Music Software product reviews

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 resp…

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…

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 Ra…

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 (M…

Universal Audio has an ongoing partnership with the software whizzes at Softube to develop plug-ins for its UAD platform. This collaboration has resulted in many different plug-ins, including models …

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

A track with too wide a dynamic range can cause problems when mixing. Rather than using automation to smooth out the levels, which is very time consuming, a compressor or limiter can do it for you au…

Let me introduce you to LUFS Meter, a downright clever plug-in that can make life easier to anyone taking the "Loudness War" seriously. And I hope there are many of you out there, considering the pai…

The Ozone mastering suite from iZotope has gotten better with each major update. The latest, Ozone 7, adds vintage modules to its processing arsenal, which allow you to add warm, analog-like sounds. …

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 indivi…

When the original Magic A/B came out a couple of years ago, I was pretty blown away by it, because it made the important process of A/B-ing a mix a lot easier. Now SampleMagic has rewritten the appli…

From EchoBoy to FilterFreak to Crystallizer, Decapitator and more, Soundtoys plug-ins are super-creative tools that offer users the potential to take their music to new sonic places The new Soundtoys…

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…

Do you know what ice cream and compressors have in common? Both are better when you have a choice of flavors. FabFilter’s new Pro C-2 is a veritable ice cream store of compression, offering eight d…

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…

Studio One users have been awaiting a major upgrade for quite some time. Studio One 3 is the first such update since October of 2011, when Studio One 2 hit the market. PreSonus has added new instrume…

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.

The competition in the amp-and-effects modeling market is fierce, and there is no shortage of excellent products. Positive Grid, which established itself on the iOS side with JamUp and JamUp Pro, and…

When you think of spring reverb, the sound that probably comes to mind is the “boingy” one associated with guitar amps. For mixing sources like vocals, drums and pianos, you probably wouldn't conside…

The drum instrument market is a crowded one, and already full of excellent choices. East West, a company renowned for its high-quality instruments and sound libraries, has just thrown its hat in the …

Subscription-based plans are becoming more common for music software. While presumably a good thing for the developers, they’re not necessarily so great for users, who have to pay over and over for a…

You all know what it's like to finish a mix that sounds amazing on your headphones and then try to show it to your grandma on her hi-fi system, only to discover that it sounds terrible. The mix is co…

There are lots of software solutions for live performance. Strangely enough, Sensomusic's Usine Hollyhock II doesn't come up on the radar as often as other products. And yet...

Universal Audio just released a new version of its software for Apollo and other UAD-2 devices. The release is highlighted by three new plug-ins, including spot-on emulations of the Neve 88RS Channel…

SONiVOX's Tony Coleman Drums (Mac/Win), is a virtual drum plug-in featuring sampled kit sounds from Coleman, who’s played with a who’s who of blues and R&B artists including B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bl…