Audio & music gear guides & articles

Following the Red Ripper, let's check out the new VT Bass version released by Tech 21. The unit is a preamp in stompbox format. It simulates the sound of the legendary SVT amps from a manufacturer wh…

Without any offense to purists who get a nervous breakdown every time they discover the slightest scratch on their guitar, the Road Worn Series instruments have been intentionally damaged: the varnis…

Ever since the futuristic RH450 came out (directly from a Georges Lucas film), the viking manufacturer has kept on developing products for bass players.

After the Highway One, updated in 2006, Fender comes back again with new affordable products from its American production center: the revisited versions of the Precision Bass and the Jazz Bass.

Mixvibes was founded in 2003, when they started to market a product that allowed mixing and scratching digital files using time-coded vinyl records and CDs with the use of a sound card. Nowadays, Mix…

Today, I won't be gentle: kill the Care Bears, throw the wooden cross of the "Little Singers of Paris" into the fire and make place for the distortion god.

String sections from John Williams or Hans Zimmer are pretty nice but they don't sound very rock 'n' roll. So we are very happy to welcome Native Instruments' Session Strings — a string section for K…

Following our review series on virtual pianos, we test the results of a triple collaboration between a manufacturer (Native Instruments), another manufacturer (Scarbee) and an artist (Alicia Keys).

It wasn’t the promise of a performance by Lady Gaga that drew me in to watch the Grammys this year, but rather, some added motivation in having the opportunity to check out the live and broadcast sou…

Vocal effects are present more than ever in modern music, but if you want special effects, you don't give the control to the sound engineer. Loopers are also hip, especially for artists making solo p…

Music is universal — even people in New Zealand, who live down under, play music. They even make guitar stompboxes. And of course, that's what interests us more here at AudioFanzine. Focus on four an…

A pair of audio heads with a studio based outside Tokyo recently contacted me with their first recorded mic preamp comparison tests. I was impressed and happy to have made friends from studio trench…

Following the Schecter Ultra Bass review published last summer, here we have a brand new product from the Asian manufacturer.

Noise gates aren't as relevant as they were back in the analog days, when hiss was an uninvited intruder on anything you recorded. But noise gates can do some really cool special effects that have no…

Instead of launching the umpteenth reissue of a catalog instrument, Fender decided to innovate by mounting high-output passive humbuckers on a new series called Black Top. This new product range incl…

I got a bit nostalgic when I wrote this review. I was 16 when my first amp was waiting for me under the Christmas tree. Not a 15-watt amp but a big one. To play in a band, do live gigs and be cheere…

The launch of the Montclarion Hall Piano gives us the opportunity to present to you the full range of Tonehammer pianos, characterized by the same original approach of all the other instruments by th…

I like music with a distinctly electronic edge, but also want a human "feel." Trying to resolve these seemingly contradictory ideals has led to some fun experimentation, but one of the more recent "h…

While Avid and Cakewalk launched the new versions of their respective flagship sequencers just before Christmas, Steinberg chose NAMM 2011 to present the wistfully awaited version 6 of Cubase. This n…

There are almost as many ways to capture guitar amplifier sound with a microphone as there are for a piano. And as with piano (and kick and snare drum, for that matter) single-mic approaches can’t al…

It was a dark and stormy night. I was rudely awakened at 3 AM by the ringing of a phone, pounding my brain like a jackhammer that spent way too much time chowing down at Starbucks. The voice on the o…

On today's menu, to get rid of the cold and warm up, we have a light but nourishing pair of SWR class-D heads (an amp/preamp combo and a power amplifier).

Dynamics processing with studio-oriented processors? Been there, done that. But have you re-visited it lately in a guitar context? Dynamics control for vocals or program material is very different co…

An ADAM speaker for under $300? Yes, what used to be a dream is now reality thanks to the small A3X equipped with a 4.5" woofer and the German manufacturer's famous ribbon tweeter. Does it have every…

Vienna Symphonic Library recently presented its Vienna Instruments Pro. What is hidden behind this virtual instrument? Is it just an aesthetic update or a real evolution?