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.
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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.
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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 ...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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".
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