Recording - December 2012 - 30

straight forward from the iOS device while making an audio output TRS minijack available. The t-shaped Split, the SA012, does the same but lets the iShotgun be mounted at a 90 degree angle from the iOS device’s body and rotated. This lets you point the iShotgun at someone you’re video-recording with the iOS device’s built-in camera, and get good audio while watching the device’s display and listening to the audio. Neat! The iShotgun is intended for voice pickup and rolls off aggressively below 100 Hz to minimize wind noise and rumble. Its polar pattern, as given in the literature, is supercardioid, with a significant lobe at 180 degrees, especially at higher frequencies. This is only a problem for one-man video/audio guys who don’t remember to stay quiet as they point the mic; if you use the boom, the mic is airborne and won’t pick up as much operator noise. Signal-tonoise ratio is quoted at greater than 65 dB. If you’ve never used a shotgun mic before, you might be disappointed to learn that they’re not exactly the audio equivalent of a laser, picking up only what’s right in front of them and utterly rejecting everything at the sides. Instead what you get is significantly boosted sensitivity at the front of the mic, so that at reasonable preamp gains the sounds at the sides are far softer or even inaudible. If you consider that the mics on iOS devices and in cameras are barely directional (if at all), then this ability to home in on whomever is speaking and pick up a clear, intelligible voice adds greatly to what you can do with a simple setup for audio/video recording. If your audio work ever includes interviews in noisy environments, with or without video, then the iShotgun is the closest thing to a pocket-sized audio capture solution out there. Check it out.

BeepStreet Sunrizer
$4.99; www.beepstreet.com

Have you been fooled into thinking your first generation iPad is too underpowered to host a high-quality software synthesizer? Think again. BeepStreet, the developer of Sunrizer, is one of a small handful of synth makers for the iPad line that really shows what the platform is capable of in the right hands. Sunrizer is a polyphonic subtractive synthesizer. It sports two oscillators with two sub-oscillators (depending on which oscillator shape is selected), two independent parallel filters that can operate in series with a handful of routing options, a standard ADSR amp envelope, two LFOs which can be assigned to almost any parameter, two “morph groups” that can morph between 30 parameters in a single patch with a flick of the modulation wheel, a handful of effects, over 200 presets and growing, and a nice arpeggiation section. At first glance, Sunrizer appears to be a Roland JP-8000 knockoff with its blue-on-blue interface and often-emulated
30
RECORDING December 2012

“supersaw” waveform option. However, comparing feature sets shows it’s not a replacement for the venerable Roland synth, and such comparisons might obscure the quality that Sunrizer exudes. I was pleasantly surprised, as I’m usually underwhelmed with most two-oscillator synths as being too “thin”. The wide choice of well-rounded parameters, the morph groups, LFOs and the arpeggiator really brought motion and life to the thick oscillators and filters. Its sonic character can easily go toe-to-toe with some of the top-of-class synthesizers on Windows and Macintosh for sound quality. Working with Sunrizer with my current MIDI hardware setup was a total breeze. I hooked up an Apple Camera Connection Kit to an M-Audio Uno USB MIDI interface. From there, I routed my main keyboard to the iPad and it just worked without a hitch. In fact, the only “problem” with Sunrizer version 2.0 I found at all was a single preset called Space Arp that crashes the app consistently. In a raw dollar-for-quality comparison, Sunrizer has got to be one of the best bargains out there on the open market, hands down. If you feel you can make room for “just one more subtractive synth” in your arsenal, you cannot go wrong adding Sunrizer to your top-tier collection of quality sound generators. And at a price of $4.99, is there a reason to even hesitate? Highly recommended by this reviewer.—Devon Brent

http://www.beepstreet.com

Recording - December 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2012