Pianissimo, virtual grand piano, by Acoustica. Available for Windows 98 and newer. Test equipment: AMD Athlon 2,2 gHz, 1 gb...

Izotope, home of renowned software, presents RX Advanced, an audio restoration tool. Sonikmatter, home of renowned reviews and articles, presents the Izotope RX Advanced review, a David Mondrup effort. Enjoy - it's on the house.

Roger Nichols Digital, the not-so-new kid in town any longer, came to life when taking over the software previously offered by Elemental Audio Systems. Nichols started out by introducing a lot of changes that Elemental Audio users on the whole didn't really like, such as changing product names, user interfaces, copy protection and (not the least) the price. Back in 2005, we took a look at the offerings from Elemental Audio Systems. Like others, we happened to like what we were hearing very much. In this new review, we follow up with a closer look at what Nichols has added to the product line, and how the still relatively young company has adjusted to the market, and the costumers it inherited.

Sonikmatter takes a look at Ableton Live 5. Since our first review of Live 2, Ableton has gained a far wider audience, and Live has gained a heavy load of new features, while still struggling to stay simple to use and inspirational. Did the good guys'n'gals at Ableton succeed? Read on to find out ...

Newly founded software developer co, SoftSound, has just recently set up shop. Sonikmatter had a chance to take a look at the very first product in the shop - 100 presets for the Emagic/Apple ES1softsynth. Even if the product by that description appears a bit unambitious to those who know the ES1, the result is still very well worth checking out. Read more about it here.

Bolder brings us a bit of Americana in the form of Hammered Dulcimers. Juxtapose the ‘simplicity’ of a bluegrass jam with that of modern computer based samplers and this paradox is what you find. This library was a bit of a surprise to me because a recent fascination with the simple musics after picking up a mountain (strummed) dulcimer from McCabes in Santa Monica (honestly, the best stringed instrument store in the world) so having more old-timey instruments at my fingertips was more than welcome.

Firium? Eqium? Neodynium? No, this is not label printing on packages brought home from the pharmacy; we're talking about effect plugins here, all coming from Elemental Audio Systems, a company that specializes in delivering plugins that don't take tradition at face value. In this review, we'll take a look at the new approach offered by EAS, as well as the quality of the processed output from these effects.

Let's be real for a minute. Every guitar solo performed on anything other than an actual guitar will be looked at with industry disdain. Sampled or synthesized emulations won't really sound like a guitar in the end, and it's especially unforgivable if played on (gasp) a strap-on MIDI controller (the dreaded "keytar"). Every die-hard head-banging guitarist will find out where the offending poseur lives and pour beer on their head (and not that fancy microbrew stuff that synth geeks drink). I've seen it happen.

But what if there was an emulation that wasn't really an emulation at all, but attempted to deliver something so brutally close to the Real Thing that it was no longer a mere guitar-like novelty?

Recent years has seen a rising interest for that 60's/70's sound. Especially those retro sounds of funk seem to be on the rise, including those of vintage keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes, Hohner Clavinet D6, Hammond B3 and Würlitzer, and in the more esoteric, yet still very fashionable department, we find the various analogue synths, of course led by those carrying the moog brand. A quick look at what's currently available in the software instruments department should verify this easily; vintage keyboard emulations are big sellers - vintage "roolz".

Fender Rhodes Stage Piano mark I sampled by Scarbee. Reviewed by David Mondrup . Available in a 16 bit GIGA...

Wurlitzer 200A Electric Piano sampled by Scarbee Reviewed by David Mondrup . Available in a 16 bit GIGA edition and...

NI is the German manufacturer of breakthrough music software products Reaktor, Pro5, Absynth, and B4. Kontakt differs from traditional samplers with its semi-modular sound architecture with extensive sound sculpting possibilities, and other unique features like granular synthesis and 32-stage flexible envelopes...

Skippy's Noizbox is the new drum loop construction set from John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl, and is the follow-up to the successful Skippy's Big Bad Beats. Where Big Bad Beats was more influenced by hip-hop and R&B sources, Noizbox takes a few steps into the shadows of a heavier techno-influenced underground style.

One of the most hyped grand piano samplings in recent times is the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand by Bardstown Audio. The hype is in no small part due to Kip McGinnis, the one and only person behind Bardstown Audio, but it certainly also comes from all of the happy users who have reported great results from this sample library. When surfing user fora on the www, one gets the impression that the Bardstown brand is pretty old news in the gigasampler spheres, where Kip's instruments has been available - and praised - for a while now. Since he started porting these instruments to the EXS format, he's now building a reputation as one of the main suppliers of realistic sample libraries on this platform too.

Looking for a poor man's orchestral replacement? Rental on the Pops getting you down? Need to score a movie on a budget? This might be the product for you. Sonic Implants brings yet another great product from their line of sound applications featuring one of the lushest orchestral collections currently on the market. The Symphonic String Collection comprises Violins ? First and Second Sections, Violas, Cellos and Basses sections for the Gigasampler system and is the perfect replacement for at home orchestral string recordings or even just mocking up a score in preparation for the real thing.

Recently released version 2 of Ableton's innovative loop composition program, Live promises a simple to use and very powerful interface that enhances the process of live performance from both PC's and Macs. Sonikmatter has spent the last couple of months rigourously testing every aspect of Live to see what it really is capable of and have come away quite impressed. Read on to see what to expect with Live, and just what it can and can't do...

The “Best of Korg” represents a little more than a decade of Korg's best programming and then some. Not to slag my Kurzweil but Korg has always held the lead on preset design. One could pick up any of their products and use the presets without fear of sounding completely incompetent. The sounds were designed for players and were always up to date with the times, usually defining those times...

CEP bosts to be a two-in-one solution for anybody running a PC-based DAW; with CEP you get a stereo mastering program/wave editor as well as a multitrack audio sequencer (though no MIDI tracks available). At a price substantially lower than any of the other sequencers or wave editors on the PC market, it seems to be aimed directly at competing with all the major software companies out there. However, things are not always what they seem...

In March 2001 Waldorf announced the Attack VSTi at the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt. Nine months later at Winter NAMM in California they announced the hardware RackAttack, which uses the MicroQ architecture to "host" the Attack percussion synthesis engine. Although at first this seems to buck the current trend towards virtual instruments, there's much more to the RackAttack than a simple VSTi conversion.
 
Read on while moderators Jim B-reay and Graham Hunter take you through their experience with these synths.

Zarg Music is the company formed by John Bowen, ex-Sequential Circuits Inc. product demonstrator i.e. the man behind the original factory presets for the SCI Prophet 5! Having lived with the real thing for so many years, and with involvement in Native Instrument’s Pro 5/Pro 52, and Korg’s OASYS Prophet emulation (that works out to more than two decades), I get the feeling that John is uniquely qualified to create a software emulation of the original SCI legend, and add just the right features to make a Prophet 5 infinitely more variable without getting too far away from its original design.

Synth-Tek is a company dedicated to create computer-based tutorials for electronic music products. They have developed a group of CD-ROMs for Macs and PCs that help explain the intricacies of Kurzweil music keyboards. They have also prepared a CD that explains the details of the digital home studio. Well known are the Kurzweil K2500 and K2600 Beginner CD-ROMs...

Of all the features Logic users enjoy, perhaps the apogee is its environment. The flexibility and customization that the application affords in terms of emulating an existing hardware rig, or the ability to create innovative clusters of transformers to alter vst instruments are examples that merely scratch the surface of what Logic can do. And this certainly sets the sequencer leaps and bounds above the alternatives. It is this intense level of user control over how one chooses to work with the program that will make computer musicians want to check out CellSynth.

The Silk Road was the trading route between ancient Rome and China. It went from the heart of China through Central Asia to Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. You might assume you'd find instruments from China to Turkey on the Silk Road CD-ROM, but instead it focuses on the Middle East and North Africa and even Nigeria! However, that's only quibbling over the stretching of the metaphoric title of this collection. The subtitle says "Middle Eastern Instruments" and that's what this sonic caravan delivers.

Reaktor User Ensembles Mini Review Series Reviewed by Sleen , 03/29/02 Native Instruments Reaktor V.3.05 Winamp playlist #2 PlasmaClone...

Join Sonikmatter member Timothy Steven Clarke as he takes the Prosonus Orchestral Collection for a test drive. Featuring a wide range of sounds from ensemble strings, to some unique brass sounds, woodwinds, percussion and synth sounds, Timothy gives us the low down on the usability of this library and comments on the VAST programming that is incorporated into this Kurzweil format CD-ROM

Reaktor User Ensembles Mini Review Series Reviewed by Sleen , 02/19/02 Native Instruments Reaktor V.3.05 Winamp playlist #1  ...

Reviewed by Sleen Introduction Overview Beats FX Conclusion Introduction Phil Gould On Drums is part of a series of releases...

The first high quality synth I bought was a Kurzweil K2000r. I bought it because Kurzweil's marketing said the advantage of the Kurzweil was that it could do almost every kind of synthesis. I wanted to buy ONE synth, so the idea of having a synth that could emulate all others was massively appealing....

Today's technology has rendered products with unforetold power and new abilities but has also brought with it the terms ‘Soft’ and ‘Virtual'. These technologies allow one to put the power of a backbreaking modular into a shiny little laptop that one can safely throw over its shoulder into a backpack. These technologies also leave behind years of tactile and intuitive interfaces where every button has a single purpose and every knob changes a single aspect of the aural experience.

Emagic Electric Piano Pleasure Model Reviewed by Sleen, 09/03/01 Winamp Playlist Get Winamp Introduction Overview Operation Tweaking Example Files...

Percussion Grooves by Bashiri Johnson Reviewed by Sleen , 8/1/01 Kurzweil K2x00 format cdrom Winamp playlist Introduction Overview Macros...

Review: Eclectic Expanded Bolder Sounds Format : Kurzweil CDRom Review by Clif Marsiglio Saturday, July 07, 2001 Three months ago...

The plug-in revolution is upon us. Synthesis methods are changing right before our eyes with our computers shouldering even more of our music writing load. The vast majority of plug-ins created for VST are created by rank amateurs and unfortunately sound it. Every now and then something really stands out from the crowd, and this is what we have on our hands here with VReorder II...

Let me introduce the Take 6 cdrom from Kurzweil. But first a few things about Take6! I saw and heard Take 6 perform at Toad's Place in New Haven, CT where they put out a few hours of amazing performances from each person in the ensemble. Known for playing high energy jazz, gospel, and r&b influenced tunes, they carry a cool christian message in their music. During the show they all played various instruments and then proceeded to...

Introduction Read Reviews The user library for Native Intruments Reaktor has been growing daily for a few years now and...

LoFi Junkies is the first of Wizoo's 'TrashCan' loops series. Based on lower bit sample, old drum machines and hard compression, they make a great starting point. I picked this disc up from the manufacturer several months ago hoping to be ecstatic about it...

If you are looking for realistic drum sounds, look no further. Nearly 10 years after my initial purchase, my K2000 has constantly amazed me. One can take a perfectly good sounding sample and warp it into something entirely new and unexpected or take something normally ordinary-sounding and make this machine sound truly alive...

The Rhodes Piano has evoked the sounds of a generation and can be the catylist for reliving this bygone era. Do you want to experience that feeling and sound of the original Rhodes? Well then, this disc is for you. This is a spot-on simulation of the original piano and is designed for those that cared about the original but probably just got sick of trying to maintain it...

Are you looking for a truly unique sampling CD? I know, this is a quaint phrase that starts off most reviews (and several of my own) but I believe this actually fits in this case. Granular by Bolder Sounds is just this: Granular Synthesis...

With current memory prices low and resources for free or cheap samples readily available, most of forget that our Synth is actually a Synth. Having recently been overwhelmed by a few works that rely only on the Kurzweil 2000's ROM, I decided to look more patches that utilize only the synth architecture and built in ROM. What I found simply amazed me...

KeySolutions Volume 1 is a living organic representation of the sounds we all need in everyday compositions, all at an inexpensive price. This disc is split into four separate areas: Pianos, Basses, Drums and Synths. What separates this disc from others in its price range is the amount of programming offered which truly make these samples sing...

After playing with this disc for a few weeks, I decided to get an opinion of someone that eats, breathes and lives techno instead of my simple passing interests in the genre. I lent this disc to him and several months later I still can't get it back. If this does not say something about this disc, I don't know what I can add to the tale...

The Post Organ Toolkit fills a gap that many Kurzweil owners have needed. Kurz owners have always been considered elitists because of our wanton of perfection, from the synth emulations to realistic pianos. Micheil Post fills this need with his latest version (3.0) of the Post Organ Toolkit...

At last I got around to purchasing the Total Stereo Session Drums from Sweetwater Sound ($329). I am very pleased with the sample set. Thus far, I've only spent about 2-3 hours with it, but I would like to post the following information for two reasons...

I purchased the bolder sounds piano CD about a month ago and have been playing with it long enough to formulate my thoughts on it. In short, I am very pleased with it and would highly recommend that you consider it amongst the many choices around...

The Diffusion Series are AMG's answer to the home computer / bedroom musician/producer. All titles are offered in Audio Wav Aiff and Rex formats. The first readable by any CD player, the next PC and Mac formats respectively and lastly, the very popular (and cross platform) ReCycle format. The disc reviewed is a hybrid Audio/Wav format, very handy for times when I want to preview sounds without having to pop them up onto my sampler.

Before I start this review, let me say that this has been one of the best drumloop disc I've heard in a long time. Everything is up front and in your face, just where I like it. This disc is nothing but clean...

"...As winter is staring to set in, my piano will be soon completely out of tune and I will be in need of a good piano to appease the cat. $200 for the retuning or $300 for a disc that never needs retuning. No sampler is going to beat a well tuned acoustic of any variety, but this sure makes a run for the money..."

The X files of Techno by e - LAB AB and distributed by Time + Space is as one would guess a sampling disc based around the genre of Techno. As are most of these discs, one has a lot of loops to deal with and can easily play Sample by Number or try to create a completely new work of art. More on this in just a moment.

The Maximum Impact Alternative sample collection is based on the sounds of 80's goth and the early industrial scene. Think anything goth/industrial pre-NIN if you're old enough back in the days when the genres were pretty much the same and when you could count on liking anything by Depeche Mode, the Cure, early Ministry or the entire WaxTrax! label for that matter.

This is yet another disc in the Terminalhead line, if ya liked the first two you are definitely going to like this release. It employs the same production, same timbres and keeps the same audience. These are the B sides. It isn't quite as good as the first, but still pretty damn usable. I have been abusing underfire since receiving it and this one in now in my perminent collection as well.

Steve Stevens was the guitarist for one of the 80's greatest rockers, Billy Idol and was infact responsiblefor alot of the sounds and mood of Idols records. This disc is nothing more than all his signature sounds, chords and otherwise for the world to use.

Touted as a Virtual Reggae Band, this disc does little to live up to that assumption, then again for $25 I'm not complaining. This disc is offered very economically and goes out of its way to present its data...

Eavesdropping on a few conversations around the net, I ran a cross a few postings about this toolkit. Over at the K2000 listserv, I heard Michiel Post, the creator of this toolkit, talking about his new product and trying to bring it to market...

Not much to say here. These just rock...I'm not a jungle purist by any means (hell, the last Bowie album and that bit off NiN's perfect Drug seem jungle enough for my taste...

Review: Terminal Head: Underfire v.2 AMG Format : Audio CD Review by Clif Marsiglio Monday, April 27, 1998 Note 11/26/2002...

Can't find a review? We here at Sonikmatter are in the process of reloading all the reviews into our new 'Content Management System' and certain reviews may not be online for a few weeks, but rest assured they will be back.
 
In the meantime, take a glance at the Wayback Machine for reviews from our old site. A good deal of reviews are located there and will be transfered ASAP.
 
Thank you for your patience.
 
The Sonikmatter Web Development Team