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20 Oct

REVIEWED: TWO NOTES AUDIO ENGINEERING TORPEDO CAPTOR LOADBOX AMP DI

Innovative Music Australia | innovative.com.au | Expect To Pay: $329

Home recording is a heck of a lot of fun, but it can also be loud, at least if you want to capture the fury of a raging tube amp in all its rabies-froth-spitting glory. Two Notes have been solving this problem with a series of digital load box/cabinet emulators, but now the new Captor is here to offer a more affordable take on the issue.

20 Oct

26 Sep

Reviewed: Focusrite Scarlett Solo Studio

Innovative Music Australia | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect To Pay: $369

Focusrite are the makers of some of the world’s most revered preamps and channel strips. Their Red series and ISA rack models can be found in top studios the world over. It goes without saying that they know a thing or two about great front end audio equipment. This puts them ahead of the pack when it comes to building audio interfaces, as they already have a stable front end to build off. And of course, the reputation of the Red series is what Focusrite has banked on with their Scarlett range of budget audio interfaces. Targeted at home studio to intermediate users, the Scarlett series offers a wide range of recording solutions. The most versatile for a musician looking to start recording would probably be the Scarlett Solo Studio bundle.

26 Sep

15 Sep

Reviewed: Focusrite Red 8Pre Thunderbolt Interface

Innovative Music | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect To Pay: $6649

It’s been a while since I have had my hands on some of the higher-end Focusrite interfaces. I see and use Scarlett models all the time, so it makes for a pleasant change to get this beauty on my desk this month. Allow me to introduce the new Red 8Pre from Focusrite. For those of you looking for a serious track count, Focusrite quality microphone preamps with digital control and ProTools HD compatibility, you can find it all in this one very sleek and very stylish unit. This is a little bit of a number of Focusrite units from recent years all brought together with some clever engineering to create a single rack space or I/O heaven.

15 Sep

8 Sep

Reviewed: PreSonus Studio 26 USB Audio Interface

Link Audio | linkaudio.com.au | Expect To Pay: $352

PreSonus offer a range of products to cater for different needs, but they are mostly known for their audio interfaces, in particular the AudioBox. PreSonus have taken the simplicity of that unit and delivered a new USB audio interface that offers quality audio and a very workable hardware interface that will certainly feel right at home with so many compact recording setups looking for style and sound quality. The new Studio 26 USB is here to offer that little bit extra in the same compact housing.

8 Sep

14 Jul

Reviewed: Avid Pro Tools Eleven Rack

Innovative Music Australia | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect To Pay: $1059

This is not the first time I have gotten my hands on the Eleven Rack. My first foray with it was back when it existed only as a plugin for guitar amp modelling within Pro Tools, but since then I have been able to use one a number of times as a recording tool for quality guitar tones. But I haven’t overlooked the treasures this holds as a live guitar tool too. Avid’s Pro Tools Eleven Rack ties it all together to give users not only the flexibility they have demanded, but the quality and stability that they need both in the studio and on stage.

14 Jul

4 Jul

Reviewed: Softube Console 1

Sound And Music | sound-music.com | Expect To Pay: $819.99

For a lot of musicians, nothing beats the tactile experience of a physical mixing board. Of course, that’s not always possible, practical or affordable, especially in a home studio. We try to make do with plugins, but we miss the interactivity of actually grabbing a control knob and twisting it until something magical happens. The Softube Console 1 tackles this in an extremely elegant manner. It’s a hardware control surface that gives you hands-on access to EQ, compressor, gate, volume and pan on all your tracks, and while it’s always possible to map controls like that onto any MIDI controller with enough knobs and buttons, this device doesn’t require any MIDI mapping. Everything is labelled, and it’s designed with incredible forethought as to how it would be used in the real world.

4 Jul

23 Jun

REVIEWED: TWO NOTES AUDIO ENGINEERING TORPEDO STUDIO DIGITAL LOADBOX

Innovative Music Australia | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect To Pay: $2599

So much of modern technological innovation is devoted not to pushing sound to bold new frontiers, but to using technology to make it easier and more affordable to get classic sounds. The Two Notes Torpedo is built on the premise that you have an amp that you love the sound of, and it’s at its best when cranked, but it acknowledges that most home studios don’t have the space, soundproofing or understanding neighbours to allow you to hit that sweet spot.

23 Jun

19 May

REVIEWED: RME ARC USB CONTROLLER

Innovative Music | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect to Pay: $299

There have been plenty of RME users waiting for this one and now it is finally here, the much anticipated update to their ARC controller has arrived in the ARC USB. This encompasses the same concept as the previous ARC, or Advanced Remote Control unit, but it has seen an upgrade in the features and a downgrade in the overall size. What results is a very useable device that doesn’t clutter up your benchtop and allows a faster and more streamlined workflow with RME audio interfaces and the combined TotalMix FX bridging software.

19 May

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