Orion Studio 8 has landed by Robert Halvarsson
With every new installment of a digital audio workstation there is bound to be some excess in overstatements, such as:"this is the next step in digital production", and so on. Not so with Orion. It has gone two years since the last time it had a public update. It's been a long time a' coming, but now it's finally here.
quality is substantial, making the idea of using Orion as a selfcontained software studio much more appealing. There's also a step up in terms of sample quality, including a good, if not earth shattering, virtual acoustic piano courtesy of Yellow Tools.
What it may be considered to be lacking in features such as freeze, advanced audio handling,it gains in terms of sheer simplicity and streamlined work flow. This simplicity has A few effects have unfortunately led to a situation where either been removed some look down on Orion as it were, or are now imagining it to be no more then a toy. considered legacy A curious obscurity when on the other offerings, but have hand,"serious" producers use the likes been replaced with of Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools. This better ones. Additions elitism is quite silly in its own right. consist of a nice This is perhaps also based upon a vintage chorus misconception about what Orion module, a better compressor and an should be – it wasn't designed to be a internal limiter effect, thus allowing do-it all multi-track recorder, but the user to pull off a master of their rather a virtual studio. A kind of mixes, boosting the volume levels up Rebirth Ultra on steroids, more then a to commercial standards, reducing the contender for Cubase. need further for third party plug ins What is more important to my mind, is Moving on to the features and the that the mixer section has seen an areas in which Orion Studio 8 is overhaul, now letting the user plug in different from Synapse Audio's three insert effects instead of two, previous offerings, there have been also there is now a dynamic amount some significant changes. Aside from of bus-sends (up to eight) – instead of the new looks, which you can replace four fixed ones. This allows for more with another skin if it does not suit freedom and less restraint in terms of you, there's a quite big overhaul in mixing your tracks. terms of samples and instruments. The previous 909-clone has been A personal favorite of mine is the replaced with a much more versatile overhaul that the play list view has offering called Pro-9. The step up in seen. Now Orion features a FL Studio
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www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
May 2011