Boss reinvents the DS distortion pedal - Review of the Boss DS-1X
Written testThis year, Boss has been releasing new stompboxes at a prodigious pace: two at Winter NAMM and three at Summer NAMM. All are reinventions of older Boss pedals. The DS-1X, released along with the OD-…
Scoring to Picture — Part 3 - Finding the Tempo and Writing the Music for a Commercial
LearningHere in the final part of this 3-part article, I’ll finish scoring the hypothetical commercial, working with variables like tempo, start time, and meter, while never losing sight of the original assi…
Mastering at Home - Part 21 - Best Audio Formats When Rendering a Mastered Track
LearningIn this antepenultimate installment, we'll discuss several points that you need to bear in mind to get an optimal final result, depending on how your music will be distributed.
Six iOS Amp-and-Effects Modelers Evaluated - Which iOS Modeler is Best for You?
LearningModeled amps and effects can be found in many applications, including outboard modeling processors, DAWs, dedicated computer plug-ins, and, now more than ever, iOS apps. Your iPad, iPhone or iPod tou…
Classic Gear Spotlight: The Versatile and Durable Shure… - The Legendary SM57
LearningThe Shure SM57 arrived on the scene in 1965 and quickly became a fixture in the pro audio world. The versatile, solidly built, yet inexpensive dynamic mic is great for guitar cabinets, snare drums, h…
Q&A: Telefunken Engineer Ryan Loftus - A peek inside a legendary mic manufacturer
LearningAudiofanzine met up with Ryan Loftus ─ engineer at Telefunken Eletroakustik ─ to talk about the high-end microphones the company manufactures.
A Quick Tour of Summer NAMM 2014 in Nashville - Summer NAMM: A Condensed Travelogue
LearningIf you've got three minutes to spare, check out this Audiofanzine video travelogue, and experience what it's like to attend the Summer NAMM show in Nashville.
Mastering at Home - Part 20 - Tips for Using the Oscilloscope When Mastering Music
LearningTo finish with the helping tools for mastering, in this installment we'll talk about the oscilloscope — very often underestimated by home studio owners — and a utilitarian plug-in, which, even if not…
Mastering at Home - Part 19 - Audio Norms in Mastering Music
LearningToday we'll talk about a delicate — but very useful — subject, namely the firewalls that can help you avoid being yet another victim of the loudness war.
Software amp-and-effects simulator for studio and stage - Review of Audiffex AmpLion Pro 1.1
Written testAmplion Pro 1.1 is the latest version of this amp-and-effects modeling software from Audiffex. Can it hold its own with stiff competition in the modeling software field?
Mastering at Home - Part 18 - Plugins to Help Analyze Levels When Mastering Music
LearningIn this installment we'll talk about plug-ins that allow you to visualize levels correctly — after all, whether you like it or not, mastering has become synonymous with volume, so it's a good idea to…
Scoring to Picture — Part 2 - Setting up your session for a scoring job
LearningHere in part 2, we’ll begin a hypothetical scoring job for a 15-second TV commercial. In this installment, we’ll look at how to set up the DAW session for it.
Getting Into Inter-App Audio - Make Music With Multiple Apps on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch
LearningIntroduced with iOS 7 and available on all iOS devices, Apple’s inter-app audio feature allows compatible apps to share audio streams and MIDI with each other, making it possible to work with multipl…
Soldering Basics for Guitar Players - Part 2 - How to Solder the Jack of an Electric Guitar
LearningThe musical instrument industry has chosen the best method for the internal cabling of electric instruments, namely soldering. But, as we will see in a moment, this way of connecting two conductors r…
Mastering at Home - Part 17 - The Stereo Image in Mastering Music
LearningFollowing up on our series of articles dedicated to useful tools for mastering at home, this time we will focus on plug-ins that allow you to analyze the stereo image.