Digidesign’s Eleven Rack is shaping up to be one of the hottest guitar products of the year! This new box uses advanced modeling to create guitar amps, speakers, cabs, microphones, effects, and more. You can use it as a front end for your live guitar rig. You can also plug it into your computer, and it becomes an interface for Digidesign’s Pro Tools LE software — use it to record your guitar, vocals, and other sources; use it to re-amp direct guitar sounds and more. It’s a great utility box!

I was fortunate recently to spend most of a day with storied recording engineer/producer Ken Scott. Our time together resulted not only in this issue’s “Feature” interview but also in two Sweetwater Minute interviews. This is the second of these, featuring Ken discussing Elton John, The Beatles, and more. Plus Ken and his partner, Dave Kerzner from Sonic Reality, talk about the brand-new Epik Drums collection.

I was fortunate recently to spend most of a day with storied recording engineer/producer Ken Scott. Our time together resulted not only in this issue’s “Feature” interview but also in two Sweetwater Minute interviews. This is the first of these, featuring Ken and me playing a “word association” game — with words such as “Beatles,” “Bowie,” “Dregs,” and much more!

In the last issue, we took a hands-on look at the Universal Audio UAD-2 cards — both the PCIe UAD-2 Quad and the ExpressCard version, the UAD-2 Solo/Laptop. At the time, I mainly tested the cards with Apple’s Logic Studio 9, as my Pro Tools|HD system was in the process of upgrading from PCI to PCIe for a new Mac Pro computer.

Every year, when October rolls around, I start to get excited — not just for Halloween and all that candy but also for the annual AES trade show and convention. The AES (Audio Engineering Society) show, which alternates between San Francisco and New York as the host city, is where the pro audio manufacturers gather to show off their latest wares.

Do you really need another dynamics processor or EQ for your DAW? If you’re looking for plug-ins that go one step beyond — or maybe even many steps beyond — then the first part of the answer is yes! And the second part of the answer is Flux. A fairly new company based in France, Flux has jumped into the plug-in world with both feet, and they’re making a range of powerful, high-end plug-ins for mixing and mastering applications.

In addition to his storied career as a recording engineer and producer, Ken is releasing a new drum/loop library in partnership with Sonic Reality. It features some of the best drummers he worked with in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, with the goal of precisely re-creating the sound and vibe of the classic songs and sessions. The drummers on Epik Drums include Billy Cobham (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs), Terry Bozzio (Missing Persons), Bob Seibenberg (Supertramp), and Woody Woodmansey (David Bowie), and Sonic Reality and Ken Scott went to tremendous lengths and expense to track down the original drums and the original gear.

Ken Scott is one of the most renowned recording engineers and producers around. I mean, the guy’s first real recording session was with The Beatles, working on Magical Mystery Tour! His other credits include seminal albums with Elton John, David Bowie, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Supertramp, Missing Persons, the Dixie Dregs, Jeff Beck, Kansas… the list is incredible!

I’ve been using BIAS SoundSoap and SoundSoap Pro as part of my software tool kit since they were released. They’re great for quickly removing noise from otherwise good tracks. Now, BIAS has kicked things up with SoundSoap Pro 2. Whether you’re removing pesky clicks and crackles, hums and buzzes, or even low-frequency rumbles, SoundSoap Pro 2 can do the job, without adversely affecting the audio you want to keep. This software “learns” the offending noise, then goes after it and knocks it out. An integrated noise gate clamps down on any noise that remains in the spaces.

If you’ve watched Part I of my Sweetwater Minute featuring the Digidesign Eleven Rack, then you’re probably wondering how it works as a Pro Tools interface. Here’s Part II, with all the details!

Wouldn’t you love to have a rack full of the best vintage and modern reverb processors? We all would! And since most of us can’t, we often turn to convolution reverb, which utilizes a “sample” (called an “impulse response”) of the original reverb (whether a real space or an electronic device). That’s exactly where the brains behind Timbral Research were coming from when they created Impulsive, a new library of extremely high-quality impulse responses and presets for TL Space running Pro Tools LE or HD (other platforms are said to be on the way).

Since most of us base our studios around computers, it makes sense to ensure that the computers we use are as capable as possible. In my case, my studio has been running on a faithful first-generation dual-G5 Macintosh for a number of years. It’s reached the time when I am compelled to upgrade my studio with a new computer, so I’m moving everything over to a state-of-the-art Nehalem-based (Xeon) 8-core Mac Pro. But even with a stout computer like the new Mac Pro, it makes sense to try to wring every cycle of performance out of the machine that you can — more power is always better in the studio.