Studio Reviews give Waves IR-1 Convolution Reverb a very good review. They found the reverb to be “smooth, very clean and detailed. The vocals or instruments being used with the Wave impulses sound like they were recorded in the venues. With synthesized reverb units, a lot of times it sounds like you’re adding a reverb on top of the signal. But with the Waves impulses (as well as many third-party impulses) you get the impression that the signal was recorded in the room you chose.” Of course, this puts demands on the host computer: they recommend a Pentium IV or G5 with a minimum of 1 gig of ram to run it smoothly.

They also like the interface; they “found the IR-1 to be very straight forward and easy to use. The screen display is very neat and organized and pleasant to the eyes. ” This makes it easy to take advantage of the plugin’s flexibility: “Being able to adjust early reflections, tails, size, damping, changing the EQ and other features makes it very flexible. If you alter the controls modestly, you can get different character and size while still retaining the great sound.”

They like the included impulse responses, which contain “some very amazing impulses.”: “The software comes with two CD-ROMs with over 60 room types from auditoriums, theaters, small rooms, medium halls, churches, recording studios, outdoors, opera houses, amphitheaters, clubs, stairwells, car interiors, and stadiums. Plus there are 60 different hardware device presets as well.” So you can get that genuine “car interior” sound without having to drag your equipment down to the garage.

And it’s not just the included impulses, it’s what you can do with them: “if you want more control and flexibility, I easily can recommend the Waves IR-1. On the Waves web site, there are additional impulses you can download as well giving you more venues to choose from. However you cannot download any of the Waves impulses unless you have an IR-1. It should be noted that not all impulses are done with great care and skill that Waves has taken. Many just use the balloon method, which can reflect in reverbs that don’t have the same intimate detailed sound that Waves offers with their impulses.”

IR-1 is available in a full and a light version. The light version, called IR-L, has the same sound and uses all the same impulses, but has limited controls compared to the full version. It’s also cheaper.

The reviewer was initially skeptical about IR-1, but the quality won him over: “Before I reviewed the IR-1, my feeling was most of us just need one of the cheaper plug-ins above, with convolution impulses available online. However after comparing the IR-1 to the other packages, I feel the additional flexibility justifies the higher price. … So if you want high end impulses and great flexibility, I recommend looking closely at the Waves IR-1. I had no choice but to buy this amazing reverb.”

Atmogen 1.02, the visual additive synthesizer from the intriguingly-named Sonorous Codes, has been reviewed by Electronic Musician magazine: “The program gives you enormous sound-design potential, allowing you to use tools that are more closely associated with image editing in order to generate and process sound files.” You’ll need a fast computer with a lot of hard disk space, but they said they had no stability problems at all during their testing.

They offer a recap of Atmogen’s sound design interface. The sound is represented as a bitmap image on the screen: “Atmogen uses the brightness of each pixel to control amplitude, color to control pan position (green is left, yellow is center, and red is right), and the vertical position of the pixel for frequency. The resolution of the sound rendering is completely user adjustable. For example, an image can be “quantized” to produce just a few sine waves, or it can control up to 1,024 complex waveforms simultaneously.”

A number of the tools in Atmogen are described — the graphical editing tools, and the Markers and Layers to help organize your sound/image — and there are also a number of effects available, as you might expect. They work well, but aren’t that easy to use: “Though the number and range of the Effects is impressive, most are not well documented, and no usage tips are given as a rule. But with a little trial and error, you can figure out their functions and how they might be useful.”

As with other similar programs, Atmogen looks like a tool for the more experimental musician or sound designer: “Atmogen is a deep program, with layers and layers of controls. It’s hugely adaptable to experimentation and can provide endless raw material for your sonic explorations.” However, perhaps because of its experimental nature, they feel the documentation is a bit lacking.

In the end, Atmogen gets a rating of 4.5 out of 5: “for anyone on the PC who is interested in exploring a wholly new approach to working with sound, atmogen is a great resource. There are a few other image-to-sound programs available (Rasmus Ekman’s Coagula comes to mind), but atmogen has far more power. The program is so ripe for interactive experimentation that you just might want to put away the manual and spend a few hours (make that, a few days!) uncovering atmogen’s many treasures.”

Computer Music’s review of Reason 3 runs through the features of this program, starting off by noting that Reason is a complex but closed solution, which can be a blessing and a curse — no third-party plug-ins can be used, and in this new version, no new generators (instruments) are included.

Having said that, the review enthusiastically goes through the things that are included. The new Compressor and EQ get top marks: “The MClass EQ is perfect for making tonal corrections with surgical precision and silky smoothness.” But what they really love is the vastly expanded support for MIDI control surfaces: “The improved support provides an incredible level if integration that has to be seen to be believed.”

The big new feature is, of course, the Combinator, which allows multiple instruments and effects to be combined into a single entity. They say “A high level of routing flexibility has always been a big and useful part of the Reason experience — with the addition of combinator, the whole concept has been taken a significant step further. It’s simply brilliant.”

What else? They love the improved responsiveness; they love the higher quality audio export (audio can be dithered from 32 bits to 24 or 16). The thing nobody loves about Reason is its sequencer, and this review is no exception. They say the Sequencer is “beginning to look quite primitive and dated these days, and as a result, many of our pet hates relating to it remain.”

The conclusion in a nutshell is that you shouldn’t expect to be blown away, but this is a very high quality product nonetheless: “this revision represents a significant and positive step forward, but it’s perhaps not quite as earth-shattering as some would have hoped. … [but] rest assured that it’ll take some considerable time for even the most dedicated and imaginative fan to discover what this new and improved version is really capable of.”

The Atmogen visual additive synth by Sonorous Codes brings visual sound design to the PC. Mac users have had MetaSynth for years; now Windowsers will be able to join this strange and wonderful party. Atmogen uses up to 1024 oscillators, which are combined to form its sound output. The neat thing is that the oscillators are each displayed as a multicoloured line — the lines are stacked on top of each other to form a 2-dimensional picture that you can edit directly to create your sound. Like MetaSynth, you can edit the picture in any ordinary graphics program before bringing it back to Atmogen to hear it.

Sonourous Codes say it well on their website: “It is your very own decision whether you use atmogen sounds for the purpose of post production, video games, web applications or anything similar or simply feed your sampler with it to use it in your music. Basically, every imaginable sound can be produced with atmogen. The concept of atmogen is versatile to the extent that really everything is possible. atmogen can prove its quality best when the user demands a fresh and innovative sound.”

Here is a summary of some of the most important features.

Export audio files
Import audio files
Import and export image files
Graphical user interface — atmogen’s user interface provides anything you need to create and to modify images. Consequently, the user interface may remind you of an image processing software although the concept of atmogen does not intend to create cute graphics. The only goal is to achieve applicable sound results. Thus, you will work more efficiently with the native tools of atmogen than with any other software being designed only for a graphical purpose.
Up to 1024 oscillators
Flexible graphical envelope
Layer objects — You can use those little images like paper shreds on a layout pad. Thus, the use of layer objects is extremely intuitive. While creating such a layer object the contents area of the background will be moved into the object. Afterwards you can move, rotate freely, resize, duplicate and erase it again.
Tempo/Grid
Markers
Effects — Various image effects change either the whole image or a single layer object abruptly. Beside those well known pedants such like a luxurious blur filter or a simple edge detection from various image processing software this section offers a variety of specialized actions. Those will animate you to experiment with and are developed only to produce valuable and sensible sound results. A real highlight among the effect filters is definitely the graphical EQ. With its 100 bands you can mesh with the frequency spectrum of a project extremely precisely.

Electronic Musician review Steinberg WaveLab 5.01a and emphasise its multimedia capabilities: “Among the most important new features are tools for DVD-Audio (DVD-A) authoring and production, an integrated video track, and track-based effects and level controls. Combined with the large number of professional-quality VST mastering and effects plug-ins, WaveLab 5 is a powerful media production environment.”

They are pleased that WaveLab 5 finally allows control of individual track levels, and also track-based effects. They give a lot of space to the new DVD-A authoring capabilities, as well as the new surround-sound functions.

I have always thought that support is very important for any complex program, and the review says that Steinberg have this covered. “WaveLab’s support is excellent — the comprehensive printed manual is more than 700 pages. … There is online support through the Help menu option in addition to context-sensitive help for many of the program’s features. There is also an active users forum, which is moderated by WaveLab’s principal developer, Philippe Goutier.”

Their final numerical rating across their categories is 17.5 out of a possible 20. If you are current user wondering whether to upgrade, they say you’ll make your decision based on whether you need the new DVD-A and multimedia features. For everyone else, “if you’re looking to move into a multitrack audio editor that supports many of the hottest new-media technologies available today, has a friendly interface, and can help manage not only your audio assets but also all of the files on your system, WaveLab is an excellent choice.”

HALion 3, the latest version of Steinberg’s software sampler, was reviewed a little while back by the excellent Grooves magazine. They rate the included library highly: “Halion 3 includes several high-quality sound libraries that both demonstrate the power of the sampler and make the product a useful instrument in its own right.” Well, you’d hope it would be useful for the price!

They also give a nod to the Alternate function, which modulates the same MIDI note differently each time it is played. This prevents a common problem with samplers — every note sounds the same, whereas real instruments (even analog synths) sound slightly different each time.

Compared to the previous version, they like how HALion 3 organises the layout and use of samples, though the sample categories are not quite as flexible as they should be — categories cannot be added or renamed, and sample categorisation did not always work.

The main downside of HALion 3, they say, is that it is very resource-hungry. They say you need a heavy-duty workstation to use it to its potential, even with their fancy “RAM Save” function, which unloads samples from memory when they’re not required. This heavy resource usage may also explain the apparently random crashes they had. Save early, save often!

Overall they say HALion 3 is a very good product, though not as a pure sound-design tool: “HALion is better suited for emulating traditional instruments. If that is your goal, or if you need strong keyboards out of the box, few other soft samplers can compare with the usability and sound reproduction qualities of HALion 3.”

Vapor, the “large plug-in ROMpler” from East West gets a good review in Grooves magazine. This software playback sampler has over 2GB of sounds, and “a flair for the decidedly synthetic”. They note some interface glitches, but overall like the sounds that come out of Vapor. Vapor uses the Native Instruments Kompakt engine (as used by NI’s own Kontakt sampler). The reviewers says Vapor’s feature set is light, but that can be a blessing as well as a curse.

Vapor’s “thing” is synthetic sounds. If you want realistic strings, look elsewhere, but they say “synthesis junkies will welcome this collection into their fold.”

The user interface gets good marks overall: “Even though the features are on the light side, I found patch creation to be enjoyable.” And tools like this should always be enjoyable, or what’s the point? Unfortunately, the interface isn’t perfect: they say the multi-preset selection scheme may induce carpal-tunnel syndrome as you have to click the mouse and keep the button held down at the right times, all while navigating tiny menus and buttons. It sounds a bit of a pain, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Aside from this, they do like this instrument: “the sounds of Vapor are quite divine. with its 2.2GB of content, synthesis junkies would be missing out on a treat to snack on if they passed up this bargain. … This is one moderately priced synth that should not be missed.”

GarageBand 2 gets a great review from Computer Music magazine. They call it “one of the most intuitive, easy-to-use applications on the market.” “GarageBand sits in a genre all of its own… and, in its own way, is revolutionary.”

They rave about GarageBand 2’s “new and powerful editing features. The Track Editor now contains sliders that allow you to sort out any timing or tuning problems — use them sensitively, and the results are excellent.” Track tempo management seems very simple — if you change the tempo or pitch of the project. your recorded audio parts will sync up accordingly.

They also note that this version allows multitrack recording, which is essential if you are actually recording a real band, in a garage or anywhere else. GarageBand 2 also has very good handling of musical notation for all you real musicians out there. There’s also a lock feature to conserve processing power when playing complex tracks and effects — this is like the freeze feature found on many high-end music production packages. In fact, it has enough high-end features that they say “only blatant snobbery could stop you from being impressed by GarageBand 2.”

This version of GarageBand moves more towards Logic, Apple’s own high-end music software, in terms of features — in fact, GarageBand can do some things that Logic still can’t. There’s a ready-made upgrade path from GarageBand 2 to Logic. Unfortunately, there’s no special upgrade deal for users of the first version of GarageBand, but they seem to think GarageBand 2 is worth the full price anyway.

They give GarageBand 2 a rating of 9 out of 10 and a special “Value for Money” award. “If you’re just starting out, GB2 represents a compelling reason to buy a Mac rather than a PC — it really is that good.”

PC Plus magazine’s review of Steinberg WaveLab 5 is quite positive. They emphasize WaveLab 5’s new surround sound processing functions. The monitoring has been upgraded accordingly: “WaveLab’s excellent visual metering tools have been extended to allow full surround metering. Eight channels of spectral analysis running in real time is quite a sight – this is one area where WaveLab has always excelled, and this update carries on that tradition.”

They note WaveLab’s new support for DVDA (DVD Audio) formats, as well as Data CD and DVD. However, they describe the DVD video support as “sketchy”, so if you’re into video, then perhaps you should keep looking. They also lament the fact that surround support is not quite pervasive: “Some tools are surround-friendly, while others, including the popular multi-band mastering compressor, are stereo-only. This is frustrating, if understandable, and it does diminish the usefulness of the new surround features.”

So overall, they do like WaveLab 5, but only recommend it if you have a specific need for its new features: “For casual use, it’s a touch too much in terms of features and learning curve. But if you work more seriously with media, perhaps for events management, business presentations, or sound design for games and films, then this upgrade has a lot to offer. For the first time you can edit, author and burn DVDA presentations in the most popular surround formats, with slideshows, menus, and all the other extras the format can provide.”

Grooves magazine reviews Steinberg WaveLab 5. The new version of WaveLab, they say, focuses on DVD features — you can now create various DVD formats, though the options aren’t as extensive as you would expect from a high-end DVD authoring program. There are also lots of other goodies in this general-purpose audio editor.

The Audio Montage feature in this version of WaveLab supports VST effects, but not DirectX. Still, they say, “it would be a great tool, though, for editing things like radio spots or news programs, as cutting up audio, sliding it around, and crossfading between clips is fast and easy.” They think Audio Montage is powerful and useful, though it doesn’t quite do everything.

The reviewers find some faults with WaveLab’s user interface. The editing commands are non-standard — Steinberg like to do things their own way rather than follow the Microsoft guidelines. Also, the arrangement of functions is not always intuitive: “Certain operations that should be fundamental, like setting tempo, are hidden deeply in menus.”

Despite the fancy DVD features, they conclude that the basic features are what makes this program worthwhile. “The real value of the program for me — and for users not yet working with surround sound — is as a fast, flexible, full-featured stereo-audio editor and CD mastering tool. Those core functions are all easy to grasp, quick, and flexible. I’ve yet to have have WaveLab 5 crash or lose work, either, and in general, it seems very stable. As a result, WaveLab 5 is perhaps the only audio editor you’ll ever need.”