Electronic Musician reviewed Tascam’s all-singing all-dancing software sampler GigaStudio 3, and they say, “it’s a doozy.” They continue, “Tascam has listened to its hardcore users and introduced an extensive redesign and expansion of the program. … What’s more, the user interface has been vastly improved, and the program now boasts a number of sophisticated new features.” In fact, they say, GigaStudio 3 has blurred the line between sampler and digital-audio workstation.

They review the high-end version of GigaStudio, called GigaStudio 3 Orchestra, though there are two other version available called GigaStudio 3 Ensemble and GigaStudio 3 Solo. These cut-down (and cheaper) versions lack some of the more advanced features but are fundamentally the same product. They give a very detailed review of the updated and new features, from the MIDI mixer to the DSP Station, showing that this is a lot more than a simple sample recording and playback engine.

Of course, they also talk at length about GigaPulse, Tascam’s convolution-based reverb, which is included in the top-of-the-line GigaStudio Orchestra under review. The full reverb plug-in is not included in GigaStudio Ensemble or GigaStudio Solo, but these programs include the GigaPulse playback engine, so you do get fancy reverb when playing instruments that have been encoded with GigaPulse. As for the reverb quality, they are emphatic: “In the final analysis, how does GigaPulse sound? In a word: fantastic. … In short, this is a great reverb for all seasons, and it should serve nicely as the primary processor for most projects.”

In the end, they agree with most other reviewers that GigaStudio 3 is the best software sampler out. They rate it as 4.5 out of 5 and write: “All in all, GigaStudio 3 Orchestra is an impressive package. Its high-end audio quality, flexible routing and processing capabilities, advanced performance features, sophisticated editing tools, powerful search functions, and streamlined user interface make it once again the indisputable gold standard in software samplers.”

Roxio will release Toast 7 this week. This is the latest version of their CD mastering package — I still have my copy of Toast 4 from a few years back, but this new version has a number of new features. Most of the new functions concern DVDs — you can now write to several different formats including music DVD (50 hours on one disc). These new functions actually sound more useful if you produce a lot of video, but as it’s a general-purpose CD/DVD authoring package there’s a lot of functionality for you audio producers too.

The emphasis on the general user runs right through Toast 7 — it even integrates with Apple’s iLife 05 “digital lifestyle” software. Roxio’s website has more details. They say: Toast 7 is the best way to save, share and enjoy a lifetime of digital music, movies and photos on CD and DVD. Burn large files across multiple discs. Compress and copy DVD movies. Add over 50 hours of music to an audio DVD — with on-screen TV menus, shuffle play, and rich Dolby Digital sound. Turn DivX files into DVDs. Create stunning multi-image HD slideshows with collages, motion effects, titles and background soundtracks. Enjoy HD playback in your living room today! Do it all with the fastest and most reliable burning software for the Mac OS — Toast.

Toast supports the most input formats of any Mac OS burning software:

• Audio — any non-protected QuickTime audio file, including AIFF, MP3, WAV, M4A, and MOV, as well as non-native formats, such as OGG, FLAC, and Dolby AC3 (2.0 and 5.1).
• Video — any QuickTime video file, including AVI, DV, MOV, MPEG1, and MPEG4, as well as non-native formats such as MPEG2, DivX, XVID, VOB, and iMovie projects.
• Image — any QuickTime image file, including BMP, GIF, JPG, PDF, PSD, PNG, and TIFF.

Toast supports the most output formats of any Mac OS burning software:

• Data — Mac only, Mac/PC easy hybrid, ISO9660, UDF, Custom Hybrid, Mac Volume
• Audio — Audio CD, Music DVD, MP3 Disc, Enhanced Audio CD, Mixed Mode CD
• Video — Video CD, Super Video CD, DVD-Video, miniDVD, DivX Disc
• Copy — CD/DVD copy, Toast/3rd party image copy, Bin/Cue copy, CD-ROM XA, CD-I
• Disc Types — CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW double-layer, DVD-R/RW dual-layer, DVD-RAM
• Recorders — Most internal and external CD and DVD recorders, including SuperDrives

Toast supports special burn settings, such as CD-TEXT writing, Disc At Once (DAO) recording, and Buffer Underrun Prevention options. DVDs created with Toast adhere 100% to the official DVD specifications, and are tested with Hollywood standard certification tools to verify DVD player compatibility.

Reaktor 5, the latest version of Native Instruments’ flagship soft synth, gets an excellent review in the July issue of Computer Music magazine. In fact, they give it top marks for both Value for Money and Performance, and make it an Editor’s Choice. They say “it’s absolutely loaded with powerful new features that are guaranteed to keep you busy for aeons.”

Reaktor is more than just a synth — it’s a construction kit that lets you create your own synths, samplers and effects. You can build components by wiring together the included modules and saving them for later use. You can save combinations of instruments and effects into a single Ensemble. According to the review, this is “an elegant design that allows users to share creations at verying level of completion and complexity. It’s also surprisingly easy to use”. Fortunately, there is a degree of forward-compatibility; Ensembles built for the previous version will also work in Reaktor 5, which is important if you already own a previous version and are thinking of upgrading.

Of course, it comes with enough presets to make it useful right out of the box too: “NI have, as you’d expect, included a more than respectable selection of new Instruments, effects, sampler transformers, beatboxes and sequencers that make use of Reaktor 5’s improved feature set.” They describe many of them in some detail, before concluding that “the new Ensembles open up plenty of new sonic territories and sound fantastic.”

Reaktor 5 includes a new concept called Core Technologies, which they say “is undoubtedly among the most powerful of the new features.” This allows much nore low-level programming of sound modules and effects. Unless you’re already into computer programming, you may not use this, but it does mean that there will be a lot of interesting third-party add-ons for Reaktor 5.

In the end they give it a solid 9 out of ten. “Reaktor remains a great deal. Add to that its incredible versatility, and it really could be the only plug-in you’ll ever need.”

Q-Clone is an EQ plugin from Waves that can “sample” a hardware EQ so you can use it in software. Two main uses: you can use a hardware EQ with different settings on different tracks simultaneously; or you can use settings “sampled” from a hardware EQ that you don’t have. This second option is probably more likely for typical Laptop Studio types who don’t have piles of hardware cluttering up their studios, though this plugin itself is pretty expensive.

The Q-Clone package consists of two components: Q-Capture and Q-Clone. The website says that using them is easy:

1. Set up Q-Capture so it sends its special capturing signal through your audio interface to your outboard hardware EQ unit and returns the equalized signal back.

2. Open Q-Clone on the first track you want to EQ. Adjust the knobs on your hardware EQ unit until you get the sound you want.

3. On the Q-Clone plug-in, hit the Hold button, and the EQ for that track will now remain just as you set it, while you repeat the process on as many tracks as your computer can handle.

You can change and reset the equalization on each track as often as you need, and save the results as a preset. Using the Add button, you can also make adjustments on top of the original setting—like having the signal running through two of your EQ units at once. And Q-Clone comes with presets captured from a selection of world-class hardware equalizers. Q-Clone is available separately and is not included in any bundle.

The MX4 2.0 soft synth by MOTU gets a top review in the August issue of Computer Music magazine. They give it special awards for Performance and for Innovation, and the review starts as it continues: “Quite simply, this is one of the most powerful synths we’ve ever used — in every single respect.”

They like the crystal-clear organisation of this synth. The main screen contains all the controls for the various oscillators, filters, LFOs and other components. They note how easy it is to quickly tweak the settings with the straightforward GUI. They contrast its simple interface with the likes of Reason: “unlike some analogue-emulating GUIs that have virtual patch cables strewn all over, to find out which modulators are acting on a parameter you simply run the cursor over it. This causes all the modulators that are affecting that parameter to light up.” I have previously mentioned how daunting I find the Reason interface — maybe it’s because I haven’t had years of experience with old-skool hardware studios. In contrast, they say, “MX4 makes programming, or even just tweaking the factory presets, incredibly easy.”

They are also impressed with MX4’s effects: “We normally avoid onboard effects, but these are superb.” You can even use them by running external audio through MX4, or use it as a modulator. There’s also a feature called Random.. This resets parameters to random settings, creating entirely new patches. If you have a setting you like, but it isn’t quite right, you can keep the parameters you like and use Random on the other settings until you get the sound you want. It’s a simple concept, but apparently extremely powerful and useful — the review calls it “absolutely staggering”.

These reviewers really are knocked off their feet by MX4; they conclude by saying that MX4 offers “a staggering amount of power in the most awesome interface we’ve yet seen on a synth. … it sounds incredible.” They give it ten out of ten and some very simple advice: “you should buy MX4.”

Sound on Sound reviews the Ta Horng iSmart roll-up keyboard. Essentially, they say it works about as well as you would expect — what you see is what you get. “As a MIDI data-entry device, the iSmart works fine, triggering notes reliably when the keyboard is on a hard surface.” However, of course the keys offer no feedback, and it’s hard to play accurately when all keys — including the black keys — are on the same level.

Overall, they think this is “an odd product”. I tend to agree. “Some consider a rubber keyboard about as useful as a rubber violin, no matter how portable. Others think the iSmart could be useful for data entry where budget and space restrictions are at their tightest. Hopefully you should know which camp you belong to by now, and will use your wallet accordingly!”

I could see the iSmart being useful for travelling — you could have your laptop and iSmart in your laptop bag, and make music wherever you go without having to use a fiddly mouse to enter notes, or carry a bulky MIDI keyboard.

The iKey is a press releease from Gemini with “artist’s impressions” of a new device and some excited hyperbole about what the device can do. Despite their liberal use of words like “revolutionary”, “incredible”, and “take the DJ industry by storm”, the iKey seems to be nothing more than a box that converts analog audio input (via stereo RCA jacks) to digital output (via a USB port). Useful? Perhaps. Incredible? No. And more importantly, it doesn’t seem to exist yet — information from the press releease is on various websites (such as Remix magazine) but not on Gemini’s own website.

They say that the iKey converts input to either WAV or MP3 and sends it to the USB output, which has to have a USB memory key (sold separately) plugged in to save the audio file: “To use the iKEY, simply connect a cable from your headphone jack or any other output source to the RCA inputs, connect to a USB flash drive or mass storage device, select the desired digital audio format, and hit record – it’s that simple! The iKEY lets you choose whether the audio will be converted into MP3 format (with a choice of a 128, 160 and 256kbps bit rate) or the lossless WAV format. Never before has a portable device allowed you to do this without extra hardware and software.” Well, if a USB flash drive isn’t extra hardware then I don’t know what is.

You can see how this device could be useful, but it’s hard to get too excited when we can’t even see a proper photo of it yet.

PhatSpace Bundle. What a fantastic name for a music software package. What a fantastic name for anything. Computer Music magazine has reviewed this latest package from Camel Audio, which contains two plug-ins: the inscrutable CamelSpace, and the disturbingly-named CamelPhat 3. CamelPhat is meant simply to “phatten” your sound: “it gives you four different ways of adding grit, and because you can wind in all of them at once, the range of tones you can create is extensive. Of course, it’s always possible to push things way too far — something we frequently take great joy in doing.” That’s the spirit!

Camel Audio also offer a free version of CamelPhat called CamelPhatFree. It’s vastly simpler than CamelPhat, with just two controls: “Distortion” and “Compression”. Still, if you like what it does then CamelPhat will do it too only much more so. And it’s a bargain at twice the price.

CamelSpace seems difficult to describe: it “can take any sound and turn it into an array of dynamically evolving gated rhythmic textures” and “there are plenty more features to add depth and sparkle.” The main effect is a so-called “trance gate” that is controlled with a sophisticated built-in sequencer; there’s also a filter, panner, flanger, and much more.

“With so many parameters to tweak, it’s almost impossible to sum up how the PhatSpace Bundle ‘sounds’. … A simple drum loop becomes a booming, fat, pumping monster or a gated, dubbed-out, glitch-style chaotic rhythmic event.” Anything that can turn a drum loop into an “event” has got to be worth investigating. “Vocals become nasty, raw and twisted… or light and airy”.

The final verdict is excellent. They give the PhatSpace Bundle special awards for Performance and Value for Money, and an overall rating of 9 out of 10. In a nutshell: “Great sound; easy to use; cheap cheap cheap!”

Grooves magazine is a small but excellent magazine for those interested in listening to or making electronic music. For the laptop studio enthusiast, there are reviews of music software and hardware, from the well-known (e.g. Ableton Live) to the more obscure. The reviews are slanted toward the production of electronic music of various forms, so the emphasis is on computer-based music rather than recording “real” instruments. But because of this focus, the reviews make good, in-depth reading.

There are also features about the electronic music scene in various parts of the world, and interviews with producers and artists. This kind of article is great for getting a feel for the huge electronic music community out there.

Grooves also features many pages of music reviews. I’ve picked up quite a few pointers on new music from this magazine — again, there are some famous names but most of the CDs discussed are new to me. It’s a great way to discover new sounds.

I was amazed to discover a copy of Grooves in a magazine shop in a bland suburban shopping mall in Sydney. Their website doesn’t list any Australian distributors, so I have no idea how it found its way to generic Australian suburbia. But I’m glad it did.

PC Plus reviews Sony Acid Pro 5 and write: “This new version aims to keep the upgrade momentum going. But if that’s the theory, the reality doesn’t quite match it.” VST and ReWire support are welcome but overdue, they say, and they are disappointed with the new Groove Mapping feature: “In practice, this is something of a toy feature that has its uses – some of the funk grooves sound excellent on funk-style loops, but doesn’t live up to its full potential.”

The new timestretching and beat mapping tools are “worth playing with” — “Acid remains a fantastic demo and song sketching tool, and it’s exceptionally good at both,” but the sound quality is “a notch or two down from what would be needed to put together an entire song if you were trying to work at a high professional level.”

Overall, they think the upgrade is “something of a missed opportunity. Ableton-style live arranging, playback and a general spruce up in the sonic department would have been very welcome, but unfortunately the changes on offer here are rather less adventurous.” It’s true that the startling advances made by previous Acid upgrades are missing in Acid Pro 5. They conclude their rather lukewarm review by saying the upgrade is not really worth it, but Acid Pro 5 is still a good program for beginners: “if VST compatibility doesn’t matter to you, there’s no hugely compelling reason to trade up from version 4. … But for beginners who want the sheer joy of putting together something that sounds almost as good as a radio hit, and for anyone else who enjoys dabbling with music making, Acid will provide months of entertainment.”