Sound On Sound UK February 2023

Over time, accurate observations about specific things have a tendency to dissolve into dubious generalisations. For example, techs have known for many years that some types of capacitor have a limited service life in some applications. Internet lore has somehow transmuted that fact into the assertion that anything more than a few years old should be ‘recapped’ throughout, lest it perhaps blow up and devastate the greater LA area, or worse still, compromise your tone. Likewise, it’s long been agreed in guitar circles that the manufacturing standard of modern valves doesn’t match that of the glory days. The same was arguably true, until recently, of some microphone capsules and transformers. But as well as informing today’s equipment choices, these insights sometimes give rise to an unhelpful fetishisation of components for their…

The DOCtron IMC is a collaboration between German manufacturers DOCtron and electronic musician and YouTuber Martin Stimming. Essentially, it’s a high-quality stereo mastering chain in a portable package — it measures 15 x 15 x 6cm. The reason it’s so compact is that it’s designed primarily for live musicians (although it will work just as well in the studio). Imagine you are performing live with electronic equipment; maybe some modular, a drum machine and a synth or two. Your set follows directly after a DJ who has been playing finished, mastered material. Your setup is unlikely to have the loudness to compete. Adding that ‘mastering sheen’ to a live performance can be difficult. Do you choose a laptop running plug-ins, which adds latency and unnecessary complexity? Or do you go…

Whatever your musical persuasion, or your use of music technology, be it as a consumer, producer, performer, hobbyist or professional, there is a very good chance that at some point, you have either used or lusted after something made by Roland. This book is almost certainly the definitive document of Ikutaro Kakehashi’s legacy, covering, as it does, almost every aspect of his company and its rich and diverse history. It is divided into sections that explore every facet of Roland’s product lines over the last half century. Drum machines, electronic drums and percussion, guitars, keys, synths and studio gear each have their own chapter, wrapped up at the end with a look back at Kakehashi-san’s own story and that of his successors. Deep Dive As you might expect from a Bjooks publication, this…

Ah, the Big Muff. First released in 1971 (though there are rumours of prototypes being used a couple of years prior to that, including by Hendrix), this venerable harmonic distortion pedal has since been resized, reissued, redesigned and reimagined in more ways than we can count. There’s the Op Amp Big Muff Pi, the Ram’s Head Big Muff Pi, the Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi, the Triangle Big Muff Pi... and many more besides. I won’t list the full range here, for the sake of my poor editor’s sanity, but suffice it to say that the Big Muff is to EHX what Star Wars is to Disney; so long as there’s interest, new iterations will keep on coming. Meta Pi Man So where could EHX take it next? Into your DAW is…

I’m surprised that desktop standalone filters are not more of a thing. I remember having a lot of fun playing with the Waldorf MiniWorks 4-Pole filter in the back room at Turnkey where I worked in the late ’90s. There have been a few others along the way like the Moogerfooger, the Fat Resonator, Sherman Filter Bank and more recently the Analogue Solutions Mr Hyde, but considering the explosion in DAW-free, hardware jamming I would have thought standalone filters could fit in there quite nicely. The most obvious reason for their lack of proliferation is that everything already has a filter. And most things with a filter let other things use that filter via an external input. So, have I already talked myself out of the need for a Soviet-inspired, stereo-linkable/mono-decouplable,…

While the heyday of the original string machine keyboards before they were overtaken by rapid advances in synthesizer technology was relatively brief, the sound quickly achieved classic status. Of course, secondhand, you can still buy an original ARP Solina String Ensemble or Roland RS-202, for example, providing you have the budget (and perhaps technical skills to keep it working). However, while there are more accessible modern takes on the string machine concept in a hardware format (including Behringer’s upcoming Solina recreation), for most potential users, the virtual route is both more affordable and practical. EastWest are the latest of the virtual instrument/sample library big guns to tempt us on this front. So, if you want the classic string synthesizer sound in a convenient virtual format, is EastWest’s String Machine a…