Software, instrument and audio gear tests/reviews with award

35 years after the release of The Moog Source, the young French company Baloran pushes the concept to the next level. The River, much more than a polyphonic multitimbral analog synth, is made with pragmatism, modesty, talent and innovation. An outstanding musical instrument!

The second version of Reverberate, LiquidSonics' flagship product, completely blew us away with its Fusion-IR technology because it actually provided an unheard-of flexibility and audio quality in the small world of convolution reverbs.

EarMaster Aps is a small Danish company founded in 1994 specialized in the development of a very particular software: EarMaster, whose goal is to train your musical ear and reading skills.

Headphones are great for checking details when you’re mixing, but to mix on them exclusively has always been a challenge — at least until now. Thanks to a revolutionary new Waves plug-in called NX (Mac/PC), you can put on your headphones and mix in a virtual control room with perfect acoustics no matter where you are. What’s more, NX also makes it…

There are two clearly distinguishable schools in the software reverb world: algorithmic and convolution.

Most software reverbs offer a choice of halls, plates, rooms and other types of virtual spaces, but Valhalla DSP takes a different approach. The company has separated its reverb offerings into individual plug-ins for different reverb flavors, and sells each for only $50. As a result, you can get a high-quality reverb, albeit of a single type, for …

Life as a writer for Audiofanzine has its pros and cons...Granted, if you're into audio, spending most of your days testing and reviewing the latest gear from the audio world can be really gratifying to the geek in you. However, after the umpteenth review of the umpteenth virtual version of a legendary hardware unit, it can get really tiresome.

Hive, the latest instrument from u-he, does not claim the precision of Diva the richness of Zebra 2, or the modularity of Bazille or Ace. No. Hive looks and feels simple, is easy to use, and provides a fat sound. Mission accomplished?

It's been more than a year and a half since Sonar X3 came out and, keeping up with the usual update schedule, the newest version was launched last January.

Imagine a MIDI-controller keyboard that lets you seamlessly switch between virtual instruments from different manufacturers, keeps all your patches together in a single browser, and automatically maps controller information to its knobs and switches.