Propellerhead Record

New to Record are capable guitar and bass amp simulators, with audio processing licensed from virtual amp specialists Line 6. There’s no convolution-based reverb, though, nor pitch shifting, vocal retuning, multi-band compression or any off-the-wall effects. Without VST support, there’s no way to add them either.

Two useful improvements over Reason’s rack are the ability to place devices side by side rather than in one huge stack, and a miniaturised overview display to jump to a specific area of the rack. Even so, we can’t help feeling that this obsessively realistic hardware emulation has had its day. It still entertains us to hit the Tab key to view the jiggling mass of cables around the back. However, crawling behind rack units to reconfigure outboard gear is one aspect of hardware studios we don’t miss.

Most modern recording software lets users reorder chains of effects simply by dragging them up and down. By contrast, rewiring with Record’s virtual sockets and cables is cumbersome. We’re impressed that it’s possible to set up sidechains so compression or gate effects are triggered from an external signal, but configuring this with virtual cables can be a nightmare.

The Main Mixer is closely modelled on an SSL hardware mixer – the kind that’s used in the world’s top-flight studios. A compressor, gate, six-band EQ and eight AUX sends are built into every channel, while a button jumps to the Rack for adding insert effects. The relevant part of the rack is momentarily highlighted, but we’d prefer to see only the relevant devices.

This mixer looks stunning, especially to anyone who recognises the SSL pedigree, but we don’t agree with Propellerhead that it will appeal more to musicians than studio engineers. Its sheer size will intimidate some users, and cryptic labels such as FILTERS TO DYN S/C will mean nothing to them. This button reassigns part of the EQ section to the dynamics section, but as this is software, why not just duplicate the EQ filters rather than give them a timeshare role?

The vertical channel strip layout makes little sense on a computer monitor, although, as with the Rack, there’s an overview display to help locate a section quickly. There’s no visual representation of the EQ and compression curves, making it harder for inexperienced users to understand what the controls do. The EQ sounds excellent, though, giving a warm analogue crunch rather than digital distortion when pushed hard. The biggest drawback with this mixer is there are no group channels – a crucial feature for ambitious mixes. The Rack provides a workaround but it’s too fiddly for most people to bother.