UCG102

100 | COMPUTER MUSIC September 2007
reviews
Mini Reviews
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BEHRINGER
5
TOONTRACK
T
oontrack have
just released a
trio of
expansions for their
EZdrummer VSTi, and
this one has been
designed with modern
pop, hip-hop and R&B
in mind.
There are 18
different kick drums
and ten snares, and
the toms and cymbals
have multiple models
too. There are brushed variations, as
well as some where a cymbal has
been laid on the drum for a nasty,
trashy sound. Combine this with
tons of percussi sounds, a multitude
of playing articulations and four
mixer effects (chorus,
distortion, reverb, ‘attack’)
and you’re really getting
your money’s worth.
The sound quality is
up to Toontrack’s usual
high standards, so the
main consideration is
probably whether the
to-the-point, up-front
production style is to
your taste or not.
As well as being
suitable for the styles for which it
was designed, we also had success
using Claustrophobic for metal and
rock beats. Anyone
seeking tight, snappy and
edgy drum sounds should
check it out.
CONTACT: Time+Space, 01837 55200 WWW.timespace.com
FORMAT: EZX PRICE: £59
Claustrophobic EZX
Y
ou don’t see
too many
standalone
drum machine/loop
construction
applications these
days, but Beatcraft
harks back to the
era of FruityLoops
and the like.
Dedicated purely
to beat programming, most of your
time using Beatcraft will be spent on
the Pattern Editor page, where a
familiar step sequencer invites you to
place sampled drum hits. It’s as
intuitive as you’d hope, and even
novice computer musicians should
find it relatively hassle-free to use.
Multiple patterns can be
sequenced, and these can be
arranged into
complete ‘songs’
and exported as
audio in WAV, MP3,
WMA or OGG
format. A mere 5MB
of drum samples
are provided (in
OGG format), but
you can load your
own, and although
there are no amplitude envelope or
start/end point controls, you can at
least use your VST plug-ins to process
each channel or the mix as a whole.
Beatcraft is nowhere near as
sophisticated as more advanced
plug-in drum samplers, such
as Battery, but it is
reasonably priced and a
great option for beginners.
8
7
CONTACT: Behringer, [phone] WWW.behringer.com
FORMAT: PC/Mac USB interface PRICE: £39
UCG102
ACOUSTICA
T
his tiny USB audio interface
enables you to plug your guitar
straight into your computer
and use the bundled Native
Instruments Guitar Combos
Behringer Edition software to create
amp tones. The box also claims that
you can use it for recording, but we’ll
get to that in a moment…
There’s a single input for your
guitar and an output for headphones
(or speakers). The sound quality isn’t
brilliant, but it’s acceptable. To get
decent low-latency performance, you
have to install the included ASIO
driver. This works well enough, but it
ties up the USB port so that the
non-ASIO drivers then ‘disappear’,
thus you can’t use the UCG102 with
non-ASIO apps like media players.
The three NI Guitar Combos sound
great, and are responsive and easy to
use – there’s a voucher included so
that you can get a full version of one
of them. The other included software
is Kristal, a multitrack recording
program. Here’s the crunch: because
the Guitar Combos are standalone
only, you can’t use them to make
recordings in Kristal! This is a major
drawback that’s sure to disappoint
anyone expecting to use this package
to record their playing. It
may be cheap, but there
aren’t many reasons to buy
the UCG102.
CONTACT: Et Cetera, 01706 285650 WWW.etcetera.co.uk
FORMAT: PC PRICE: £30
Beatcraft
CMU117.rev_mini 100 9/8/07 10:42:25