After 20+ years in professional audio: live sound engineering, studio technical direction (Deep Forest, Pierre Jacquot), head of digital marketing at Playback.fr. A first-hand witness to the analog-to-digital shift, I track the whole audio landscape and break it down here — no fluff.
A well-placed pair of mics captures space, depth and movement a single mic never will — if you pick the right technique. Here’s a clear tour of the stereo arrays that matter in the studio and on location, and the rules that keep them from collapsing in mono.
The Usual Suspects has released 88emu, a low-level emulator of Roland’s Sound Canvas modules, from the SC-55 to the SC-8850. It is free, runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and aims for an accuracy that sample libraries can’t match. One catch: it needs your own ROM files.
Belgium’s Shakmat dedicates an 8 HP Eurorack module to the snare drum. The Lancer’s Lash brings together seven synthesis engines under consistent controls, with full CV control, 256-slot memory and a per-destination randomiser.
TritonAudio, the FetHead brand, adds tone to the equation. The Tilt EQ pairs 22 dB of clean gain with a one-knob tilt control in an XLR-sized in-line box, powered by +48 V. Announced at $109.95 / €89.95.
A debate panel, a round table, a multi-voice podcast: the moment mics multiply, the automixer becomes essential. Dugan-style gain-sharing or threshold gating, attenuation based on the number of open mics, here is how automatic mixing works and how to set it up.
The amplifier is no longer a box that just pushes watts, it is the brain of the PA. Speaker presets, active crossovers, protection limiters, bi-amping and audio networking: here is how the last stage in the chain really shapes a system’s sound.
Behringer revives a rare cult effect: the Pedal Flanger, an all-analog flanger you control with your foot like a wah, a tribute to the 1976 Tycobrahe Pedalflanger. Auto mode, Spread and Intensity controls, and a floor price that will turn heads.
zplane launches Timbre, a real-time poly formant shaper that shifts formants across three octaves without changing pitch. A dual-band architecture, a carrier section for vocoding and low latency make it a color tool that behaves like neither an EQ nor a pitch shifter.
Animal Factory unveils the Asura, a portable six-voice wavetable polysynth built with Sanjay Das. Two wavetable oscillators, an analog distortion stage in place of the filter, a granular delay and a parameter-lock sequencer make it one of the most distinctive synths of the season.
French maker HLabs brings its PRE169 preamp — a replica of the Studer 169 console input stage — to rack. The PRE169S packs two channels into 1U, with Carnhill and Neutrik transformers.