Gear Reviews

In my composition work, I have spent countless hours assembling a virtual orchestra using a variety of libraries and numerous MIDI channels for each of the individual instruments that make up each orchestra section. Even after assembling a working template, there is always the struggle to get the...

Like many project studios, mine doesn't afford enough space or neighborly tolerance to record live drums. Out of necessity, I've learned to achieve acceptable results by constructing drum tracks with software sample players like Native Instruments KONTAKT and Propellerhead Reason, but I...

Before you read F. Reid Shippen's review below, let me first explain to you why I chose a Monitor ST/SR system for the client theatre at The Station, a NYC-based video production facility that I co-own. One of my initial experiences with Dangerous Music was during my first year as Gear Reviews...

Steinberg Nuendo has been my main DAW for a couple years now, and during that time, both Nuendo and its sibling application Cubase took two minor steps in version number, but with each update, I was impressed with what I felt were significant new capabilities (Tape Op #68). Two years after the...

For me, "perfect rooms" are boring. I like to hear the walls bounce and the floor shake. Spaces with character change the way we perceive both the music we love and the music we make. Unfortunately, if the rooms we mix in are less than perfect, elements in the vibe and nuances of our...

Stylus RMX has been on the music scene since 2004 and has been and continues to be a "go to" tool for good reason. There simply hadn't been anything before it that could manipulate real audio files on Windows and Mac systems with the speed and complexity that Stylus RMX could, and...

The last chapter in the "Jitter Saga" has yet to be written. But the penultimate chapter has just been written by Grimm Audio, who have challenged the most sacred concept -the commonly-held notion that internal clock always performs better than external. Digital clocking has been a hot...

Strings are notorious for being the least life-like patch in any sample library, and as of a couple years ago, I believed that I would never work with a realistic string sample without taking out a loan. However, after demoing Dan Dean Solo Strings Advanced, I gleefully announce that my search is...