Special Report: Musikmesse 2007
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Alesis iMultimix 8 USB

With personal studios, my favorite solution for getting sound into and out of a digital audio workstation (DAW) is mixers with built-in audio I/O hardware, like Yamaha's MW series or Alesis's MultiMix models. At Messe, Alesis showed a nifty variation on the USB mixer theme: the iMultimix 8 USB.

iMultimix, please meet iPod; iPod, this is iMultimix...

What's special about the iMultimix is its iPod dock, which not only lets you play back tracks from the iPod through the mixer, but also records through the mixer onto the iPod and imports the recordings into iTunes!

Alesis USB-Mic Podcasting Kit

Podcasting has entered the mainstream, and so have music products (and product features). Instead of hastily compiling a kit from existing products, Alesis has designed a new microphone that plugs directly into the computer via USB—no separate audio interface necessary. What's more, the mic comes with headphones and a solid stand, has volume control built right in, and looks so sharp that you might want to buy one even if you haven't considered doing a podcast yet.

USB podcasting mics are busting out all over. This model from Alesis comes with a stand and headphones, although it lacks a headphone jack. That means you'll have to monitor through your computer, which will delay the signal you hear.

Alesis io|Control

Three's the charm, so here's a third product from Alesis that I found intriguing: the io|Control, a combination DAW controller and audio interface.

The Alesis io|Control combines a high-quality control surface with FireWire audio I/O.

As much as I enjoy the flexibility of onscreen interfaces like Logic's, I'd rather be turning real knobs than groping with the mouse to hit those tiny facsimiles on the screen. But most of the audio workstation controllers offered so far are either too big or too expensive for home and project studio owners.

Enter the io|Control with its jog-shuttle wheel, transport controls, high-quality 360° rotary encoders, and very clean layout. It also offers a four-channel audio interface, which can be expanded with eight more inputs via its digital ADAT interface.

Jazzmutant Dexter

If you were impressed by Steve Jobs's iPhone demo, you'll be amazed by the Jazzmutant Lemur and Dexter MIDI controllers. Both devices employ a multi-touch LCD on which you can freely place preconfigured controls like sliders, knobs, buttons, and x-y-pads using the configuration software that comes with the device.

"Mr. Data, engage!"

The controls not only look great—think Starship Enterprise bridge come to life—they also let you configure their physical parameters in a way that's feasible only in the virtual world. As an example, you can set the damping of a virtual slider to zero, and it will oscillate: instant LFO! Or set the oscillation speed of such a slider to the x-value of another slider. It's a modulation wonderland.

The Lemur, which has been available for a while, got a software update to version 1.6 at Musikmesse. The Dexter, however, is a new device aimed specifically at controlling DAW software packages. Right out of the box, it has built-in support for Cubase, Logic, Nuendo, and Sonar. It will be interesting to see how the Dexter fares in a side-by-side comparison with traditional controllers like those from the Mackie Control series.

To get a better idea of what these devices can do, browse through the screenshots and explanations on the Jazzmutant website, and watch this YouTube video that shows the Lemur in action.