provided.

Chalk up another user interface victory for Waves. Without a doubt the best, most powerful user interface I've ever seen on a delay unit. Let's take a UI tour through SuperTap and you'll quickly see what I mean.

SuperTap

UltraPitch is a pitch shifter plug-in that comes in three lovely flavors: single-voice, three-voice, and six voice.

UltraPitch is a full formant-correcting harmonizer. That means it detects the pitch of a note and shifts only the note, leaving the harmonics (formant) intact. This creates a more realistic result. UltraPitch also includes the ability to modify the formant, leaving the pitch intact. This can be used to make masculine voices more feminine or to change the harmonic content of an instrument.

UltraPitch

In May of last year ProRec brought you a comprehensive and exhaustive report on Samplitude 2496. Since then, several major improvements have been made to the software package. This report outlines some of the most recent changes to the program. If you're looking for a complete review of Samplitude 2496 in general, please read Jim Roseberry's review.

The most notable improvement to Samplitude 2496 is the new 5.1 surround mixing engine with Dolby Digital encoding and vectorized automatic mixing. The second is MIDI - you can now play and record MIDI from within Samplitude, partially eliminating the need to run a separate sequencer synced up with Samplitude during mixdowns.

Other major improvements include the ability to import and export 24 bit files from other systems. This was extremely useful to me when I needed to de-noise a 24 bit file from a ProTools/Logic audio system. It wasn't exactly easy to import the file ... Read More »

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 »

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 »

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 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 »

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?

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.