Sound On Sound UK December 2021

“Comping is tedious, frustrating, annoying and depressing, and that’s on a good day.” Audio engineering can be an endlessly rewarding and satisfying occupation. I love the challenge of figuring out the best way to mic up an instrument. I live for the nervous excitement when the band troops back into the control room and you press Play on the take they’ve just laid down. I genuinely enjoy the process of building a mix and hearing each source take its place in a web of sound. But vocal comping, frankly, can do one. Now I’ll admit that my aversion to comping stems from the fact that I usually have to practise it on my own voice. If there’s anything in the world of music more dispiriting than being repeatedly confronted with your inadequacies…

Back in SOS June 2021, I reviewed Slate Digital’s FG-2A compressor plug-in, and judged it to be amongst the best software emulations of the Urei/Teletronix LA-2A tube opto hardware currently available. As I explained in that review, there’s an awful lot to love about the LA-2A, not least the subtle enhancement that it seems to deliver alongside the compression. But, while its operational simplicity and relatively relaxed optical compression can be just the ticket in some scenarios, in others they can render it of more limited use. For instance, it offers very little by way of control over the attack and release timings or ratio. Typically, if when using an LA-2A you find you want more control, you’d turn to a different sort of compressor altogether or use the LA-2A along…

“FAC Drumkit is a masterclass in combining ease of use with functionality.” There are a number of notable iOS music app developers who always seem to offer something that is both creative and fun, while also delivering something that’s sonically impressive regardless of what computing platform we are considering. Fred Anton Corvest is one such developer and, while this one-person development team built a fanbase through very cool iOS effects apps, his latest offering — FAC Drumkit — is a virtual instrument. The App Store blurb describes the app as a ‘Drum Synth Sample Player’ and, as the app combines both a drum synth engine and sample playback engine, that’s a pretty fair tagline. In Action The app runs as an AUv3 plug-in (I did my own testing within Cubasis 3.3 where it…

Despite the popularity of mini line-array systems for small venues, there’s still a healthy market for the more conventional box-style speaker. That’s an area Alto have much experience in, having produced a number of affordable point-source speakers over the years that perform surprisingly well for their price. Their new TX range is designed in the US but manufactured ‘offshore’, and we’re informed that it is underpinned by some of the technology used in the company’s more costly TS3 series. The TX range goes from an 8-inch model, via 10- and 12-inch designs, up to a 15-inch version. I chose the 10-inch TX310 for this review, as it is well-suited to smaller venues, is adequately loud with a reasonably wide frequency response, and is easily portable. As is usual for this type…

Supporting all the common Mac and Windows plug-in formats, the Focusrite FAST series is aimed at the musician who may be less confident fiddling with arcane parameters. FAST Verb is the latest to join the Collective, alongside FAST EQ, FAST Compressor and FAST Reveal. These plug-ins can each be bought outright or rented for 15 months, after which ownership becomes permanent. Active Verb FAST Verb is based on a hybrid reverb technology that aims to deliver the benefits of both convolution and algorithmic reverbs: it generates IRs that reflect the current parameter settings. It also uses AI to fine-tune itself, and Focusrite say the learning engine was fed over half a million samples. The user just has to choose from a list of instrument or voice profile types or, if none seem…

Pulsar’s 1178 plug-in, for AAX, AU and VST2/3 hosts on Mac/Windows, is a modelled FET compressor that boasts oodles of features and controls to make it much more useful than most. Its name is a reference to the Urei 1178, effectively a stereo version of its better-known sibling, the 1176, and the lower half of the GUI resembles the hardware. There are input and output level controls, a column of buttons for the usual ratios and the famous ‘all buttons in’ mode. These are joined by an analogue-style gain-reduction meter too (two on stereo instances), and there’s a wet/dry mix control for parallel compression. As on the hardware, you turn the attack and release clockwise for a faster action. A versatile saturation stage offers four flavours of distortion: simulated analogue clipping,…