Music

Its that time of year again. Thats right NAMM 2014.The world's largest music products trade fair held in California. Did i go? Unfortunately not. However, i did try & keep up to date with what music products were being released. Here's a few that stood out to me: BEHRINGER X TOUCH, X TOUCH COMPACT & X TOUCH MINI- Behringer are back with new control surfaces. Again they do look good. The X Touch & X Touch Compact do have 9 touch sensitive motorised faders (For me thats a plus point), Rotary Knobs & buttons etc. Could this be a future controller for my studio? We'll have to wait & see. DS1 MIDI MIXER CONTROLLER- Dubspot & Livid Instruments have created this midi mixer. It has 9 faders, 44 rotary knobs & 25 buttons. I have to say it does look rather good. The only downside for me at the moment is that it doesn't have motorised faders (That would probably push the price up) IZOTOPE BREAKTWEAKER (Software)- Another collaboration with

Well another year has gone by. Another year with new instruments, software & pro audio being released. Of course each year presents us with lots of new gear we want to find out about & want to try. So what did 2013 have in store for us then? To start with it had some notable synths eg. Arturia Microbrute, Nord Lead 4, Dave Smith Prophet 12, Korg King Korg, Yamaha MOXF, Moog Sub Phatty etc. My favourite synths released were: Novation Mininova- Great powerful little synth with vocoder. This is a synth i just had to try. I was not disappointed. If you have'nt tried it, it's a fun synth to play. Novation Bass Station II- After 20 years Novation decided to release a new version of their original Bass Station. Was it worth it? Yes i think it was. It's been re-created for the 21st century. I got a chance to try this & have to say i enjoyed playing this mini synth. Korg MS-20 Mini- Another recreation. The original was released in 1978 & was discontinued