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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Hey Ted? How about laying down some funky rythym guitar on this track, I'll zip it over to you. Hey Pete? Could y'all put some of that New Orleans/Dr. John style piano on this file, using that 9 ft Baldwin at your place? I'll e-mail you the rough track and oh, by the way, I need it back in LA in an Hour. Huh? What am I talking about? I'm talking 'bout MP3 compressed audio, and I'm here to tell you that it's better than you may think. Imagine taking an entire stereo 2 track mixdown file (usually about 25 MBs) and compressing it down to less than 2 MBs with barely any audible degradation of the sound quality. Are you getting the picture? The time is coming when we can all collaborate over the e-mail, and I'm not talking about MIDI files, I'm talking about that '63 Fender Strat plugged into that Mesa Boogie. MP3 is capable of compressing audio at a 12 to 1 ratio and still producing very fine results. The question is "how dey do dat?" And the answer is your ears are playing tricks on you,...

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Tube simulators, tape simulators, tube warmth? What in the world is this all about anyway? Our fearless editor has commisioned me to write a report on these plugins, but I don't think it should be done without a little background info. First of all, I would like to stress that overdriven tubes (and overdriven tape) add distortion! If it's very light, they call it "warmth", if it's really heavy they call it "Marshall stack turned up to 11!" Regardless of what you call it, it is distortion. Maybe it's pleasant distortion, but it's still distortion. The only reason I mention this at all is because ever since the dawn of digital audio, them good ol' boys and girls in the marketing department of damn near every audio-oriented company on the planet have been throwing tubes into anything they can get their hands on, running up and down the banks of the river and screaming "warmth" to the top of their lungs! What this really amounts to is an attempt to cash in on the fear of the unknown. The unknown in this...

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