Sound On Sound UK October 2022

How bad will the cost of living crisis get? Energy prices are forecast to rise by hundreds of percent this autumn. Inflation has officially hit double digits, and real-world prices are outpacing it. Add strikes into the mix, and we could be looking at a second winter of discontent. In the first one, at least we had ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, ‘Heart Of Glass’ and ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ to keep us going. Whether this winter will produce as many enduring hits as that of 1978-9 is hard to know. But how else might the crisis affect music and musicians? The top end of the market will, I predict, be the least affected. Those who have the most to spend on luxuries are usually the best insulated from financial…

To say the use of opening and closing filters as a dance-music effect is ‘old hat’ may be doing a disservice to old hats, but Minimal Audio’s Morph EQ (which supports the common DAW plug-in formats for Mac and Windows) breathes new life into this technique. Its filters are of the familiar parametric types, with variable frequency, Q and cut/boost parameters, along with alternative choices of high- or low-cut, shelving and notch filters, so you can use it as a conventional EQ. But Morph EQ allows the user to set up dynamic morphs between any two EQ settings, with the morph acting on multiple bands simultaneously. Overview There are over 100 presets to get you started and most use eight filters or fewer, but you can add as many filters as you…

EHX’s 9-series pedals coax various other instruments’ sounds from a regular electric guitar signal, and the latest addition to the range is the S9 String Ensemble. But as well as following the now established formula of processing polyphonic signals (ie. chords) to substitute the guitar sound (with string and string machine sounds in this case), the EHX engineers have embedded some patch-specific effects plus their Freeze algorithm. For four of the presets, Freeze adds a release time to allow the synth sound to fade out smoothly after the input note has ended. On the last three presets, however, there’s a choice of Manual or Auto Freeze. In Auto mode, whatever you play last, whether it be a single note or a chord, is sustained indefinitely or until another note or…

Pulsar may be a fairly young company, but they’ve impressed me with all their releases and their latest is no exception. As with the others in their range, Massive models an analogue hardware device and in this case it’s Manley’s Massive Passive, a transformer‑balanced, tube‑amplified, four‑band inductor EQ with additional high‑ and low‑pass filters. This EQ’s four bands are switchable bell/shelving types, both shapes being affected by the Q (bandwidth) setting. An important characteristic is that the four bands are arranged in parallel and thus tend to interact in interesting, always smooth‑sounding and forgiving but not always intuitive ways. Notably, apply a chunky boost with one band and then do the same around the same frequency with another (or even all of four), and the combined maximum boost will barely…

IK’s Joe Chiccarelli Vocal Strip can be used as a regular Mac/Windows DAW plug-in or be hosted in their TRackS software, and it aims to deliver both the sound of the gear and the routing Joe uses for vocal processing. Three compressors are connected in parallel with the dry signal, and there’s a de-esser, a 20-250 Hz high-pass filter, a three-band EQ, saturation, and echo and reverb effects. Large input and output faders make it easy to put the signal in the sweet spot and a tri-colour LED acts as a basic level meter. There are some great presets, but this plug-in cannot know how loud your original vocal was recorded, so if the gain reduction meters don’t move when you select a preset, first try turning up the input…

The name Apogee is usually attached to premium products. Their flagship Symphony I/O MkII is the interface of choice for many big‑name engineers, while more portable devices like the Symphony Desktop and Duet 3 prioritise audio quality and innovation ahead of low cost. However, they’ve long maintained a presence at the more affordable end of the market courtesy of the Apogee One. Introduced way back in 2010, this ultra‑portable stereo interface provided a modestly priced point of entry into Apogee’s universe. After a long and successful career, the One was probably ready to ride off into the sunset soon in any case, but component shortages have hastened its end. Into its small but perfectly formed shoes steps the BOOM: another portable, bus‑powered USB interface, but one designed on somewhat different lines. More…