Software, instrument and audio gear tests/reviews

The LA-320 is the first mic in Lauten Audio’s new "Series Black" line. Lauten, whose product line also features many high-end mics, have put out a large-diaphragm tube condenser with a price point ($499) aimed at the home and project studio market. Not only that, they’ve hit it out of the park.

With the release of version 1.2 of its 2445 reverb, PSP now has the official blessing of EMT, the company that made the outboard reverb units modeled in this plug-in. We figured that was a good reason to take this baby for a test drive.

The MixChecker plug-in from Audified makes it possible to reference your mix on a wide range of simulated speaker types to see how it translates. How well does it work? Find out in this video review.

Lethal Audio recently released Lethal, a crisp-sounding "rompler"-style software instrument with a heavy emphasis on EDM, but which will also be useful for pop, rock, hip-hop, and film scoring.

At this year’s NAMM show, Keeley Electronics showed off their new Workstation line of pedals, which combine the functionality of several Keeley pedals in one. Although recently released, the pedals are in short supply, but we were fortunate enough to get our hands on the Mod Workstation. It’s an analog multi-effects pedal with three independent ef…

The Lurssen Mastering Console is new mastering software from IK Multimedia that was created in conjunction with Gavin Lurssen at Lurssen Mastering in Los Angeles, a high-profile facility that’s responsible for mastering multiple Grammy-award-winning albums, and Oscar-winning film scores and more. The product lets you access a software emulation o…

One of the new pedals Electro-Harmonix debuted the 2016 NAMM show was a Leslie-speaker simulator called Lester G. Not only does it offer rotating speaker sounds, but also an overdrive circuit and a compressor.

The Eventide Anthology X bundle ($999 street) offers users a large collection of effects processing plug-ins. Although there's an emphasis on the harmonizer/delay type effects that Eventide is famous for, you also get EQs, channel strips, a reverb, phase alignment plug-ins, and more. Many of the processors are digital recreations of analog hardwar…

Recently, Cakewalk announced Rapture Session, a new member of its Rapture software-instrument family. It offers less sounds and no programmability, but it has the same synth engine as the flagship Rapture Pro and comes with almost 4GB of content. What makes it most notable, however, is its super-low price tag: $29.95. So is Rapture Session a great…

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…