Feature articles, lessons and tutorials on audio and music

Although top-of-the-line processor and effects plug-ins can be expensive, there are alternatives available that offer quality performance at budget-friendly prices. In this article, I’ll look at 12 such plug-ins, all costing $100 or less. I’ll cover signal processing and digital effects plug-ins in the following categories: reverb, delay, compress…

In the previous article we introduced the concept of granular synthesis. Today we'll take a look at the different applications for it.

I’ve been writing about synthesizers since the 1970s and reviewing virtual instruments since the 1990s. Still, when Audiofanzine asked me to pick my "top 5" software synths, it was no easy feat, as there are so many good ones to choose from. After careful consideration, I chose the five that I've found most useful in a variety of musical situation…

In this second installment dedicated to dynamics processing during mixdown, we'll take some time to discuss the whys before moving on to the hows.

Kurt Block knows electric guitars. He has been working on them for three decades. He started out working on guitars in the bands he was in, and nowadays maintains the guitar collection at Gibson’s entertainment relations office in Seattle, one of eight in the U.S. — and 20 worldwide — that the company maintains to put on promotional events and pro…

In the two previous articles we looked at the principle behind sample-based synthesis. Among other things, this allowed us to establish that, thanks to digital technology, the frontiers between the different sound-generation modes ─ like simple waveforms and complex pre-recorded samples ─ have become more and more porous.

This week we'll tackle dynamics processing during mixdown, a very thorny subject if there ever was one...To approach the topic in the best way possible, it's useful to begin with a quick rundown of the concept of dynamics.

In the previous article, we took a first look at sampling, from the point of view of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM). In this installment we'll study wavetables and sample banks.

Digital delay is one of the most versatile effects you can apply to your music. It can do everything from subtle doubling to crazy stereo ping-pong effects and a lot more. In this article we’ll show you five cool delay techniques that you can use to spice up your recordings.

Before we tackle the next major section of this series ─ dynamics ─ let's diverge briefly to take stock of where we are in the process, and cover an important issue involving effect-chain order.