Posts belonging to Category Reviews

If you’re looking to expand the inputs and/or outputs of your recording interface, and that interface comes equipped with ADAT (also sometimes called “Lightpipe” or “Toslink”) inputs and outputs, look no further than the Behringer Ultragain ADA8000. The ADA8000 is an 8-channel Mic/Line preamp and A/D (Analog-to-Digital) converter. But as a bonus, it’s also an 8-channel D/A (Digital-to-Analog) converter. This comes in handy if you need additional analog outputs from your DAW, like maybe for mixing “out of the box” using an analog console, or if you need additional analog outputs for creating headphone mixes for multiple performers while tracking in the studio. (more…)

I’ve always been somewhat obsessive-compulsive when it comes to setting up my drums. When I get everything set just the way I like it, I want it to stay that way. And when I need to tear down and set up for a gig, it’s always been a challenge to get everything positioned just right. (more…)

The Behringer Ultramatch Pro SRC2496 is a Sample Rate & A/D/A Converter that allows you to transfer digital audio between devices with different sample rates, formats, or interfaces, and remove dropouts or jitter from digital media. The various digital outputs can be used simultaneously, allowing the unit to also serve as a digital signal splitter/patchbay. The SRC2496 also provides up to 24-bit/96 kHz A/D/A conversion, making it what could be the most affordable stereo A/D/A converter on the market. (more…)

For several years, I’ve had some Sennheiser e604’s that I’ve always used for recording the toms on drum kits. Lately though, I had been particularly unimpressed with how my tom tracks have sounded, so I decided to try out a pair of the much-loved-for-toms, CAD M179’s. I only bought two M179’s and set one mic between my two high toms (10″ & 12″) and the other between my two floor toms (14″ & 16″). I engaged the -20 db pad on the M179’s and set the pattern to hypercardioid to try and minimize bleed. (more…)

The Behritone C50A

For quite some time now, I’ve known about the merits of checking your mixes in mono to test for phase problems, and having some “grot boxes” (cheap, lo-fi speakers) to see what your mix will sound like on a less-than-stellar playback system. The idea behind the mono grot box is this: who cares if your mix sounds great on your studio monitors if it sounds like garbage on most listeners’ playback systems? (more…)

I recently bought a second drum kit to use for live gigs to save myself the trouble of constantly setting up and tearing down, and to reduce the wear and tear on my main kit. So I bought a second kit used, but the only catch was that it didn’t include a snare drum. So I set out on a quest to buy one.

I began scouring the Internet for snare drums and came across the Ddrum Shawn Drover “Heavy Hitter” model. (more…)

In this installment in my series of articles on Samplitude 11 Producer, we’ll cover one of the features that I use probably more often than any other: the Mixer window. I believe that the virtual Mixer is probably one of Samplitude’s strongest points. I’ve used some other DAW software in the past where all of the mixing controls were accessible from the equivalent of S11P’s Arrange window (the main user interface where most of the editing is also performed). This works okay, but for someone who’s accustomed to working with a real mixer, it takes some getting used to. On the other hand, S11P’s Mixer window is laid out almost identically to a real hardware mixer. The only difference is, if you don’t have enough mixer channels, you don’t have to buy a new mixer–you can just add channels with a mouse click (cool, huh). (more…)

by Jon Goad

In Part 1 of this series, we covered the evolution of Samplitude 11 Producer as a product. Here in Part 2, we’ll begin to cover some of the highlights of the software in detail. First, we’ll begin with the Arrange window. The Arrange window is where you see a visual overview of all of the tracks in your project, as well as one or more Wav files or MIDI passages on each track. It’s in the Arrange window that you can do things like zoom in on a track and perform delicate editing on a particular passage. Depending upon the zoom level, you also have common track functions available on each track–controls like Volume, Pan, Mute, Solo, and Record (to arm the track for recording). Also on each track, you will see one more “objects” that represent the Wav files or MIDI passages that have been recorded on that track. This brings us to one of the nicest features of S11P–object-based editing. (more…)

by Jon Goad

Samplitude 11 Producer is a Multitrack Recording Software Application, and is the latest version of what used to be called “Magix Music Studio Deluxe” and subsequently “Samplitude Music Studio”. Music Studio Deluxe started out as two separate programs–MIDI Studio and Audio Studio. Starting with version 12, they combined the MIDI recording functionality into the Audio Studio and renamed it “Samplitude Music Studio”. They kept this name up through version 15 here in the US. They also released a version 16 in Europe, but it was never released to the US market. (more…)

I recently rearranged the control room in my project studio so that I could add a second LCD monitor to my computer. Before adding that second monitor, I was using a desk with a shelf that would support both my computer monitor and my nearfield monitor speakers. But after adding the second monitor, the desk was no longer wide enough to hold all 4 (two computer monitors plus 2 monitor speakers). However, the desk was too wide to allow room on each side for monitor speaker stands, so I actually needed a smaller desk. (more…)