Line 6 FBV Express mk.ii
Takashi Mizuhiki
Format iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app (requires OS 3)
Contact dxisupport@me.com
Web web.me.com/tmizuhiki/DXie
Yamaha’s interpretation
of Frequency Modulation
synthesis needs no
introduction. It’s a sound
splattered across many
80s synth classics, and
recreated by various soft
synths. DXi brings FM to
your phone, but it’s closer
to the DX27 than the
legendary DX7. There are four operators rather than six and
polyphony is reduced from 16 to three, from what we can tell.
DXi also ofers a neat 16-step sequencer and an efective XY
performance pad, to mix operators and patterns in real time.
Sound editing is primitive. You can lick between eight
algorithms and edit a four-stage amplitude envelope for
each operator, but you can’t listen to frequency and feedback
changes as you make them – you need to press Audition
again for these to be heard. While DXi does sound good, and
you can recreate many classic sounds, it lacks versatility for
the experimentalists, and completeness for the purists, sort
of defeating the point of it being a synth and not a ROMpler.
SoniVox
Format PC/Mac, VST/AU/RTAS/standalone
Contact Time+Space, 01837 55200
Web www.timespace.com
Eighty Eight is a ROMpler built
around a Steinway Concert Grand.
Rather than sticking purely to
acoustic piano, about a third of
the 12GB sample set is taken up
by additional sounds, including
acoustic bass, various pads and a
number of solo instruments, such
as acoustic guitars, woodwind
and horns. This comes as 52 piano
presets, 35 piano/pad textures and 15 three-part performance
combis with split key ranges. Onboard features include
four-band EQ, reverb and output limiter, as well as overall
pan, level, transposition and tuning. You also get pedal and
release level for the piano, and global velocity response.
The ‘detail’ of the sound is handled solely via patch
selection, and patches range from high-end (16 velocity layers
and release samples) to RAM-eicient (four layers, no release).
In use, this gives Eighty Eight a workhorse feel, and we were
somewhat reminded of Clavinova keyboards. Even so, the
piano sounds ine, and those RAM-eicient patches could
come in handy. It’s not at all bad, but we weren’t blown away.
A rapid-ire round-up of sample libraries, ROMplers and more
mini reviews
Propellerhead
Format iPhone, iPod Touch
Contact via website
Web www.propellerheads.se
There are two ways to view Propellerhead’s port
of the seminal ReBirth to iPhone and iPod touch.
The irst is as a new music production benchmark
for the App Store, being in every way the same
application that exploded onto Mac and PC in
1997. The second is as a lazily built, rather ill-itting
ingermare that experienced hands will frequently
ind frustrating and casual users won’t have the
patience for.
Both are right, if we’re honest. The interface
scales smoothly but not exactly pleasantly – it’s
bitmapped rather than vector-based, resulting
in blurry text and ugly, fuzzy knobs at high zoom
settings. And no concessions have been made in terms
of making it ‘it’ the iPhone – it’s literally the Mac/PC
version shrunk to it a smaller screen.
But ultimately, and considering the price, none of that
really spoils the party. This is ReBirth – two 303s, an 808,
a 909, the Pattern Controlled Filter, the compressor, the
delay, the step sequencing, the song mode… There are even
ive user mods included with the software (the mighty PBE
among them), while you also have the ability to share
your projects online.
Equally importantly, ReBirth is simply an awesome
nostalgia trip that revives the undeinable magic of the
early days of serious computer music. Essential.
114 / / August 2010
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CMU154.rev_mini 114 11/6/10 12:07:19 pm