The Seventh Annual Remix Technology Awards

Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Markkus Rovito

Welcome to the museum of the future. Here today, gone tomorrow, our modern simple conveniences and unattainable objects of gear lust are the next laughing stocks and anecdotal victims of the technological curve. Whether the future holds a Utopian dream of free energy and eradicated disease, a nightmare of cannibalistic hordes fighting over water or something in between, the following musical treasures will be remembered as but a small link in the chain of events that got us there. Happily, however, the wisest live in the moment, and we're all naught but enlightened. So breathe in and enjoy the best music gear that 2008 had to offer.

To crown the winners of the RTAs, the Remix staff polls its writers and selected editors from sister publications Electronic Musician and Mix, who vote only on products they know firsthand, based on performance, innovation, results and overall value of the products. When the votes are in, we deliberate, argue a bit, make empty threats, get a little heated and say a few things we don't mean, make up and become even closer than before, and then we have our winners. Of course, every year the real winners are the DJs, musicians and producers who get to enjoy the power, convenience and flat-out fun of the ever-advancing technology.

SAMPLER Native Instruments Kontakt 3 With a more elegant interface, 33 GB sample library packed with more than 1,000 instruments and countless improvements, Kontakt 3 turned in a winning performance. But the new Wave Editor — featuring looping, slicing, tempo-syncing and Zone Envelopes — stole the show.
INDIVIDUAL PLUG-IN Universal Audio Moog Multimode Filter Put some of the biggest brains in hardware synthesis together with some of the craziest crainiums in software emulation, and you predictably get the mind-melting creaminess of this filter plug-in, which combines the classic sound of Bob Moog's most famous filters with features from the Moog Voyager synth.
	AUDIO INTERFACE Prism Sound Orpheus It takes more than a few bucks — 4,995 of them, specifically — to own this beauty, an 18 I/O FireWire interface with four high-end mic preamps and onboard dithering and sampling-rate conversion. But the unbelievable sound quality makes the Orpheus worth saving up for.
MIDI CONTROLLER Akai MPK49 Few gear series can boast of the maniacal following that the Akai MPC production samplers can, so when the MPK49 dropped, beat freaks, well, freaked over this MIDI controller keyboard's features that were ported over from the MPCs, such as Note Repeat and MPC Swing. Its arpeggiator with Time Division, after-touch on the pads and keys, and a fun overall feel put the MPK49 over the top.
	DAW CONTROLLER Euphonix MC Control Hello, landslide. This one was not even close. Euphonix notched up the control surface game with the MC Control. It crawls through supported software to incorporate all controllable commands, and it can command multiple apps across multiple machines via Ethernet. The touch-screen display is also customizable to your liking.
MONITOR/SPEAKER Dynaudio Acoustics Air 12 Another high-end speaker, another case of “you get what you pay for.” The Air 12 combines highly accurate and detailed sonic reproduction with DSP room adaptation, including preset storage and recall, speaker-to-speaker networking and the Air Soft application.
	HARDWARE SYNTHESIZER Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ‘08 This 8-voice synthesizer with a 100-percent analog signal path uses the same Curtis filter chips as in Dave Smith's classic SCI Prophet-5, but it's not mired in the ways of the past. Its modern feature set includes a 4-by-16-step gated sequencer and unparalleled modulation abilities.
EFFECT/DYNAMICS HARDWARE TL Audio Fat Track Tube Production Suite With all the tube stank of a Crest factory, the Fat Track drops thick, vintage-console sound in the laps of bedroom and small-studio producers. With 3-band EQ, flexible monitoring options and plenty of analog I/O, it covers you for tracking, analog summing and even mastering.

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