Analog Synths Under $700 Compared

Here is a comparison of features per dollar on budget synthesizers. This was done in early 2014, before Winter NAMM with available synths. Winner: Microbrute! Runner up were the Volca Keys & Bass. I'll apologize ahead of time for any errors, but I think this is close enough to do a basic comparison.

 

What is The Fastest Mac Per Dollar For Audio?

Here we have a collection of Macintosh boxes, mostly portables, to see which is the best value for the dollar. What matters is raw computing speeds since we use them for audio. Used Mac Pros and a Refurb Mac mini was thrown in. Most of these are Apple store prices, and all should have 256GB hard drive upgraded figured into the price. (128GB or lower is not acceptable!).

What is the conclusion? Best Dekstop: The 2.66 quad Mac Pro from Megamacs was the best deal. If you want something slightly faster, the refurb 2011 mac Mini server is a little faster, and obviously quieter. Best laptop deal: Macbook Pro 15" 2.0 Ghz.  Remember these all had 256GB drives (SSD) or 500GB+ equivalent hard drive.

Older portables like the 2009 MBP may be cheap and available on ebay, but they have pathetic scores, being half as fast as a new Mac Mini, so they are not recommended. Also note if you bought a used Mac Pro you could upgrade the machine with a new graphics card and it would still be an acceptable value today. If you do go portable, just get a new laptop! (People tend to bang up used ones anyway).

Update: The lower Graph is jumbled. Sorry. Mac Tracker was used to find the scores, so there may be a slight discrepency. This is a general guide.

Roland Integra-7 Mini Review

The Integra-7 is a great module! Loaded with lots of legacy and new sounds. If you make techno or want to emulate an acoustic style this provides an all in one solution. I found myself liking this one from the get-go. Its not hard to learn or navigate. Most everything can be found within a few button presses or some rotation of the knobs. The sound is extremely high quality and will fill your musical needs for the most part. The reason to get this is that it will foster creative music writing. Scrolling through different voices will be inspiring.

There were some downsides to using it though. The volume knob isn't sensitive enough to use as an audio interface. Also the audio coming back from the computer had fake highs. It is like a sample conversion problem, or low bandwidth. So using this as your only audio interface is not a good idea, until they fix that. This one is best off as a straight module.

Pluses:

Good Electric Pianos, Guitars, And Strings

High Quality Effects

Motional Surround sounds realistic with the right settings

Most of the instruments are useable

Lots of sounds

The DAW plugin is fun

Works as an audio interface. You can even process sound from your computer with Motional Surround.

Cons:

Could use more inputs for surround mixing if you needed it.

Volume could be more gradual

Edit button could probably be closer to the shift button

Audio from computer was incorrect or buggy.

 

If you need a module, this is obviously the only one you may ever need. Sure there are cheesy sounds in here, most notably the brass, but overall I think I liked it. It has some decent digital basses too. It gets a solid A from me.

20 of My Favorite Console Video Games of All Time

1. Streets of Rage 2

Favorite Moments: Using the lead pipe to smash enemies on the first level. Walking through the amusement park which had an amazing roto-scoping type foreground. I played the music in the menus over and over, including recording it to my cassette tape. This is the only game I've beaten twice in a row, back to back in the same day. This was the first stereo playback I've heard in a video game. The game sprites were so colorful and large for a home system, and the characters were instantly responsive on the genesis pad.


2. Sonic 2

Favorite Moments:  Rolling through Chemical Zone to see how fast my genesis processor was. Seeing "3d" rendered trees in Hill Top zone.



3. Sonic 1

Favorite moments: Beating the game in front of a bunch of kids with all the emeralds collected. Taking my Sega Genesis to church at night and playing it in the kids room, just so I didn't get bored. The realization that I could control the light on the TV screen warped my mind forever.



4. Road Rash 2

Favorite Moment: Jumping off the Hawaii track's biggest incline. The sound your guy makes when you run into a cow. Oh--eee--yaaaa. Playing it on a halloween night on a Friday while eating Snickers and drinking coke. I played the first level repeatedly in order to get the best motorcycle early in the game.



5. SSX 3

Favorite Moments: Being able to snowboard for 30 minutes downhill. Listening to the music and actually liking the load menus. Jumping so high I felt free from anything, just like real life snowboarding. "High Flyin' Supermodel!"



6. Resident Evil 4/5

Favorite moment: Defeating 2 chainsaw guys on the oil level. Having a teammate play my favorite game w/ me online. Beating the game multiple times and exploring all the content that was beautifully crafted. In RE4 I think I was being attacked by invisible enemies, but I had no idea what was going on, I just got out of there. These might be the best games of all time, but I don't attach as much sentimental value, beyond beating them both in a weekend and falling over.



7. Timesplitters 2/3

Favorite Moments: Creating levels and sharing them with people online. Making a Terminator 2 cyberdyne story level. I can never delete this off my memory card because there is no backup. The Cyberpunk levels were the best. Endless good times on this one. Another game I beat multiple times. Usually I never replay a game.

8. Goldeneye 64



Favorite moments: Using the moonraker laser gun on my siblings and cracking up.
9. Soul Calibur 2



Favorite moments: Playing this with my family. We were actually standing up it was so exciting. Playing the random dungeons.


10. Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition

Favorite Moments: Jumping on top of the worm boss and holding on as long as I could. This game may not have much sentimental value for me, BUT it really is one of the best games ever made. If you like God of War and realize it needed guns, hey they already made this series years earlier. Its basically as good as Castlevania.



11. Wip3out

Favorite Moments: I really did want to be Dade Murphy in hackers. When I found out it was a real game, and not just a dream, I was amazed. Getting gold on every board, including the ultra fast tracks. I had every control timed and memorized. At school I felt like my reaction time for everything I did had increased. I played this on a PSone small console that fit in my backpack front pocket. It made me feel really happy to have this.




12. Metal Gear solid 1

Favorite moments: Meeting Meryl. Psychomantis loading my memory card and commenting on how I played some soccer game I rented. Avoiding Sniper Wolf. Talking about this game with a new friend I had made. At the time  I really loved it and I needed them.




13. Silent Hill 2

Favorite moments: Being so scared I could hardly play the Hospital level. Realizing how bad Pyramid head was in his first scene. Yes that's his name if you actually played this game. This game is the reason we had ten years of gross looking, drab colored games.




14. 1080 Snowboarding

Favorite moments: Remembering my high scores for the half pipe and emailing my brother the score.




15. Ocarina of Time

Favorite moments: Playing my first adventure / rpg fantasy style game and collecting items. Sneaking by the weird zombie guys in the courtyard.




16. Silent Hill Shattered Memories

Favorite moments: Using the wii-mote as a cell phone camera so I don't have to remember things, just like real life. The level of immersion really went to back of my brain. My game created an amazing story for me the first time. This game knows what game is the most basic level, it knows what real life is, and it knows how my brain is affected by raw experience.




17. Burnout 3

Favorite moments: Driving the F1 car while I was home, sick with a fever. Hallucinating about Liv Tyler.




18. Mega Bomberman:

Favorite moment: The undersea levels, and coming back later beating it as an adult. You have to do some serious psych-out and memorization to beat the final boss.




19. Earthworm Jim 2

(no screen shot needed!)

20. Super Mario 3

Favorite moments: Everyone has the same story with this game. Sitting on the carpet indian style and playing it on a dial TV in the basement. I did that at everyone's house.

Special mentions...Turok, Mickey Castle of illusion (the first game I ever rented from Blockbuster), MK1, Battlefront 1/2, Goldenaxe...and more I couldn't list. I'm going to link my favorite music tracks for these games in a new article.

There were also lots of times in the summer where I was with my friends, and we rented N64 carts and loaded up on Pepsi (I don't even drink caffiene anymore). Endless MK1 tournaments at birthdays and the like. They were not the best games of all time, but good times none the least.

A Sound Comparison Of Synths 2013 (updated)

Based on sound demos, I've compiled a list of the best sounding synthesizers available. This is based on sound quality and availability. There are some really good analogue synths that should not be ignored. Arturia has some nice sounds. The Aturia Minibrute is an interesting synth with great sounds. The Arturia Origin is a very high quality synth. I like Analogue Solutions gear. As you can see most of the digital synths really don't "pop" out of the speaker with a unique voice or have that same emotion. An exception is with Arturia. But Many sound terrible. As you can see I don't like the Virus TI sound. Why they haven't figured out how to do a nice digital sound, I'll never know.

These were demoed on very good speakers (Behringer B1031a). If you'd like to hear these you should look them up on Soundcloud or YT. One bias I have is that I don't find hard distortion or muddiness agreeable. Stick with Korg Analogs or Arturia.

 

Recommended:

Arturia Minibrute

Arturia Origin

Korg Volca BassKorg

Korg MS-20 Mini


Analogue Solutions (all)

Not recommended:

Moog Sub Phatty

DSI

Moog Little Phatty

Virus TI

MicroKorg

MiniNova

UltraNova

Moog Minitaur

King Korg

Jupiter-50/80 (synth engine sucked, Supernatural was great)

Gaia Sh-01

Casio XW-P1

DSI Prophet 12

Elektron Analog 4

Vermona Perfourmer

Nord Lead 4

Waldorf Blofeld

Tom Oberheim SEM

 

 

Logic Pro X Review - Just OK

Logic X or Logic Ten has been released. Is it any good? I'd say its a mild upgrade. The interface has become larger to support higher resolution monitors. Everything is a little bit more clear. But some of the same niggles are still here and its past is still present.

The library window now opens on the left side. The library window still does not list 3rd party Audio Instruments! It is confusing for newbies. They dont show up in the "Library."



The options for the tracks now cover up the entire mini-mixer view when opened. A bad choice. Most of the stuff in those menus nobody ever uses however. They should have gotten rid of those options.

The track view is nicer and easier to read. The actual tracks aren't bad either. Everything is more like Final Cut or Garage Band. Top buttons have been redesigned and make more sense. Whoever was working on Logic X knew that the older versions weren't very clear as to their function. The redesigned icons are good.

The score and piano roll are easier to read and access.

Preference panes are still pretty over your head or too similar to the old versions.

I believe Logic Pro X is mostly a better interface lift which will make it easier to use. They are headed in the right direction, but it still needs some work. I've never been a fan of their Library view. It really is straight out of the iPod 2004 or something. Reading all that text and not having access to everything is confusing.

Depending on your setup, things like latency and power will always be a concern within the computer. I preferred Presonus' easy setup which covered latency a lot better than Logic Audio ever has.

Logic Pro X is not bad. I'll continue to use it occasionally.  The stock plugins still have a bad sound so its not a good tool out of the box. I'd recommend a different program if you start your projects from the ground up in a self contained program.

Using Aiwa Q Sound Boombox as an Effects Processor

Aiwa Boombox (CA-DW480) has "QSound" onboard. It makes reverb, delays and hard panned sounds seem to appear outside of the speaker box, and bring them forward. This model boombox has RCA inputs (Aux) and headphone (mini jack output). The Qsound processor also affects the headphone jack. That means you can use Qsound as a musical effect! Your sounds and mixes will have a gigantic, impossible soundstage that uses psychoacoustics.

This is a low-fidelity hack, sort of like a bargain plugin. Apparently there are different types of Qsound and encoders. This one says "Virtual Stereo." It is one of the better 3d expansion effects I've heard.

In the early 90s it seems that Madonna and other artists had their music specifically encoded for Qsound. But I'd say the 3d effect works on a lot of content, sort of like Dolby Prologic will, but only with 2 speakers.

I'm not sure they meant for the headphone jack to output Qsound, but this could be useful for someone who likes to experiment. If you find the encoding software you could mix for the Qsound, then "print" the output from the headphone jack. People without QSound should be able to hear what you did.

D16 Lush For Mac OS X Is Not Recommended

Update: Its an OK soft synth, but I'm just a bigger fan of U-he.

D16 Lush had all the components to be a good soft synth but it suffers from the same problems as other synth plugins: It is too bright sounding and my CPU can't handle it.

I have a new-ish Mac Mini i5, and it doesn't seem like I could get it going fast enough forD16 Lush. I don't know what mac computer I'd have to buy to run this. Some presets are okay, but most crackle and clip my speakers pretty quick. I have no problem running other soft synths.

The brightness of the presets is very common when programmers aren't really using their sounds in music. On a soft synth the brightness can be especially noticeable. I believe D16 Lush is brighter than my V-Synth over SPDIF. Its just one of those things I am too lazy to adjust. I think they could have made a slightly better preset bank. There are some good sounds that just need some tweaks.

The overall sound of D16 Lush is similar to generic Roland but it doesn't quite nail the analog part. It is just another soft-synth. If you want more flexibility with filters and such, DIVA is a much better option (although Diva has no super-saw).

I'd say this is an average soft synth, and I can see a lot of work went into this thing, but I can't recommend it. Maybe if they had put more filter types in and made it more competitive. Thumbs down.

Note: I reviewed the Mac OS X Demo.

Fire The Head of iTunes. iTunes 11 review: The Worst Interface Update In Years.

The iTunes director must be fired. I have nothing good to say about iTunes 11. Every year iTunes keeps getting worse without fail. Not since the first iPod has iTunes been a good program. I am very disappointed in Apple's software division and leadership. Anyway, lets get going on this review.

When you first boot up the latest iTunes 11 it gives you two windows. One of them is for tutorials. I should never need a tutorial to use a jukebox program. I don't need a wizard either. But they gave us one.



Here is the crappy tutorial window that pops up. There is no way I'm going to touch anything on this. Immediately its in my way. So I off-click it.

Next up is the main player screen. The sidebar is gone. It looks like I don't have any album covers either. At least 50% of my music does not have anything. The first thing I try to do is get album covers. It takes me a minute to figure out I have to select all 168 albums. Then right click to "get artwork." It still fails on 50% of the albums. This album view is still very ugly.



As you can see here, iTunes can't get album artwork for all of my songs. Many of my euro-albums don't come up for example.



Hidden in some kind of cloud dialog box is your next/previous playtrack. WTF! Nothing as good as grooveshark.com

What the hell does this blue icon mean? Well it brings up a really shitty vertical timeline of upcoming tracks. It disappears when you are done. The fact it disappears and that its vertical pisses me off for some reason. Its a very small pop-up window for such a large feature.

The designers of iTunes were not done fucking up this piece of software. The biggest piece of shit in iTunes 11 is the updated miniplayer which is activated by an icon that looks like a "fullscreen" function. It actually shrinks your player and it goes into small piece of shit mode.



Here we have two icons that both look like they activate fullscreen mode.



Not only are the expand/hide icons now on the left instead of top-right (why did they move?), that shitty blue  icon is back. It brings up a totally different looking playlist. Wait, where is the fucking volume control? OH, its inside that shitty up-vote arrow thats pointing to a square TV. What the hell is that icon supposed to be? Well we had to click it to find out.

The volume slider is horizontal. But since its a pop-out dialog now, they should have made it vertical, like youtube. They made it worse. Apparently it controls different zones but I have no idea whats going on when I click on these things. Its just another hidden control.

Whoever designed this piece of shit likes GUI features that magically disappear.

Lastly I have to say one more thing about the mini player. When you aren't using it all the controls disappear into an Apple icon. I accidently click the wrong button when I mouse over it and the controls suddenly appear. What the fuck were they thinking?



In album mode, a giant horizontal THING appears when you click on an album. If you don't have the full album, there won't be any information here. It will look even stupider when you don't have album art. More player controls appear within this band making it even more complicated.

At this point in the review I can tell you with certainty this is the absolute worst iTunes of all time.

Other complaints, there is a cloud icon,  next to the category drop down that does absolutely nothing. I'm literally clicking on Mr. cloud, and nothing will happen. It looks nice at least. The itunes store also looks confused, with album covers slammed into the margins and scroll bars tha magically appear.  I don't like the iTunes store now either.

The visualizer is the same, however the windowed version is gone. You must be in a fullscreen mode to access the visualizer now. Argh.

Lastly, a complaint I've had forever. Literally over half a decade I've been complaining about this. ITUNES DOESN'T REMEMBER MY PLACE WHEN I TURN IT OFF!!! Every computer system has saves. Even microsoft word will save my progress. But if I turn off iTunes, it won't remember my spot. Everything I was looking at or had queued up gets cleared away. It even sends me to a different window than before (The tutorial screen again).

Holy shit iTunes 11 is bad. I really do hope they start firing these guys in the iTunes divsion. Apple, you have some of the worst, backwards thinking, shitty GUI designers I've ever seen. What the fuck.

 

 

Why I Love Novation Supernova II Rack Pro-X

1. Every patch sounds great


2. Its easy to tweak presets


3. High Build Quality


4. Its blue


5. Excellent knob feel


6. The digital distortion actually sounds good


7. It has fat filters


8. The resonance is good.


9. It has a lot of memory


10. It has good electronic drums


11. It reminds me of a Prophet, 303, and a Moog.


12. The screen is easy to read


13. Controls are somewhat logical


14. It has multiple outputs


15. Its fairly light


16. It allows for input on the front panel


17. On top of all that it has a vocoder


18. The printed manual actually explains how effects and filters work with illustrations!


19. The sync/fm sounds are insane


20. Very good basses


21. All the effects sound good and reverbs are excellent.


22. Filter overdrive knob!

Cons: Almost none. You can emulate supersaw if you are sneaky. It may not have as many effects as Roland, but the ones on here tend to sound better. They probably could have made more oscillator types, but this does have more modifications to the oscilators that exist than I've seen on other systems.

Rating: A    

Update: I have to admit that I sold this synth, as much as I loved its sound. I didn't have time to program it. If the used price wasn't so much I'd consider getting it again. I've been looking at Nord Lead because I want something nastier than the SuperNova.

The Supernova II goes from bright to dark sounds very easily and is extremely musical. Must buy.

M-Audio Axiom Pro 25 Midi Controller is a Piece of Shit

I demoed the Axiom Pro 25 for about a month and the only good thing I have to say about it is the drum pads are OK. This keyboard is 199 retail. This is above the cost of a video game system when I was a kid and above cost of an Xbox 360 today. You'd think I'd be able to get a quality keyboard.

The Axiom Pro has no internal sounds. Oh wait it does: Squeeky springs. The bottom keys play fine and are almost silent, but the top black keys make spring noise. This is what happens when your outsource your build.

Overall the software and USB stability is no greater than Novation or other brands. The interface is confusing. Program changes are hard to do on the 25 key. I had to use the manual to find out the secret button combo. Worst is the outer rounded egdes are obtrusive and prevent me from playing normally.

I still hate M-audio as a company, their support, and all their poor products. I gave them a chance again and they failed me. M-audio still caters to low budget products with zero value for users. I cannot recommend the M-Audio Axiom Pro 25 for anyone who respects themselves as a synthesist or keyboard player.

First Thoughts on The Axiom Pro 25

I received a brand new Axiom Pro 25 from ebay for my small desk area. I sold most of my keyboard rack and I don't even use an analog mixer now. I'm 100% digital, so I need a good controller. The Axiom is a good looking keyboard. It fits solidly on the desk. The pad section is large and stable. The membrane buttons are pretty nice. Keys are semi-weighted but look like they are fully weighted. These remind me of Casio's current instruments. Its not piano action. This is sufficient for playing synth at any speed. If you play glissandos this isn't that great as the edges of the keys are a little on the sharper side, but you can still do it. Mod wheels are great. Knobs are OK but seem to vary in tightness or quality. The worst thing about this keyboard is that some of my black keys have spring noise. It feels cheap/inconsistent. I'm thinking about getting an different one because of this. The screen is OK and buttons a little confusing. Overall this one works better than the Novation SL in the software arena, however it does have the same problem as the Novation where it will stop working after I sleep my computer. At least its easy to reboot. This keyboard is power effecient. It draws power to light the LED screen when my computer is asleep, but its not enough that it keeps my rocketfish green power strip switched on. Another annoyance is the front bevel shape sticks out a bit and the keys are recessed quite a bit. This one will save you hours of time in setup compared to Novation, even with a slightly confusing button interface. I got the hang of it after 3 hours, whereas with the novation I was still trying to learn it after a week (and gave up). Overall this works fine, but I fear I paid too much new for the underlying quality. The spring noise gives me pause. We'll see how it compares against an MPK25. At least I'm back to making music again.

Cakewalk V-Studio 100 Reviews

Awhile back I reported that this box was coming out. Multiple sources have begun to review it.

Synthopia Cakwalk V-Studio Review

Create Digital Music's Review

Do you think its better than the Zoom R16?

Tapco Link.Firewire 4x6 Review

Tapco is kind of a weird brand to review. At the moment, I own a basic mixer by Tapco and this Firewire 4x10 interface and use them in conjunction with eachother. I bought this after the failure of two USB device. So firewire was the logical choice.

The first and sometimes only thing that matters is how stable an audio interface is. Drivers can complicate things and disconnect periodically if they aren't a good fit or if the designers/programmers, just weren't doing a good job. The Tapco Link.Firewire is extremely stable, surviving multiple application boots, system audio streams, restarts, and anything else. I keep it powered up 24/7 and it hasn't failed yet.

The sound quality is what you would expect. There isn't a harsh digital bite or character. It feels warm, or at least everything coming in/out seems unharmed. There seems to be enough headroom and volume for line level instruments. The preamps are also less noisy than the ones on my mixer. I haven't tested them extensively. The S-PDIF connector also works well, although when connected to a device it overrides channels 1 & 2. Monitoring is a little different. When the firewire is engaged by the computer, you can only monitor whats coming back from the computer. Depending on your setup this might not be an issue. There is a little app called Line-In which can monitor for you, in Mac OSX when your computer is on and will give you a good pass thru. You can also just put the compute to sleep or unplug the firewire port and the unit switches to sending whatever is coming in 1 & 2 back out to your monitors.

The construction is great! This is not cheap feeling at all. The metal rack bars in front slightly defend knobs from some impacts. The case is plastic, but the hard bumpy rubber is a nice touch. The headphone amp could have been a little smoother volume wise at lower levels, but it is acceptable. Connectors and buttons are very good. It is very easy to monitor clipping on this unit. The LEDS change bright red when your signal is too hot, and its easy to back down to get the maximum level. Its nice to have and works better than some full spectrum volume displays. With the Firewire only plugged in, there was a bit of an external noise (probably from the chip its powered), but it is nonexistent when you plug in the wall adaptor. I chose the wall adaptor. Its nice to know this unit will work with a laptop. Chances are if you are taking it somewhere this little noise won't bug you much. Just use the wall adaptor the rest of the time.

Also keep in mind that this isn't a true 4x6 interface out of the box. Its 2x2. You can probably bug Tapco for the firm ware which converts to this, but hey never updated before shipping I guess. For $99 new I didn't care. This is a great, basic firewire interface, and its currently on clearance if you look in the right spot. This also comes with Mackie Tracktion 2 DAW for mac / pc!!! Mackie Tracktion is very simple to use, compared to apples Logic, and does the job. It can be upgraded to Tracktion 3 for $69 from Mackie. Definitely pick this one up if you need a cheap, stable, firewire interface.


Stability so far: 10
Audio Quality: 9
Features: 8
Total: 8.5

How to Make Your Speakers Dead

IK multimedia ARC with Audyssey technology. It is a software/mic package plugin that I was able to try it out today. ARC attempts to flatten all of the natural forming room frequency spikes with software EQ processing.

It really makes it super flat. Too flat.

I don't quite buy into it. There is absolutely no way I would listen to music with it on full time. It seems to suck the life out of most recordings. The processing removes a good deal of bass and you lose that feeling that the sound is in the room with you. It feels like the music is being kept behind a screen door or metal fence, where you can peer in to see the ugliness if you get close enough with a flashlight. I felt the color of my music change to grey.

Its possible I did not set it up perfectly. But I don't really care.

The system does have some uses.

Pros

1. I was able to isolate some "hidden" sounds in the stereo image I could normally not hear at all, and fix them before I started the mastering process. It was like looking at all the bugs in my recording
2. The stereo width field felt more true allowing me to properly pan sounds
3. Adjusting the relative sound levels of tracks was slightly easier.
4. Its a completely different experience


Cons:

1. Feels soul-less.
2. Not for daily playback.


Overall I can 100% recommend it for trouble shooting your mixes like some kind of swiss army knife. It will make your mixing go faster. You won't have to take your music from system to system to compare. I do recommend trying it out. It is not the end all and be all of sound fixes.

Alternatives:
On the flipside, using a a couple regular EQs on my receiever, and taking tedious frequency snapshots in the application Fuzzmeasure, until the signal looked "more flat" I was able to get a much more enjoyable, crisp, sound without out all the deadening effects of ARC.

I will probably try to use ARC again, but only as an occasional reference.

Alesis Fusion FM Presets Bank - "Alice FM" Released!

29 Must Have FM presets

This is the ultimate selection in FM sounds on the Alesis fusion. 29 must have FM presets range from Acid, Techno, Chip, to FX.

Alice FM presets honor the past of Yamaha style keyboards and others are remenesicient of sounds not since seen on the Sega Genesis game platform. Complex LFOs are used to generate envelope rythyms, like on those of expensive software packages costing $200 or more. Alice FM pushes the creative limits of the Alesis Fusion! Click here to listen to the demo (MP3)

Click here to visit the product page

Christmas Wishlist

Don't know what to buy yourself for christmas? Check out this toy list for some holiday ideas.



1. Roland SPD-20 Total Percussion Pad $650
Instead of getting a PS3 with Rock Band, why not grab a Roland 8 pad drum kit with 700 sounds loaded into it?


2. Korg Kaoscillator $200
100 of Korg's world renowned synth sounds right at your finger tip.



3. Sterling Audio ST51 Large Diaphragm FET Condenser Microphone $99
This microphone is the top rated in the under 100 dollar range in a number of realworld tests. I would rather have this than an m-audio mic or any other costing 3 times its price.



4. Korg DS-10 For Nintendo DS $36
For only 36 dollars and Amazon delivery this video game / synth will be on everyone's list.




5. Hal Leonard Rock Keyboard $12
Learn different Rock styles and chords to play along with the CD. If you are a beginner or intermediate I recommend this one as it helped my playing and improvising.

6. Stocking stuffer pick: Disney Hannah Montana Guitar with Bonus Amp



NO! Well if I'm not the grandaddy of all liars!

Digitech DF-7 First Impression Review

The Digitech DF-7




This is a great distortion box. The DF-7 is a must buy for all in one distortion, whether used or new. Its a good value with 7 "classic" distortion selectable. In fact, its a better sounding version of Guitar Rig 3s distortion box section + tasteful cabinet selection. I like it alot.

This distortion is musical and it won't deafen your ears, unlike alot of analog units I've tried. If you test it against drums.....realistic or electronic, the DF-7 is a win.


Using it in the studio:

If you are in the studio, you can plug it straight into the mixer in stereo. It's cabinet emulations are very tasteful and sweeten even better if you add reverb on top of it.The controls are pretty easy. Careful tweaking and experimentation yields good results. A nice feature is the sweepable mid EQ. Some of the distortions it emulates do not originally come with this. Mode 5 gave me a really straight up The Prodigy power chord distortion ala Boss Metal Zone when it was combined with electronic drums of any kind. It sounded good. The stereo effect of this pedal is very decent: not awkward or too wide.

For practice/live:

If your plugging it into your amp you can boot it up without that cabinet mode to get the straight distortion. Switching distortions is also pretty instantaneous, but you have to reach down to do it of course. The pedal clicker is durable enough. The bypass seems like a true bypass, which is good enough for me. Mode 6, the Metal Master, is kind of mix of late 80s kickass something or other. All presets sound good with single pickup & humbucker.

I can't really say anything bad about the DF-7. Maybe you'd want to get your own Pre-Eq to do some more damage in the bass, or set it up different, but mostly I didnt feel like it, and all the presets on this thing were usable to some degree when properly tweaked. You should buy it and see if you like it. I can't stop playing my guitar now.

Sound Quality: 8.6
Build: 9
Musicality: 8.8
Value: 10
Fun: 10
Master Shredder Factor: 8.8
Total: 8.9 Would recommend to anyone, guitar players / drum n bass producers / synth people looking for dirty sounds.

Boycott Phonica Records

Music is either supposed to be for fun or creativity. But Phonica is a cultural sewer drain for music. Phonica Records supports artists who blatantly rip works from lesser known acts. Phonica keeps the money without crediting the original artist. 40% or more of their music are just "re-edits" and are sold for profit, states this article in The Guardian. Put quite blatantly, Phonica sucks.

What can you do??? Get the word out and say "Boycott Phonica" on your blog. You can check their database, and also Search Youtube to see if someone posted a re-edit of your mix, which Phonica could be selling. Report content abuse on Myspace to get your content removed if necessary. You might be getting ripped off $$$ and not know it yet.

If you felt like you have been wronged by Phonica, or know anyone else who has, please post in the comments with your artist & song details. I will repost your story and let the world know. Chip Collection is fighting back for the recognition of original creators. With your help the right artists can make a stand. WE are the fame and money in the new internet age of music, not these edit-posers.

Get the word out and Boycott Phonica! Only dick holes play their music nowadays.

Grammy Winner Gives Mixing Advice, New KRK Rokits

Link to the Video with Greg Ladanyi

PreSonus has uploaded a video series featuring Grammy-winning producer Greg Ladanyi on providing advice on mixing, producing, recording vocals, and more.

Go there and get tips to producing vocals and mixing etc.





New KRK Rokits are here. They are curved so you can mix in the wind tunnel.

KRK Rokit Link

Any one know if this line is any good to mix on compared to others in the same price range - M-audio etc. ? They have always had the appearance of being higher quality, especially with the material used for the cones.