Is bigger always better? Not always. Longer musical albums become stuffed with filler, and films verging on three hours become self-indulgent efforts only the director enjoys, like Heaven’s Gate or Kevin Costner’s The Postman. So where does bigger equipment, like the KRK RoKit Power 10-3 Studio Monitor Speakers, fall? Is [...]
What’s house? What’s trance? We’re clearly entering a new era of electronic dance music, one in which both commercial and independent artists see no genre bounds. The melodic, arpeggiated melodies of trance music meld with the hard, march-like beats of house. The instability of dubstep’s wavering bass adds a much-needed [...]
Over the course of electronic music’s history, Pioneer has, frankly, been one of the more innovative, forward-pushing brands. One of their latest products is the S-DJ08 monitors, specifically designed for DJs. Why Pioneer hasn’t rolled out such gear until now is a mystery to us, but considering the product’s demographic, [...]
These days, recording studios can be set up just about anywhere. For the producer, a home studio offers high-quality equipment just a few footsteps away and eliminates the need to travel to an outside location. Artists, along with their team of songwriters, musicians, producers, and engineers, even record on the [...]
Sound is one of those aspects that is always open to interpretation and always accompanied by multiple opinions. One recording, especially in unfinished form, might sound “great” to some ears and muddy to others. But, before a track hits the radio or iTunes, a general consensus is necessary, and poor-quality [...]
Out of experience, I can attest that, when it comes to making music, there are musicians and there are producers. But while the guy who knows his way around the recording studio equipment can attempt to learn piano and theory enough to write a decent synth line, the musician is [...]
If you are at all familiar with DJ apps, you’ve probably heard of djay from Algoriddim. Touted as the #1 DJ app on iTunes, djay was the winner of the 2011 Apple Design Award. Prior to this review, my only previous experience with djay was a quick 5 minute session [...]
Modern music, and that includes EDM and nearly all other genres, has gone through a push-pull relationship with the past. In modern times, producers strive for the most convenient, quick, and lightweight digital technology, be it a laptop and a USB device for DJing or an iPad, but long for [...]
A couple of years ago, I had the chance to test out Mixvibes Cross, a full featured DVS system from the French company Mixvibes. Although I was skeptical at first, I ended up being very impressed by the quality and stability of the product. More recently, Mixvibes announced its first [...]
The iPad has appeared to be the next step for DJing technology since 2010. At the time, on a crude level, multiple apps for samples, sequencing, and other functions could be run simultaneously to create music on the fly. But, technology has moved at a rapid pace since then. Not [...]