Author: Praxis

Gear Review: Wave Alchemy Electro House Underground

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Wave Alchemy Electro House Underground

Looking for a little inspiration to get your house tracks up and going? Need a bit of crazy electric sounds to hurry some ideas along? Then look no further than to this fresh new electro house pack from Wave Alchemy.

This heavy-hitting sample pack includes a host of sounds and loops that have been road tested in some of the worlds top superclubs for the past year or so. Filled with hard floor smashing drums, booming basses, uplifting effects, electric hit and synth bits, it will take literally no time to get a top ten track shining with this royalty free pack. With over 1.5gb of sample content including 492 wave samples, 255 house drum loops, 50 filtered percussion loops, 95 bass loops, 92 electro loops, 50 fx samples and 56 patches, this pack is filled to the max with high-quality content.

Available as either a full package or Ableton Live pack, Reason Refill, or Apple Loops, this pack will work flawlessly with any host DAW you may be using. After loading these files onto my machine and filtering through them, I instantly became inspired and started working on a demo track, which ended up becoming something I wanted to spend some more time working on. The loops are inspiring to get an idea flowing, and since all the individual bits are included as well, you can load the sounds into sampler racks and build your own loops as well. Not to many packs offer this amount of killer content, and if you are into getting your house on, then this packed offering is truly a no-brainer!

Gear Review: Elysia Mpressor

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mpressor
While having dedicated hardware units built for specific audio processing would be the idealistic approach for every project studio, the fiscal cliff we would have to plunge off in order to reach that goal may seem riddled in myth. However, with today’s software technology actually emulating hardware circuitry and not just audio I/O paths, engineers can come amazingly close to virtually creating the real thing. Stepping up to demonstrate their heavy hitting software fortitude, comes the brilliant engineers from Germany’s own Elysia. This group set forth to change the way high-end compression can be used throughout the recording process, and with all of the team being versed as both a musician and recording tech, there was a load of experience at work.

The Mpressor plug-in is a virtual version of the company’s famed hardware unit under the same name. This hardware unit has been hailed in the audio industry as one of the best compressors ever built. The same is true of the software version, just without the rack space and check book impact. What sets this compressor plug-in apart from the rest of the field is that not only can this marvelous device add that transparent shimmer to your master track, but this plug can pump and excite your tracks in a harmonically musical way that has never truly been achieved before.

Featuring actual emulation of the hardware circuits and a distinct oversampling component, this compressor can provide optimum function even when the host track is of a super low resolution. With an auto-fast setting for the compressor’s envelope, you can dial in your attack settings to truly slam your drums and staccato instrument tracks. External sidechain is also built into this unit and integrated with your host DAW, making gain ducking gate effects easy to set up.

For that classic dance floor pump that we call expect out of dance music, sidechain the kick to this compressor and go to town. Another interesting feature to this unit is the negative ratios settings. This allows the user to set negative compression ratios, and create an almost revered compression effect, great when pumping full drum loops. Famed for their Niveau filter unit as well, this handy musical audio filter is also included on this compressor. After a few minutes of figuring out the orientation of the settings, this unit was flawless in operation, and became instantly useful on every track in the recording session. What makes a plug-in better than a dedicated hardware unit in this case, is that with a virtual plug, you can launch as many instances of the device that your computer’s processor will let you, allotting you virtually a full rack of Mpressors! By far the best software compressor I have ever used, this unit will from here on out be used in every recording session moving forward. Drop the coin on this plug and take your productions to the next plane.

Gear Review: Stanton SCS.4DJ

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Let’s face it: times have changed, and rock stars are no longer the pinnacle musical gods of our culture. Today’s social inspiration and ultimate hierarchy are being defined by DJs and electronic music producers; even your grandmother knows who Deadmau5 is. While the kids may all want to become the next superstar DJ, it isn’t always affordable for them to do that. With turntables costing over a thousand bucks, and vinyl going the way of the dinosaurs, it’s just evolution that we must focus on the digital music frontier. Coming to the rescue is Stanton, a DJ-aimed venture from the Gibson family of brands, a company that has been supporting musicians for decades.

If you have been wanting to get into DJing but are just afraid of the high level of tech that goes along with the title, this unit is just the thing for you.

Launching the SCS.4DJ last year, this unit is built specifically as a DJ controller that has no need to be paired with a laptop when you are performing. Less as a controller and more as a full-on DJ workstation, you upload your tracks to this unit via USB flash drive and onto mixing you go. The dedicated OS is built just for DJing. Everything from track analysis and pitch rescaling have been thought of so all you have to do is literally plug and play. This unit features all the stuff you would expect from costlier devices: two jog wheels, two mixer channels, a series of effects and a robust master channel. The digital display shows you a real time presentation of the tracks playing and in cue, making it easy to see what is in store for the crowd. New to mixing and can’t quite figure out the whole beat match thing yet? No worries, an instant sync button is included and will move you on to quicker mixing and less frustration, leaving you inspired for hours.

If you have been wanting to get into DJing but are just afraid of the high level of tech that goes along with the title, this unit is just the thing for you. Everything you need to pump the party is here, however a novice will also impress as the learning curve for this unit is about two mixes.

Come test the waters with this low cost and simple to operate solution. Who knows, this might be your first step to becoming the next big thing.

Gear Review: Behringer Eurolive B315D

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In the past ten years, amplified sound has become much simpler to use and has gained a significant upgrade in quality. The basis for this advancement in sound technology has been the introduction of self-powered speakers — or rather speakers that have amplifiers build directly into them. For several reasons this makes for a much better audio experience. First of all it becomes much easier when you just have to patch your audio output from your listening device or mixer directly into a speaker, and not to fuss with amp cables and speaker wires. Secondly, when a speaker and amplifier are built specifically for each other, then you have a much more efficient system, plus the power requirements for the speaker driver are matched perfectly to the amplifier output. All in all we get much cleaner and louder sound per watt than with traditional amp-speaker situations.

Up until recently, however, this set up has been quite costly, generally leading into the thousands if you wanted a good PA rig. Behringer recently added a pro-audio soundstage to their line up, and with it was born the Eurolive line of speakers. The B315D is a 550-watt 2-way speaker, with a 15” woofer and 1.75” titanium diaphragm compression driver. Simply put, this is one seriously loud speaker. The class-D amplification section hosts several inputs, including ¼” and XLR, as well as a 2-band EQ for final touches on live mixes. The speaker features a unique trapezoidal enclosure, which makes for easy floor monitoring or speaker stand configurations, however at somewhere near 60 lbs., this speaker is a bit much to lift easily onto a stand. Under low volumes this speaker doesn’t seem to deliver much response, but with a 15” woofer why would your play this thing quite to begin with?

Aided by some pumping bass tracks, and a good tweak of the volume knob, this monster can deliver all you need for a solid full-moon beach party, or the backyard event of the summer. If you have wanted to bring your sound to the next amplification level, but have felt intimidated by the complexity of live sound, then this solid investment is the way to go.