Back in the '80s, when we needed a beat and didn't have a drummer present, we used to have analog and digital drum machines to keep time. They were rarely confused with real drums, but some had a...
I’ve written about vocoders in previous issues of Tape Op, so I won’t go into a lot of theory here, but check this review for more of the basic operational theory of vocoding. Arturia...
"Why did the producer cross the road? Because that's how The Beatles did it!" I forget who first told me that joke, but if you can relate to it the way I do, you're going to want to check out the new...
Everything is on the "cloud" these days and Roland's treasure trove of synths and drum machines are up there too. The Roland Cloud has a wealth of quality plug-in instruments available, but we'll be...
I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but at some point I lost interest in tap-dancing all over huge, sprawling pedalboards. When putting together a new rig in advance of some fall touring, I opted...
I'd like to suggest that this review be considered chapter five in a series of reviews I've written called Digital Synthesis: A Collection of Software Synthesizer Reviews [Tape Op #118]. In those...
In issue #121 of Tape Op, I wrote a review of Borderlands and GrainSpace, both pieces of software that use granular synthesis. I would suggest you read that review if you're not familiar with granular...
I am very picky about piano sounds, and, in general, my rule is that only real pianos sound like a piano should – so I don't like to use sampled or modeled pianos if at all possible. I've gone...
For a long time, I’ve been a fan of the iPad and iOS for electronic music performance. I love the 2D interface of the iPad touch screen, and I like that the iPad is a separate instrument (as...
Wolfgang Palm invented wavetable synthesis in the late '70's which he used in the PPG Wave synthesizer that was hugely popular in the '80's with artists like Thomas Dolby and Frankie Goes to...
Nostaligia and desire for vintage, or recreations of vintage, analog synthesizers is at an all time high. Even Behringer, whose business is based on producing affordable versions of popular gear,...
I tracked down these two soft-synths because they're both fairly unique — not only different from each other, but also very different from others currently on the market. I'd...
In 2014, I reviewed UVI The Beast [Tape Op #104], a sample-based virtual instrument recreating the sounds of the infamous and very expensive Synclavier workstation, which New England Digital...
