REVIEWS.
Reference reviews of studio hardware, software, microphones, synths and recording tools.
Building a Big Rig with the MOTU 896 Mk3
Building a Big Rig with the MOTU 896 Mk3 by SoundCravers lab Under construction There are a lot of audio interfaces to choose from these days. Many excellent values. This makes the choices difficult, even for the well researched studio creator. I hope this review gives you the information you need t…
History of the Yamaha Motif Series, by SoundCravers Lab
History of the Yamaha Motif Series, by SoundCravers Lab Restored local archive. Dead external/affiliate links and unavailable archived targets have been disabled. SoundCravers Lab electronic musicians cafe' Guide | Forums | Rigs | Reviews | Bookst…
Kaossilator Pro Review.html
New ways to shape your sound by SoundCravers Lab Korg Says: First came the Kaoss Pad, an effects processor with a revolutionary touch-sensitive X-Y interface that made sound manipulation more interactive and expressive than ever before. Then came the Kaossilator, a pocket-sized synth with basic loop…
Korg Legacy MS20 vs. Original MS20
Review of the Korg Legacy MS-20 Compared to the Original MS20 Synthesizer As many of you know, I have an original Korg MS-20 here in TweakLand. It is my prized synth, and it has been with me through the thick and the thin. I found it in a dusty corner of a pawn shop in the late eighties, barely work…
Review and History of the Roland Fantom G
Review and History of the Roland Fantom G The History of the Fantom Line zZounds Fantom Department Expand your Fantom S/X/XR or XV synth with Roland SRX Expansion boards Demo the SRX boards Roland V-SynthGT Synthesizer Keyboard workstations have been around a while. While definitions will vary, I de…
Review of Altered States by Zero
Review of Altered States by Zero-G The horror. You wake up in the middle of the night because someone is knocking on the door. "Who in the world could that be?" Should you open the door? You pause. Maybe you don't want to know who it is! Is it the police? Neighbors? Uh Oh. B-but Maybe! IS it is a lo…
Review of Antares Filter
Review of the Antares Filter by Tweak The Antares filter is more than just another EQ plugin. It's a powerful tweaking tool that cuts hard and deep into the fabric of your audio . This will make more sense when you understand exactly what the Antares Filter does so I try to explain this in no-nonsen…
Review Of Garage Band.htm
Restored local archive. Dead external/affiliate links and unavailable archived targets have been disabled. Review of GarageBand The Killer App of the decade? By Tweak, revised for GarageBand 3 Alas, when we buy a computer, we are used to getting simple little …
Review of Guru
Review of Guru The Ultimate Software Drum Machine? For those that dabble in the arts of electronica, and who experiment with what used to be called drum sounds, Guru fills several fundamental needs. Lets get down to business. Doing hip hop, trance, drum N Bass, house, world? You need a huge variety…
Review of Intakt
Review of Native Instrument's Intakt An Easy to use and Powerful Soft Sampler By Tweak Native Instruments Intakt Software Sampler (Macintosh and Windows) Intakt is a state-of-the-art sampler specifically designed for rhythmic loop playback, manipulation, and mayhem. Intakt’s convenient one-screen in…
Review of Kompakt
Review of Kompakt Soft sampler that's easy on the Budget By Tweak Soft samplers are the rage today. They have successfully taken much of the market from their hardware counterparts and for good reason. Soft Samplers are cheaper, are easier to set up, can quickly access any .wav file on your computer…
Review of Komplete 4 by Native Instruments
Review of Komplete 4 and 5 by Native Instruments Native Instruments improves their big bundle of Synths, Samplers, Drum instruments and FX By Tweak So far so good. The products, and there are twelve of them, all install nicely on my system (Mac OSX 10.4.8 PPC). Some are Universal Binary for the Inte…
Review of Kore
Review of Kore Native Instrument's new Flagship provides new sonic possibilities with plugins updated for Kore 1.1 When I started making computer based compositions I had one drum machine with 15 sounds and one synth with 100 presets. My "library" of sounds was easy to manage. I had a hand written p…
Review of Kore2
Review of Kore 2 The Sound Generator of Generators, but can your computer handle it? I purchased Kore 2 with some trepidation. Kore 1 took a lot of time to get setup and it tended to be a CPU hog--so much, I tended not to use it as much as I used the plugins it contained. That is, if I knew I wanted…
Review of Massive by Native Instruments
Review of Massive by Native Instruments A Powerful new Software Synthesizer by Tweak Massive is a software synth for those who want to program their own sounds. Sure you can just use presets, and hundreds are supplied, but I think that would be missing the point. Even though you can find sounds amaz…
Review of MOTU Digital Performer
Motu Digital Performer DP4 is now Panther and G5 ready by the Tweak Performer goes back to the early days of MIDI . It has been on the Mac platform longer than any other contemporary Mac sequencer application. I had to look through my archive of magazines to find out how long, and finally found an e…
Review of Motu's BPM Beat Production Machine
Review of Motu's BPM Beat Production Machine by SoundCravers Lab Get a Price on MOTU's Beat Production Software (BPM) Just got it. And I want to tell you, its great . You don't need an MPC to do all the cool stuff you can do with one-- if you have this software and an MPD or suitable pad controller.…
Review of MOTU's Ethno Instrument
Review of MOTU's Ethno Instrument by Tweak Our world is shrinking. In terms of our connection in cyberspace, access to other cultures is almost immediate. In terms of our virtual studios, you can now have almost any musical instrument in your compositions. The MOTU Ethno instrument brings many world…
Review Of Reason 3.htm
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Review of Sound Forge
Review of Sound Forge 7 through 9 A Great Audio editor for the PC by Tweak Sony SoundForge Stereo Editing Software (Windows) Sound Forge® software is an award-winning digital audio editor that includes a powerful set of audio processes, tools, and effects for recording and manipulating audio. Sony S…
Review of Spectrasonics Atmosphere
Review of Spectrasonic's Atmosphere A soft synth dedicated to textures, pads, and ambient color by Tweak Note: Atmosphere's Library is now included in Spectrasonics Omnisphere It sits there on your computer screen like a like a massive 4 rack unit synth . It's a big one all right. My screen is set t…
Review of Spectrasonics Trilogy
Review of Spectrasonics Trilogy The Total Bass Module A good bass player is hard to find. Isn't that always the case? Especially when we get into making our own productions where there never seems to be a decent bass player around. Not that bass is rocket science, though. Of all the instruments, it…
Review of Stylus RMX
Review of Stylus RMX A Novel Approach for Making Beats in your Sequencer It took me a long time to warm up to Stylus. Mainly this was because of my misunderstanding of the product. I thought Stylus was in it's essence a "DJ tool", filled with turntable scratches and hitz and beatz and yes, it has th…
Review of the Akai MPD16 by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Akai MPD16 A Pad controller for your sequencer by Rich the TweakMeister Let me start off by saying I have never owned an MPC2000. And quickly add that I may never have to, now that I have the Akai MPD16 in my arsenal. Is it cool? Yes! But before we get into that, lets start off with a…
Review of the Apple TV as an Audio Archiver, by SoundCravers
Review of the Apple TV as an Audio Archiver A novel solution for managing your song catalog By Tweak B y now , everyone has heard of iTunes , the iPod and perhaps even the iPhone. Opinions may vary on the value of these devices. But there is one compelling reason to go with iTunes, which of course i…
Review of the Behringer ADA8000 by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Behringer ADA8000 by SoundCravers Lab Its been known quite a while that one of the better Behringer values, in addition to their fine Direct Box (the DI-100) is the ADA 8000. Officially, the product is named the Behringer ADA8000 Ultragain Pro 8-Channel A/D D/A Converter If anything, m…
Review of the Behringer MX9000
Review of the Behringer MX9000 The biggest, best behringer Why go with an analog console these days? You might wonder with all the really hot digital mixers out there. If you are doing a stand alone multi-track, like an ADAT or tascam multi track recorder, digital mixers make lots of sense. But if y…
Review of the Behringer V-AMP
Review of the Behringer V-Amp 2 by Tweak Today was the day. I brought them out of exile, the dusty relics of my past, the skeletons in the Tweak's many closets. No, not the faded photographs of past significant others, but something almost as dear: I brought out my guitars. Shaking my head, in some…
Review of the Boss RE-20 Space Echo by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Boss RE-20 Space Echo by SoundCravers lab Boss RE-20 Space Echo Delay Pedal One of the most beloved echo effects ever made, the Roland RE-201 Space Echo, has been reborn as the BOSS RE-20 Twin Pedal! Roland and BOSS have recreated every sonic detail and nuance of the original. Experien…
Review of the Cad E-200 Microphone by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Cad E-200 CAD E200 Equitek Series Dual Single Diaphragm Condenser Microphone Pros: Smooth Sound Switchable directional patterns and pad Look Great Cons Does not come with shock mount The Equitek E200 from Conneaut Audio Devices is a multi-pattern side address microphone designed for re…
Review of the DBX Digital Dynamics Processor
Review of the DBX Digital Dynamics Processor DBX DDP Digital Dynamics Processor Gating, compression, limiting, de-essing and EQ (both in-path and sidechain) are available in the DDP. The LCD display shows you a digital meter that features peak and average levels at the same time, as well as all pres…
Review of the Delta 1010
Review of the Delta 1010 Tweak's Personal Choice of Audio Interfaces I used to think it was just my system that was the problem. Not so long ago, using what I thought was a good state of the art 8 channel soundcard, I was having trouble. I couldn't even get 10 seconds into a song before a dreaded al…
Review of the Electrovoice RE20 by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Electro-Voice RE20 Classic Mic for Radio and Broadcast Alternative Broadcast Mics Shure SM7B Dynamic Cardioid Studio Vocal Microphone The SM7B dynamic microphone has a smooth, flat, wide-range frequency response appropriate for music and speech in all professional audio applications. I…
Review of the Emu XL1
Review of the Emu Xtreme Lead 1 by Tweak Emu XL-1 Extreme Lead 64 Voice Module Its not on my short list anymore. I bought it! Phat sounding analog timbres with knobs. Advanced arpeggiation--up to 16 at once! SuperBeats Mode. Get the idea? Its loops and arpeggios synced within presets so you can latc…
Review of the Emulator X2 Softwa
Review of the Emulator X2 Software Sampler The first true software sampler? Tweak asks the class "So, how many of you do sampling with soft samplers these days?" Nearly the whole class raises their hands. "Hmm, are you sure? Call them out for me. You! Tweak points the TweakWand at the first unsuspec…
Review of the Epiphone Casino
Review of the Epiphone Casino By the Tweak Modern day copy of a Beatles-Era Guitar I am no stranger to Epiphone Casinos. I used to play an original Casino, borrowed from a friend, every time I gigged. My own guitar at the time, a Les Paul of some unknown make, was simply not gig-worthy. Decades late…
Review of the Focusrite Platinum Voicemaster Pro
Review of the Focusrite Platinum Voicemaster Pro by Tweak Pros Extremely Tweakable Onboard compressor and optical expander (gate) EQ, Vintage Harmonics, and tube sound for extra coloration when desired De-esser, FX send returns and monitoring section Looks and sounds great Cons Digital outputs are o…
Review of the Garritan Personal Orchestra
Review of the Garritan Personal Orchestra It has been said before about music technology. You know, "Beethoven would have killed for this software". Probably not, says one muse. The man, after all, was deaf in his later years. And he didn't need any stinkin' software. It was all (Tweak taps his larg…
Review of the Great River ME-1NV by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Great River ME-1NV Nice Pre-Amp for the serious Home Studio Getting a good preamp is something that is not easy to do. Along the way there are many stumbling blocks, things that get in your way before you finally get down to business and pay. There must be a hundred reasons to not spen…
Review of the JV1010 and Expansion Boards
Review of the about the JV1010 by Rich the TweakMeister I have it, I love it, I use it in every song I make. If you can afford only one module this is the one. If you are a pro with a rack of synths but no current Roland synths, this is the one, it gives you the entire JV 2080 sound set plus the ses…
Review of the Korg Kaoss Pad
Review of the Korg Kaoss Pad by Rich the TweakMeister Don't even think this is just for DJs (though my DJ friends like it) It's like 2 products in one, a midi controller (with teeth) and an audio FX unit. Midi Features: Did you know the Kaoss Pad sends out MIDI for 6 continuous controllers and two s…
Review of the M-Audio Solaris by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the M-Audio Solaris Condenser Microphone A Versatile multi-pattern condenser Mic for amps, rooms, instruments, vocal groups by the Tweak Sitting in its durable coffin like case, the Solaris lies safely in state The word Solaris means different things to different people. To an astronomer,…
Review of the Mac G5
Review of the Mac G5 A Great Machine for Creative People by Tweak The amount of effort it takes to switch music platforms is immense, especially if one has been doing it for a while. For me, I had 10 years under my belt on the PC platform using Logic Audio platinum as my sequencer for all of them. W…
Review of the Mackie HR 824
Review of the Mackie HR 824 High Resolution Studio Monitor by the Tweak Pros Great clear, powerful sound Requires no amplification Has many settings which can be tweaked to optimize the monitor for placement Excellent Bass for a monitor this size Cons More expensive than other home studio monitors O…
Review of the MiniMoog V
Review of the MiniMoog V Lets face it, software synths that emulate analog synths are everywhere. It was not till I heard there was an update of the MiniMoog V to version 1.5 that I became even remotely interested. My first synth ever was a Moog Prodigy, a synth that made a lasting impression on me…
Review of the MOTU 828 MK2 by SoundCravers Lab
Pros Tons of i/o at a very friendly price Good sounding Mic Pres Firewire! Included MIDI i/o Complex monitor routings are easily attainable with CueMix Solid drivers Cons Small knobs are hard to manipulate for Mac OSX MOTU Stuff at zZounds Review of the MOTU 828 MK2 A bang for the buck Audio Interfa…
Review of the MOTU MX4
Review of the MOTU MX4 Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) MX4 MultiSynth Software Instrument (Macintosh) Meet the new instrument plug-in powerhouse for your studio. Inspired by legendary subtractive synthesizers, MX4 combines several core synthesis techniques in a unified, hybrid synthesis engine that deliv…
Review of the MOTU Ultralite
Review of the MOTU Ultralite T weakHeadz Lab electronic musicians cafe' Guide | Forums | Rigs | Reviews | Bookstore | Jukebox | Audio-Pro showroom search site Motu Ultralite Review and Info Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) UltraLite 10x14 FireWire Interface with MIDI The UltraLite bus-powered FireWire aud…
Review of the Neumann TLM 103
Review of the Neumann TLM 103 Studio Microphone by Rich the Tweak The search for the all around best home studio mic inevitably leads on the the high end of microphones. The name Neumann has been associated with quality microphones since the 1920's. The German company does not make inexpensive budge…
Review of the Novation ReMOTE 37SL by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Novation ReMOTE 37 SL With Notes on the AutoMap template for Logic 7.2 by Tweak The Idea behind the ReMOTE SL series is groundbreaking. It attempts to solve the major problem behind all controllers with assignable knobs and faders, namely, how can a the controller automatically configu…
Review of the Presonus Central S
Review of the Presonus Central Station Add big Mixer Features and a nice D\A Converter to your Mixerless Rig by Tweak Many of us have gone mixerless in the past few years. As soon as you do, you can't help but miss some of the convenience features of the mixer. We were used to having a knob to set t…
Review of the Proteus 2000
Review of the Proteus 2000 And Free Patches and Resources by Rich the TweakMeister Pros 128 Voice polyphony Multiple outs 32 MIDI channels 3 expansion slots Hip, clean sounds Cons Pianos and Strings not as good as other synths (can be expanded with better roms though) Not GM Compatible I think I was…
Review of the Roland SRX and JV boards
Reviews of the Roland SRX and JV80 Expansion Boards There are two kinds of expansion boards for Roland Synths, the SRX boards and the JV80 boards. The SRX boards are hi capacity 64 megabyte ROM boards while the JV80 boards are probably 16MB though some may be less. The SRX boards are for use in Rola…
Review of the Sennheiser MD421 by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Sennheiser MD421-II A Rather Strange Day in TweakLand by Tweak Appearances are deceiving sometimes. Tweak presses a button on Tweakland's Magic Console and a glass display case of microphones rises out of the floor. Tweak says, "think of the microphone as a marriage". Yes. As something…
Review of the Shure SM57 Dynamic Microphone by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Shure SM57 Dynamic Microphone The legendary, yet inexpensive Studio Mic of all time. If you ask nearly anyone who runs a professional recording studio, "Do you have a Shure SM57?" they might look at you and ask, "are you are serious?" Of course they do. Every studio needs at least one,…
Review of the Shure SM7B Dynamic
Review of the Shure SM7B Dynamic Microphone A Great Dynamic Mic for Vocals by Tweak T he SM7B is one of the better vocal microphones one can buy for a recording studio, home or pro. Its a dynamic microphone, based on a moving coil, and has a cardioid pattern. It picks up the sound it points to, and…
Review of the Stanton C.324 by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Stanton C.324 by SoundCravers Lab I must admit, I like to w A Rp audio. For me, it is a passion . No doubt its unusual for a person to get their kicks this way. Thankfully, I can justify some of it under the guise of being some kind of DJ producer type. "Oh, I get it", they exclaim wit…
Review of the Stanton T90 Turntable by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Stanton T90 USB Direct Drive Turntable Confessions of a Non-DJ Its been a while since I bought a turntable. So long I'd rather not say. I am a home studio guy, not a club DJ, so take everything I say about them through those colored glasses. But as a re-mixer and a samplist, I am alway…
Review of the Tenori-On by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Tenori-ON Take a chance, put some randomness back in your music. I don't get exited too often about a new synth these days. I've got plenty to play with now. Yet I keep looking for the next thing that is going to help me break, shatter, transmorgify the sound barriers. I think I have s…
Review of the Triton LE
Review of the Triton LE Korg Triton Le 61-Key Workstation 62 voices .The TRITON Le features both high-quality sounds and an assortment of new Programs and Combinations voiced especially for it. 448 onboard programs (64 user program locations) 128 programs and 9 drum kits The TRITON Le is GM compatib…
Review of the Triton Rack by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Korg Triton Rack Tweak's Pick for the Power User by Rich the Tweak zZounds Keyboard Dept. Korg Triton Rack Module The Triton Rack provides all of the sound and sampling functionality of the most highly respected synthesizer/workstation in today's music scene – the Triton. In addition,…
Review of the UAD 4k Processors by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the UAD 4k Processors Emulations from the famous SSL 4000 G+ Mixing console by SoundCravers Lab You know you have found a processor you like when you want to remix and remaster all your songs. You know, I have a lot of plugin processors here and its probably next to impossible for a salesp…
Review of the World Expedition Rom by Emu Systems
Review of the Planet Earth Module E-MU's sound designers have gathered an amazing collection of authentic rhythms and traditional instruments from the four corners of the globe to give you Planet Earth, the most realistic ethnic sound module in the world. And Planet Earth's powerful synthesis engine…
Review of the Yamaha AW1600 Recorder by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Yamaha AW1600 Multi Track Recorder Can it meet Tweak's Challenge? By Tweak Just when you thought you had me pegged as a computer guy I have to burst your bubble a little bit. Today's multi track recorders are cool, and like their DAW counterparts, they have become increasingly powerful…
Review of the Yamaha Motif XS by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Yamaha Motif XS New Control for your Musical Ideas by Tweak It took a long time for me to decide on getting the Motif XS. I was stalemated by the Korg M3 and its new Karma II engine. The Motif XS countered with its 6,000 arpeggios and superb performance patches. I went to the mat. Cros…
Review of the Zoom H4 Recorder by SoundCravers Lab
Review of the Zoom H4 And other solid state audio recorders The Zoom H4 is one of the many solid state hand held recorders on the market today. This kind of device records directly to a memory card. The advantage is that there is no motor noise that gets recorded along with your intended source. Ide…
Review of Waves Mastering Plugins
Review of Waves Mastering Plugins Waves Platinum Review The Waves Platinum contains all of the Gold 3.2 Bundle plus it adds more. You get the Renaissance Channel (along with other plugins that were formerly in the Renaissance 2 collection) and the Masters bundles. They key question: is it worth it t…
Review of Waves Software
Review of Waves Plugins Platinum and Gold Bundles Compared By Rich the Tweak Waves Platinum Review The Waves Platinum contains all of the Gold 3.2 Bundle plus it adds more. You get the Renaissance Channel (along with other plugins that were formerly in the Renaissance 2 collection) and the Masters b…
Reviews at SoundCravers Lab
Reviews Review you gear and have it appear instantly at the the Studio-Central Review forum Kaossilator Pro Review Tenori-On Presonus Central Station Behringer ADA8000 BOSS RE-20 Space Echo Stanton C324 Turntable Stanton T90 Korg Electribe EA Mackie HR-824 Monitors Roland VG99, GK3, FC300 Emu Protei…
SoundCravers Lab electronic music
SoundCravers Lab electronic music T weakHeadz Lab electronic musicians cafe' Guide | Forums | Rigs | Reviews | Bookstore | Jukebox | Audio-Pro showroom search site Korg Triton Family T he Korg Triton evolved out of the Korg Trinity, the first synth to have a Touchview screen, which is standard on th…
SoundCravers Lab's Index of Resources for the Modern Home and Project Studio
Your Webmaster Rich the TweakMeister Web Traffic on SoundCravers Audio Interfaces and Soundcards Article Index New products from Namm 2010 Getting into Pro Tools 8.1 New: Subscribe to Tweak's Blogspot New Should we Upgrade to Win 7? NEW Polls Best Mid price Firewire Interface Best $1000 synth New Gu…
SoundCravers · Review Of The Rode NT1
Guides Reviews Catalog zZounds Links - Guitar Bass Keyboard Recording Computers Live Drums DJ Accessories Blowouts Review Of The Rode NT1 Mar 22 — By The Tweak We all want good sound coming from our studios. We all know that the microphone is an important part of translating acoustical energy into a…
Tips on Buying Music Gear and Reviews
The Intelligent Person's Guide to Buying New and Used Gear This page can save you from making huge mistakes that could cost thousands of dollars by Rich the TweakMeister My goal is to give you the straight truth as I see it. I've spent years scrimping and saving for music gear and I know how it is!…
Using Soundtrack Pro as a Digital Audio Editor
Using SoundTrack Pro As a Digital Audio Editor Note: Soundtrack Pro now comes bundled with Logic Studio Apple Soundtrack Pro Music Production Software (Macintosh) Introducing Soundtrack Pro, Apple's revolutionary new audio editing and sound design application. Now you can use action-based editing to…
Working with the Emu 1820M and Emulator X by SoundCravers Lab
Working with the Emu 1820M and Emulator X Studio Sampler System by Tweak Ok, we all know Emu is out of the hardware sampler business. I know that perhaps better than anyone as I stare into my rack of two E-mu samplers, an ESi 32 and E-5000 Ultra, not to mention my rack of six emu synth modules and 3…