Sound On Sound UK September 2022

Two years ago this month, I used this column to highlight the fact that competition doesn’t necessarily create real choice for the consumer. What seems to happen all too often is that one successful manufacturer or product sets a template, whereupon others compete to offer better or cheaper products that are, in most respects, almost identical. In that lament, I held up the world of audio interfaces as a prime example of this phenomenon. To be fair to manufacturers, there are good reasons why this happens. The only way to bring a high-quality audio interface to market at an affordable price is to make extensive use of generic parts. Key elements such as mic preamps, A-D and D-A converters, USB controllers and headphone amps are sourced as complete packages from chip…

There was a time when no microphone catalogue was complete without a flagship stereo model. Typically, these mounted two capacitor capsules one above the other, either at a fixed 90-degree mutual angle or with a rotating mount that allowed this angle to be varied. Many also offered independent polar-pattern switching for each channel, enabling a wide variety of stereo configurations including Blumlein, Mid-Sides, and X-Y cardioids or hypercardioids. Today, this sort of single-point stereo capacitor mic seems to have fallen out of fashion. There are lots of dedicated Mid-Sides mics on the market, but they are mainly intended for broadcast use; and although there are some excellent stereo ribbons around, these are limited to Blumlein recording, which isn’t always what you want. Personally, I’ve long been a fan and enthusiastic user…

The humble Roland SH-101; initially shunned by the more established synth generation, but quickly popularised thanks to its nose-diving secondhand price during the late-’80s. It was always a little bit... well, plasticky, but it captured the creative imagination of a generation, thanks to its pseudo-303 sonic tendencies and simple signal flow. Back To 82 Softube have an enviable reputation for the recreation of vintage classics in software, both synthesizers and effects plug-ins — their recent Minimoog and Juno emulations, for example, have garnered high praise. Their ethos for capturing the essence of the original begins with the plug-in window and GUI. Model 82 appears in a more-white-than-grey hue, with a hint of a battering, presumably due to some virtual gig or another! If the off-white doesn’t tick your box, you have the…

While sampled bass guitars often sound more believable than sampled six‑string guitars, most of the nuances that make the real thing so expressive still get lost. Even multi‑sampled instruments fall short as you’re essentially switching between snapshots of playing intensity or playing style. IK changed all that with their original Modo Bass. This employed physical modelling to recreate not only the sound of a whole library of classic bass guitars but also the tonal changes that occur with the pickup and control settings, the position along the string that it is picked, palm damping, picking style and so on. All of these parameters and more can be adjusted, but for added realism, it is also possible to control many aspects of the sound in real time via MIDI continuous controllers…

Planar magnetic headphones are enjoying a renaissance, and Audeze deserve much of the credit. Thanks to the advances made by Dr Drag Colich, they have overcome traditional limitations such as lack of sensitivity and a poor high-frequency response, whilst also building on the established strong points of the technology. Flagship Audeze models such as the LCD-X thus offer a transient response, bass extension and low distortion that is difficult or impossible to match in a conventional moving-coil design. The only significant negative that they share with old-school planar (also known as orthodynamic) models is that they’re big and heavy. However, Audeze haven’t ducked the challenge of making planar magnetic technology more compact and, back in 2017, they launched the intriguing iSine 10 and 20. Billed as the first-ever planar in-ears, these…

Although described as being ‘transient fertiliser’ and intended specifically to help you add weight and/or definition to drums, Klevgrand’s Fosfat isn’t a transient processor in the classic SPL Transient Designer mould. Rather, it is intended to provide a quick, easy and effective way to perform the classic engineering trick whereby a drum signal is used to key a gate — the idea being that as the gate opens it lets a low-frequency sine wave or noise source through to add some heft at a kick or tom’s fundamental pitch, or provide additional snap or sizzle for snares and hi-hats. To this end, Fosfat tracks the dynamics of the incoming sound and adds in tonal and filtered-noise textures. Importantly, the level of the triggered sounds follows the source level, so the…