Hope you all are having a restful holiday season. I continuously strive for the leanest rig that will give me the best results. In this post I’ll offer a list products that make up the core of my rig. Consider this my “If I was stranded on a desert island” list for 2008. Note that some products in my list were not new in 2008, but I’m still using them tons so they’ve made the list. If you want to see all the elements of my rig, check out this photo album on MySpace.
Best DAW – Ableton Live 7, $499 For me, Live has been become more than a DAW. It’s at the core of everything I do and after years of use feels more like a musical instrument to me than some piece of software. See all my posts on Live here. Official Live site is here.
Best Hybrid Synthesizer – Camel Audio Alchemy , $249 
Camel Audio just released a new synth called Alchemy. They've been working on it for 4 years. It's an additive, spectral, granular, virtual analog synth. The interface is really well done with a clever scheme for routing modulation. I think it’s one of the finest virtual instruments I’ve ever used. I’ll be writing more posts about this synth in the future. For now you can learn more about it here.
Runner up for me in this category is Native Instruments Absynth 4. It’s not new this year but is also a great synth. I also want to mention Spectosonics Omnisphere. I don’t own it and I haven’t tried it (no demo available), but from what I’ve read and seen in demo videos it’s a monster synth. I went with Alchemy because it has a much smaller footprint and has more features for those like me who want to manipulate our own samples.
Best Virtual Analog Synthesizer – Rob Papen’s Predator, $179 
Predator is a virtual analog synthesizer for Windows or Mac that runs as a plug-in (VST, Audio Unit, RTAS). It ships with a huge library of presets, and built-in tools for patch browsing and search. It also has some innovative features such as preset morphing, intelligent preset variation, and chord memory. Even though Predator didn’t release this year, Rob Papen keeps the synth fresh with free updates. More posts here …
Best Controller Keyboard – Novation Remote SL, Starting at $299
I still love the way this controller and Automap 2 software helps make using software more like using a physical instrument. Check out official site here. I still get a lot of traffic on my posts on the M-Audio Axiom series controllers so it’s clearly a popular choice if you can’t afford the Remote SL.
Best Controllers for Those on the Go -Korg Nano Series, $49-59
This year Korg released USB powered slim-line controllers nanoKey, nanoKontrol, and nanoPad. I have Key and Kontrol and can say they are fantastic if you want more control while making music from your laptop. More here http://korgnano.com/.
Best Bang for the Buck USB Audio Interface – Novation Nio, $249 
Microphone/instrument or line-level sources, low latency effects (Direct Mix Monitoring, 'Overloud' Guitar amp and distortion pedal effects, effects from the Supernova II and signal processing from Focusrite), two headphone outputs, four RCA outputs. All this for $249! See official site.
Best iPhone Music App – iDrum, Ocarina 
Hmmm. This is a tough one as there is so much innovation going on in this space. My two favorites are iDrum and Ocarina.
iDrum has a great interface for making beats on the go and synchronizes with iDurm for the PC and Mac. Read more about it here.
Ocarina turns your iPhone into a true musical instrument. It uses every feature of the iPhone and has some fantastic social connection features. Checkout the official site here.
Best Field Recorder – Zoom H2, $179 
I just got one of these back in November. It’s really fantastic. It weighs 4 ounces and has 4 mic capsules onboard for 360° recording in a W-X/Y configuration. You ca
n also use it as a USB mic. I blogged about it here.
Buy Online
Most of these items can be purchased online. Support Modulate This! buy using these links: Musicians Friend, Guitar Center, Zzounds.
Share Your List
I’m sure many of you out there have a your own list so feel free to share your list using the comments link at the bottom of this post.
See You in 2009!
Have a safe new years eve and I’ll see you in 2009.
Mark Mosher
www.modulatethis.com
www.markmoshermusic.com
